7 February 2015 Whangarei, New Zealand
After breakfast, I shimmied up the mast and temporarily installed the radar radome and ran the cable back to the chart plotter to test it. It all powered up and seemed to run fine, but it’s hard to tell because there are so many boats surrounding us. At least there weren’t any errors on the chart plotter and the radar image was rotating.
Having tested all the radar parts, the next job is to cut the radar cable and run it down the mast and inside the boat to a junction box underneath the mast. The 15 metre cable cost a staggering £175, so I’ve measured everything three times already and will measure again before I cut it. Once that is all installed, I’ll get the radome back down and paint the bracket – what a palaver.
Our friends Bob and Sian came to visit us in the afternoon. They used to skydive with us back in the 1980’s and we haven’t seen them since they immigrated to New Zealand in 2001, so we had a lot of catching up to do.
In the evening, I had a long session on my guitar. My latest craze is the Delta Blues, in particular the music of Robert Johnson. This guy played in the 1930’s and is regarded by some as the master of the Mississippi Delta Blues. He only recorded 29 songs, but poor old Glenys has had to listen to them constantly for the past week while I’ve played them interminably. I’m getting the hang of the style on my guitar now, so Glenys is now doomed to hear me play the Delta Blues - badly…
8 February 2015 Whangarei, New Zealand
There was no wind this morning, so we put up the mainsail and then I did some investigation work on the genoa furler. In my opinion, we have too much pre-bend in the mast caused by the forestay being too long. I dismantled the genoa furler, hoping that there was an adjustment screw on the forestay, but unfortunately there isn’t. I’ll have to live with it for at least another year and then maybe I’ll get it shortened in Thailand and have an adjuster installed.
I also had a look at the inner forestay furler and don’t seem to be able to get enough clearance at the top if I lower the extrusion, so I’ll have a word with the rigger tomorrow.
In the afternoon, after a few deep breaths, I cut the radar cable and ran one half down inside the mast which went okay. It was a bit more of a struggle to run the other half of the cable down a small duct behind the saloon cupboards, but we managed it. I ran out of time to connect it all – a job for another day.
9 February 2015 Whangarei, New Zealand
The alarm didn't go off, so we slept in until 8 o'clock. Gerry the rigger arrived half an hour later, closely followed by a refrigeration engineer, so it was a little chaotic trying to keep these two expensive engineers busy at the same time. Gerry installed the new running back-stays and the rod kicker which he’s repaired. We had a discussion about the inner fore-stay and decided that the best course of action is for me to cut 70 mm from the top of the extrusion – but carefully…
The fridge guy removed the remaining three push -fit connectors from our two fridges. It all seemed to test okay, so he’s recharged it and left us to it. After he’d gone I measured the pressures of the two systems and I’ll monitor it over the next couple of days.
I've been putting off working on the engine, but ran out of excuses, so I removed the turbo, which went okay. It will be fiddly to put back, so I've taken lots of photographs of it being dismantled, so that I’ll know where everything goes. I then jumped on my bike and dropped the turbo off at an engineering shop to get it serviced.
“Laragh” arrived today, so we invited David and Katrina over for a beer or two.
10 February 2015 Whangarei, New Zealand
I called into the fabricators to pick up the pulpit, but they hadn't finished it. They seemed to be doing a good job and have the whole thing jigged up, but it’s a complex 3 dimensional problem, so I'm praying that it will fit when they've finished.
Around midday, I went to the dentist to have a crown put on a molar, which had several cracks in the walls of the tooth. It was a very impressive and efficient process. Once the drilling was done, they took a few digital photographs with a special small camera and their computer system generated a 3D image of the tooth. Using this system, the dentist then generated a 3D image of the crown, which was downloaded to a clever piece of equipment, which machined the crown out of a ceramic cube. Fifteen minutes later, the crown was ready to be fitted and I was out of the place with a new crown within 75 minutes - I was also £600 poorer.
