The joys of being alongside at last

Zepher
Chris & Lyn Darch
Sat 15 Nov 2008 18:04
Hi Folks,
The morning after the ceremonial kissing of the ground and tree we opened our bleary eyes to a beautiful sunny morning which made a great change to the last few days, went to the jetty head to look at the tide, its almost deja'vu the tide ran across the berth just like it did in our old home on the Hamble, it was running at full flood so I decided to wait until slack water, nipped up to see the girls in the office who kindly gave me the tide tables it turns out that 13 30 was low water, so we went and completed our customs import forms, very efficient service and now were are all legal as far as the boat goes, the full import dues came to 165,000 NZD which is a bit steep but its only due if we sell the boat within 2 years .
In the afternoon we commenced unloading the gear from "Z" we emptied out the fwd cabin and "Z" began to rise out of the water by at least an inch.
That night the local boat yard put on a BBQ for all the arriving yachties it was free and a novel way of serving the beers, they filled up a tender full of beer and ice and it was a help yourself deal, and we did ! the barbi was great also.
 Today we continued the barrow race to the store and eventual cleared all the long distance gear out of Zephyr we crammed it all into a 4 cubic metre box store in the boat yard, Zephyr has risen 2 " in total out of the water and the copper bott is visible for the first time in a year and a half. 
 Thanks to everybody who has sent us congrats on our arrival , we are still taking it all in one day the penny will drop, I think when Rob and Ruth leave for there island tour in there camper van to be, Rob has been eyeing up various bits to build into the back of his contractors van, come vanett complete with net curtains and foam mattress !
 
A crew on wind down