Harmonie - Preparing for Season Two - Whangarei, New Zealand

Preparing for Season Two - Whangarei, New Zealand

Harmonie

Don and Anne Myers

Mon 27 Apr 2009 03:51

35:43.716S 174:20.053E

We arrived back on the boat March 26th and spent the next two weeks at the Riverside Drive Marina in Whangarei preparing Harmonie for Season Two. Preparing, meaning mostly provisioning, performing maintenance and cleaning. I was in charge of provisioning and cleaning the inside of the boat. Don was in charge of maintenance and cleaning the outside of the boat. However, since I needed help with the picking, filling, paying, loading, unloading and carrying of provisions, Don got stuck doing most of the work. A common theme around here, but one that seems to work well for us (me).

We rented a car for two days and used all of that time to buy stuff. We made many trips to several different grocery and bottle (liquor) stores in order to find all the stuff needed to sustain us for the better part of five months. This process usually involves filling a shopping cart, paying, loading the goods into the car than then repeating the fill, pay and load steps two or three times. It becomes embarrassing when we go through the same checkout line and see the same cashier once, twice, three times. More often than not we feel the need to explain the reason for our grocery overload, and this usually brings a slightly incredulous look followed by smiles and sometimes questions. We forget that what we are doing is not necessarily considered to be normal, even in New Zealand.

Once we got the stuff back to the boat, we stuffed it into every possible storage space we could find. We are testing the limits of our under the floor storage space. Amel, the manufacturer of our boat, says this boat will hold 400 bottles of wine. We suspect this is true, but only if we forego things like toilet paper, oil filters and water. We decided a better plan was to go for a nice balance of beer, tonic, water, oil filters, toilet paper and wine in our under the floor storage space. Seems to be working well so far except for the poorly padded tonic and beer bottles that roll around every time we slide down a wave. Something to be fixed before we set off for Tonga for sure.

We loaded up on lots of vodka (for us), scotch (for Don) and gin (for the Brits, Australians and Kiwis), as well as plenty of New Zealand wine and beer. Then we went for all the stuff that is difficult to find or extremely expensive in the islands - like cranberry juice, peanut butter, good pasta, olives, tonic, and a variety of meat and cheeses. Just before we leave New Zealand, we plan to add lots of hard candy, bar soap, school and fishing supplies - all to use for trading with the islanders for fruit, vegetables and handicrafts. We have a load of kids clothes on board as well, donated by one of our friends from Curbell. We plan to save it for Vanuatu. One of the items donated is a small lightweight coat, which we look forward to giving to one of the kids so he/she doesn't have to pull their arms out of their t-shirt sleeves to keep warm anymore.

One of the challenges we ran into while provisioning was the language barrier. Yes, Kiwis do speak English, but like the Brits and Australians, it's a quirky kind of English. The kind of English where peppers are called capsicums, hamburger called mince, eggplant called aubergine and raisins called sultanas. And those are just a few of the oddities. We thought we did well until I went to make pasta sauce with one of the newly purchased giant cans of tomato sauce. One good whiff and I knew it was ketchup I was looking at in that giant can and not tomato sauce. Ketchup in a can? A giant can? Called tomato sauce? We decided meatloaf was the answer. We have an excellent recipe that calls for 3/4 cup of ketchup. Given that, we have calculated that we will need to eat meatloaf once every couple of weeks in order to use up all four giant cans of ketchup by the year 2012. We now wonder what the Kiwis call tomato sauce, since we have none and need some before we leave. One of the great provisioning mysteries.

Enough about groceries. For all of you boating and engineering types that might have an interest, here is the list of stuff the marvelous maintenance man completed during those last two weeks in Whangarei as well as the two weeks he spent aboard Harmonie back in February before I arrived:

New bottom paint (Ok, so Don didn't actually paint the bottom, but he did arrange and pay for the work, which counts for something)

Washed, polished and waxed the entire hull (a major ordeal)

Polished and waxed all hatches, ports, windscreens and most deck surfaces (he even cleaned the fenders)

Installed a stainless steel plate on the bow to protect it from accidental anchor dings (not that we would ever have any accidental anchor dings...but you never know)

Repaired oil leak on the main sail furler

Installed new outhaul lines on the main and mizzen sails (This is a very good thing. Last season when we sailed into heavy wind and the main sail had a lot of pressure on it, the outhaul line would occasionally slip, which doesn't sound like it would sound like much, but a huge KABLAM! usually resulted. This never caused any damage, but KABLAM! is never a good thing to hear on a boat.)

Re-sealed bow storage locker (We always had soggy dock lines after a rough passage, which meant the deck usually turned into a yard sale on a sunny day in an anchorage until everything dried out.)

Installed a third battery charger (We've had trouble keeping our nine very expensive batteries happy, so are attempting to charge them at a faster rate and to a higher voltage to improve their performance and extend their life as well as our financial livelihood.)

Designed and installed a voltage divider so the engine alternator voltage output can be adjusted (for the same reason as above...to charge the batteries at a higher voltage when under engine power)

Replaced a fuel line on the generator

Added drain traps for both showers (There were no traps, which if you have ever been exposed to the smell of a drain after the trap has been allowed to dry out, you'll know the joy of the massive sewer aroma that results. Every time we sailed in semi-rough seas with the hatches and ports closed, we suffered with the massive sewer aroma - not a highly recommended remedy for sea sickness.)

Installed repaired Autohelm 7000 autopilot (Remember when it blew up in Vanuatu last summer? We got it repaired here in New Zealand. We now have two autopilots again - a happy thing.)

Installed wheels on the dinghy (Have you ever tried to lift a dinghy and 90 pound motor up a sand beach out of reach of the incoming tide? Not easy. Now all we have to do is flip the wheels down, hop out and roll the dinghy up the beach. An amphibious dinghy. Cool.)

That about sums up the preparations that occurred during our last two weeks at the dock in Whangarei. The last, and probably most important, preparation was the shakedown cruise, which will be the topic of the next entry.

Below is the only picture we took during our last weeks in Whangarei. Kathie, this is for you since we know how much you enjoyed the 1,034 sunset pictures posted on our blog throughout Season One.

Anne