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Having been here in Auckland for nearly 6 weeks tied to a dock and getting reacquainted with city life has brought a new appreciation for cruising.  Not to say that it is not fun to have family visits and access to grocery stores, but we do miss floating on the hook and taking the dinghy around.  We have gotten so immersed in the Marina /Auckland world that we have been very forgetful  of our blog.  Talking about what we did each day in the city just didn’t seem like something to write about but it has been fun for sure.  We had the pleasure of a visit from my mother on Christmas and we got a chance to drive down to the interior of the island and see some sights.   New Years was brought in on our boat with a party and  a fireworks show off of the Auckland Sky Tower.  The Marina we are in is right in the heart of the city so no car has been necessary for us and we frequently walk into town for food and entertainment.  After New Year’s Lauren’s parents came in for a 2 week visit.  We rented a car and drove down to Wellington on the south tip of the north island while stopping at various towns along the way.  It was fun but Wellington has a lot to be desired as far as weather is concerned.  It was blowing a gale most of the time we were there and raining sideways to top it off.  It was however a chance for us to spend time with Laurens family as Lauren had been missing them very dearly.  As we have been here plugged back into society we have enjoyed things like going to Avatar in 3-d and eating any kind of food that you could want, a far cry from going into a store in the Tuamotus to find whatever was left over to eat.  As enjoyable as this is we are looking forward to our next adventure and it sounds like Fiji will be it.  The plan is to stay there for at least 4 or 5 months and after that no real plan has been made.  Lauren needs to finish an internship program for her master’s degree so we will also have to figure out the where and when for that.  We are thinking about leaving Auckland in March and doing some cruising in the islands around here until we go back up north to get ready for our departure in May to Fiji.  We will probably not put another entry in for a while, maybe in March but we will post more pictures as we go along.  Neither of us are picture takers so we don’t have as many pictures as we would like but will try to be better about that.  Cheers from down under,

AP