Our scene shifts now to the appropriately named Bay of Islands near Opua in Northland. This was to be our jump-off point for Australia, so we moved here to finish off boat work and await a suitable weather window. Our watermaker had gone in a skip at Bayswater after nearly driving me mad with continual expensive and inconvenient breakdowns and a new one had been ordered from the Swiss company Katadyn. It was fitted, after much head scratching over its location by the dynamic duo of Robin & Richard, under our rear cabin floor. The process of shoehorning it in took the best part of a week. Here it is, operational:

 

 

Seawater comes up through the hull into a strainer (blue handle of seacock just visible lower right), then to a low pressure 12v priming pump (top left) then through two large filter vessels (the blue tops of which can be seen top centre) and then to the large high pressure pump (lower left). The 24 volt  HP pump pushes water at pressure through the membrane (labelled Katadyn, top) which separates salt ions out by reverse osmosis, the pump overcoming the natural osmotic pressure). Fresh water flows out towards the tank, while reject brine (by now saltier than seawater) goes overboard. This particular model, running of the batteries, makes about 13 litres of freshwater an hour. Hopefully, being much simpler than its predecessor it will go wrong less often.

 

These exertions required the crew to take yet another well earned rest, this time in front of a log fire in the historic Russell Hotel (Russell was colonial NZ’s first capital, in 1840). Here are some of them:

 

 

L to R: Robin Martin, Richard, Jenny Martin

 

But more was required. The WM needed to be tested in real conditions at sea (to run clean seawater through it), so the ship and crew repaired to a suitable spot:

 

 

It’s a tough life, this sailing. Above you can see VS anchored in the channel between Okahu and Waewaetorea upon which the photographer is standing. Both islands, once farmed, are now in DoC ownership and are being allowed to revert to native bush prior to becoming bird reserves.

And here is the summit of Waewaetorea, looking out towards Cape Brett at the southern side of the entrance to the Bay of Islands:

 

 

WM testing being successful the crew just had time to stop again at Russell to view the historic Marist Mission (see next Blog) before returning to Opua for final preparatrions to depart NZ.