27 April 2013 Marsden Cove Marina

The EJ's Voyage
Mike Everton-Jones
Sat 27 Apr 2013 04:59
The last few days have been busy. We have done the food shopping for the trip, stored the dinghy on deck and done various jobs to have the boat ready to leave.
We went to Auckland on Wednesday. We first dropped our Christchurch friend Helen at the airport where she took a flight back home. We then found a place that accepted to fill our dive bottle. It is indeed incredibly difficult to get gas or dive bottles filled here in NZ unless you have NZ approved gear. We also went at the Epson office in the centre of town to get a replacement for the printer we bought in Auckland which wasn’t working.
We stayed at the Novotel at the airport where we met our friend Wendy for dinner. Dinner was very nice and so was our room. Sleeping in a king size bed was a luxury after so many months on the boat!
Scutch arrived at 7am-ish on Thursday. Mike took him to our room for a very welcome shower and after breakfast we drove back to Marsden and Falbala.
We had a farewell dinner onboard for Stuart who sailed to New Caledonia yesterday. Jan and Rich joined us as well. Even though exhausted after his long trip from IOM, Scutch did very well and managed to stay awake until after 9pm.
The boys have been busy since working on the watermaker and fitting the spare parts that Scutch brought with him. Mike also went up the mast to fit the new DSC antenna also brought by Scutch.
We went to Whangarei yesterday, had a nice lunch and did some shopping.
Today we went to Bream Bay beach at Ruakaka. Photos attached, including some of Scutch in his newly acquired burgundy shorts… Had to be mentioned!
We intended to sail to Fiji this weekend but had a last minute inconvenience. We can’t download emails via our Iridium phone which is a major concern for the weather Grib files that we wouldn’t receive everyday when at sea. We spoke to Mailasail and they are sending us by courier a “red box”, i.e. a router which is supposed to solve all our problems. We keep our finger crossed on that one! It should be delivered on Tuesday or Wednesday.
There is nasty weather coming from Australia early in the week but if all goes well we should set sail on Thursday. Will keep you posted.
All good and well onboard.

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