Bye bye dear brother

Bye bye dear brother, thanks for your visit, it has been a great time and I already miss you! Big THANKS to our wonderful uncle who made the reunion here in New Zealand possible!

 

Sorry I have not been posting the last weeks. First we had no internet and then we have been so busy with work on the boat (and some sight seeing) that there was no time to „play". I will hopefully make up for this pretty soon with some pictures. Especially Marcus has worked really hard and did all of the ugly work (like sanding off Antifouling and some spots on deck, repairing the Dinghy and LOTS more), Alex was great help taking care of the motor (partly with Marcus) and helping me changing the seals on 4 hatches (which alone took 2 days). Now we're depending on a new starter arriving with Christian on saturday - hoping this will fit and work. Monday is a weather window and we want to try and leave in the morning for the long trip. Lots of work still til then like boat cleaning, some smaller projects left, grocery shopping and stocking up the most important stuff for the next 5 months. Tomorrow at 1pm we will be put back into the water after 2 weeks on the hard stand. So the last 2,5 weeks were mostly work. Alex and I got to do some tours and I went dancing for a weekend, that was great. 

What else happened? Our car (that we had borrowed from friends) has been broken in and all of my stuff and Alex's stuff that we had with us for the weekend in Hamilton (my dance workshop) was gone, about €700 damage. Well, at least no person hurt. In the meantime we re-bought all the stuff we needed, but a bad feeling remains. The north island and especially Whangarei are VERY bad, lots of burglery, lots of cars and houses broken into. Mostly young kis with no perspective, who do not want to work. Most of them probably on drugs. We have seen quite some of these guys on the street. Not nice to see. The lady in the hostel in Hamilton told us, that her car and house had been broken into and a guy beat her down in Auckland trying to get her handbag. Unfortunately that is very common in the meantime. Another guy's house here in Whangarei has just been broken into and EVERYthing had been taken and the rest destroyed. Argh, horrible. 

New Zealand still remains a wonderful destination - but you have to take care. Like everywhere. The people are still very lovely and we love this place. 

So, off to bed now, prepare for the next days and the trip up to the islands. 

2 weeks ago on the way out of the water… - we have seen many rainbows in the meantime

 Altia being pushed to her current position

Marcus doing the ugly work

Alex at the engine room 

Preparing for the spraying of the Anti-Fouling 

 

My sewing workspace with my NEW Singer sewing machine - a dream! Here working on the Dinghy cover, that almost looks like new now

Marcus servicing the Generator with help from Alex

Hatch with seal...

Alita's stand after moving the cradle to be able to paint the remaining spots 

 Alex inspecting the hatch frame to see where we can separate it

 Marcus digging a hole in order to be able to let the center board down for painting

 Lunch time