After lunch, the fabricators delivered the pulpit, which at first didn't fit. After five minutes of panic, I figured out that the 7/8” diameter stainless steel rod that the pulpit fits over was too about three inches too long because we’d put a 15 degree bend in the leg of the tubing. It took me 30 minutes with a hacksaw to saw the damn thing off. Once that was done, I fitted the whole thing in fifteen minutes. They've done a really good job and my new Rocna anchor doesn't hit it any more.
The rest of the afternoon was sent packing our bags ready for our road trip to South Island tomorrow.
11 February 2015 Whangarei to Christchurch, New Zealand
Our morning was spent tidying up and getting the boat ready to leave for three weeks. Mid-morning, I cycled down the road and paid the bill for the various fabrication jobs that I’ve had done. The biggest shock was the modifications to the pulpit which cost a staggering £325 - the anchor only cost £400, so it’s effectively doubled the cost of having a new anchor.
We caught the bus to the airport at eleven o’clock, which got us to the airport 2 hours too early – ah well… Then the flight was delayed for an hour. Then the flight was delayed again. We didn’t leave until 1600 - two hours late. This meant that we wouldn’t make our connection from Auckland to Christchurch and the only flight that the airline could get us on departed at 2045 – the last flight out of Auckland.
It was an interminable four hour wait at Auckland, before we boarded for the short one hour flight to Christchurch, which was thankfully on time. We picked up a tiny, compact-class car and arrived at our friend Charlotte’s house at the very unsociable hour of 2300. There was only time to have a quick chat before we all went to bed because Charlotte had to get up early for work.
12 February 2015 Christchurch to Arthur’s Pass, New Zealand
We got up early to have breakfast with Charlotte before she went to work and then started driving towards the west coast, but there was a loud whining noise from the front of the hire car. It sounded like a bearing or a universal joint and was driving me crazy, so we detoured back to the airport to change it.
After half an hour of hassle, we ended up at the main office of the car hire company and exchanged the car for one slightly bigger and a lot newer. It cost an extra £5 per day, but after driving it for ten minutes, it’s got to be the best £100 I’ve ever spent – the car is a pleasure to drive and has air conditioning.
We travelled to Arthur’s pass and checked out the various hikes that we could do tomorrow. It’s a very spectacular valley with very steep sided hills - I had my eye on a hike called Avalanche Peak, but it’s 6-8 hours of very steep hiking and we’ve bottled out because we’ve not done any serious hiking for months and months. We’ve decided to restrict ourselves to a shorter four hour hike up a ridge to get our legs back.
We checked in at the Otira Stagecoach Hotel, which has recently been bought and is being renovated. It’s a very curious hotel with lots of strange things dumped around the place that new owner has been collecting for years. This includes a collection of horse drawn carriages; stage coaches and lots of stuffed animals waiting for a place to be displayed.
Having had a look around the place, we jumped back in the car and went for a hike up the Otira Valley Walk. The first 30 minutes was a shock to our systems, but it turned into a very pleasant two hour hike with blue skies and a lovely cooling wind.
Back at the hotel, we went down for dinner. There wasn’t a lot of choice – all day breakfast menu, chips and burgers. We both decided to go for the fish burger, which was allegedly cooked in light tempura batter, but the fish (and the chips) turned out to have a month’s worth of saturated fat in them. We went for a walk after dinner to try to help our faltering digestion system and I managed to get two sandfly bites despite wearing long trousers and a long sleeve t-shirt – little buggers.
13 February 2015 Arthur’s Pass, New Zealand
It was an interesting night. The bed sheets were black bri-nylon and, every time we moved, we generated static electricity, which produced bright sparks. In addition, we could feel the wires of the electric blanket underneath us – very weird.
Still tasting the chip fat from last night’s meal, we skipped breakfast and had a banana butty in the car on the way back to Arthur’s Pass, where we had a nice four hour hike up Bealey Spur.
We stopped for lunch at a viewpoint overlooking the spectacular valley and, despite there being a strong wind, I managed to get another sandfly bite – that’s three bites in two days, not a good start. We haven’t yet arrived at the West Coast, which is notorious for aggressive sandflies, so I'm totally paranoid now.
In the evening, we couldn't bear to eat more saturated fat, so we drove back to Arthur’s Pass and had a tasty pizza in one of the cafes.