City of Sails
VulcanSpirit
Richard & Alison Brunstrom
Sun 2 Mar 2014 05:45
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We're in Bayswater Marina on Auckland's North Shore
for a few weeks. We've come here to do a few weeks' work on the boat prior to
our UK visit. Here is the view from our berth:
 This is the Auckland CBD (Central Business
District, = Downtown in Americanese). The famous Skytower is on the right. It
has a revolving restaurant with a deck above it from which, this being NZ, it is
possible to bungy jump. It is a favourite locals' trick to take
unsuspecting guests there for the pretty impressive view, only to have an
apparent suicide drop past the window. I was caught this way myself when
visiting here on business a few years ago. It was a quite startling
experience.
On this day as you can see there are three cruise
ships in disgorging literally thousands of tourists straight into the city
centre. Behind the central ship you can just see the beautiful brownstone Ferry
Building which is still at the heart of the very busy ferry traffic - we
have a very pleasant 12 minute journey from the marina.
But we're not really here for the sightseeing -
we're supposed to be working. And so here I am, hard at it, catching up on
polishing the stainless steel.
 This particular piece requires the bosun's
chair slung off the topping lift (a rope
normally rigged between the mast head and the rear end of the boom) to reach it.
Polishing stainless is a relatively easy and clean task, but it takes two full
working days to polish everything at deck level, and a further half day to do
the rig, about every three-four months.
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