After landing in Auckland late at night, and spending a night in an airport hotel, we took the three hour drive up to Whangarei.  Time 2 had been on the hard for 5 months, while we were home in Cape Town. This was our first winter at home for some years, and was remarkably pleasant. The mild winter was not very cold or wet – but sadly that means water restrictions for the summer.  We also had a tragedy,  losing our dear friend Peter Liddell in a terrible accident, he was an avid follower of this blog. My father also had a heart attack and quad bypass, which was pretty scary, but he has recovered well.

 

While at Port Whangarei Marine Centre, Time 2 had some work done. Having the anchor chain galvanised; a new shaft and bearings; renovation to our sliding doors and the bottom paint was re-done. Unfortunately we also had a serious dispute with the yard over charges.  The bills presented were far in excess (some double!) of the cost estimates we had been given. It would seem that this yard is used to dealing with SuperYachts with open chequebooks. Fortunately we managed to sort all of this out to a reasonable charge, but it did not make for a comfortable environment. We provisioned the boat and planned to get back into the water as soon as we could. 

 

On Friday we launched -  As we were being lowered into the water, Mike started his checks. Engine started no problem, gears were engaging -  and then he went down to the engine room. Water was gushing in through a valve that had been removed and not replaced during the shaft installation. Quickly we had the lift operator raise the boat up out of the water and called for the mechanic.  Mike also discovered another leak on the hydraulic power take-off, which had also been removed & refitted with work to the shaft. To cut a long story short, both leaks were sorted out and we could get on our way down the Hatea River.

 

With a few hours lost, we decided to anchor near the mouth of the bay at One Tree Point, and continue up the coast in the morning. We are hoping that our dreadful jet-lag is now over, and we will be able to sleep through a whole night. The eleven hours of time lost, ravelling east to New Zealand, is very disruptive.