Back to the Bay
Zepher
Chris & Lyn Darch
Fri 18 Dec 2009 08:22
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Hi Folks,
Well it was an eventfull weekend, off to the
concert, it all started with a large nosh up friday night, followed by the
anticipation of the Proclamers and B52's, concert much was talked about but it
all ended in a howling gale with windspeeds at around 140 km per hr across the
Wiarapa area, a far cry from last year, but we still made the hot tub, with the
wnd whipping across the surface we thought we were back at
sea ....! anyway it was cancelled boo hoo but the great company and the hot tub
made up for the disapointment .
The next day we set off on our journey North
for the Bay of Islands, we got to just short of Auckland, and found a motel just
of state highway one for the night, after the last few nights it was a welcome
break to be in bed by nine o/c .
Off again early the next morning ,via a large
supermarket Auckland to stock up on all our goodies for the pantry then on for
the last three hrs drive to Opua, the Bay's looked inviting as ever, that was
untill we got down to the boat to find the power had been off for over a month
and our silly neighbours had nott told the office , this ment our batteries
were as flat as a pancake, all sorts or red alarm LED's were flashing , it
seemed at first as if the crimbo tree lights had transplanted themselves down to
the chart table,when I transfered the power line we still could not get the
onboard charging system to work, so I went over to the engineering shop and
borrowed their booster charger, that did the trick, once the voltage reached 20
V DC all the lights stop flashing the electronic brain said ' ah we recognise
that we will start to charge the battery ! anyway my visions of
another Panama were gone as my batteries and inverter are functioning well, this
once sorted has put us one day behind already, a mad rush to the metal
fabricators to check if my repair plate's were still there seven months later,
they were and after a short conversation and instructions and "please can I have
them Friday" I left to look at the rest of the list of must do's .
It is now Friday and were the week has gone I dont
know. anyway the repairs to the back block damage sustained on the passage down
here from Tonga is well under way, a few other must do's like the air gen
repair, I have the bits for that one, and the heads removal and refurb plus a
miriad of other bits and pieces to be don before next Tuesday , one major
problem is that a few old sailing buddies have returned from this seasons
adventures so catching up with them is also beeing squeezed into the game as
well...
On top of all that planning the summers
cruise is also somewere in the mix, lots to see and we have picked up a few
crackers already of places to go, look at the google earth map from the 2nd of
Jan we will be on the move again!
Noahs working hard !
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