Wow, first blog post in the new year. I sure took my own sweet as time about it (sweet as being a pun on ubiquitous Kiwi slang and not a typo.) For the most part I’ve been delinquent on my blog posting because I’ve been spending most of my time as portrayed in the above photo. If I had a soundtrack along with this blog, there would probably be many muffled expletives wafting out of the dark hole under my stairs. So that’s been one major project. I tore out my companionway when I pulled my engine back in November. Hopefully the new companionway is a much more intelligent design. If you’ll notice, the engine panel is now on the inside along with the start and kill switches both of which froze up due to salt exposure last year. I’m currently in seal the boat and move anything sensitive inside mode. I’m moving the depth sounder and gps inside as well, both of which had badly corroded wiring even though I left my binnacle cover on all Summer while I was gone. The only thing that will be at the binnacle now is the compass and the autopilot control head. Speaking of which, I picked up a 20 year old Autohelm 6000 with a type II electric linear drive. That’s actually what I’m doing in the above pic, I’m drilling a hole through my bronze quadrant to connect the linear drive to. So my Simrad WP30 wheel pilot only lasted about a year. I nursed it along for another year in Mexico and then the last year I pretty much swore at it continuously as it failed to steer and often prevented me from turning the wheel at the most inopportune moments. All the plastic parts inside had stripped out and the thing was complete garbage by the time I got to New Zealand. To buy a new wheel pilot, it would cost about $1100 and it would probably only last for a couple of years. So I had decided to pick up a good below deck pilot. Only problem is that a cheap one goes for around $3000. So I’d been holding off until I saw a used one posted at the marina office for 500US$. Of course I jumped at the opportunity. The autopilot is 20+ years old and designed for much larger boats, but it seems to work and is half the price of a wheelpilot, so if it only lasts a few years it’s still a deal.

So the project list is too long to list. We went to Mag’s, the bartender from the pub where I spend every Tuesday night, wedding the other day and got to the beach a few days ago, but there’s just so much delayed maintenance from crossing the Pacific that I had to take care of. Right now the goal is to take off on the 27th/28th and head out to Great Barrier Island for a week before Tiffany’s mom gets here on February 6th. Marina Inertia is strong though, hopefully we’ll make it out and not be stuck forever 12 miles up river from the nearest sailing.

Frank and Mags cutting their homemade wedding cake.

Pickin a tune or two with the Tuesday night crew at the reception: