After we dropped Adam off at the airport in Auckland, we
headed back to Napier. We made a quick
stop in Rotorua, which was on our route.
We wanted to see some of the geothermal activity in the area that we
missed last time we were there. We
stopped at one of the parks, but by 4pm it was already closed for the day. There was an open mud pool off the side of
the road, so we stopped to see it. It
was interesting to see all of the steam rising and the mud bubbling up, but the
sulfur smell was very strong, and after 15 minutes, we were out of there.
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| mud pools near Rotorua |
Back in Napier, Andrew was anxious to start building a
dodger that he had been thinking about over the last year. We decided to build a hard dodger that would
not only protect us from the elements, but would incorporate some new solar
panels, a rainwater catchment system and would be wired for lighting so we
could see the lines and winches in the cockpit at night. There was a small boatyard right next to the
marina, and the manager let us use a corner of the yard for a couple weeks for
a nominal fee. One of the local lumber
yards gave us some throw away packing crate wood, which Andrew cut up and
shaped to form the frame of the dodger.
After the initial frame was built, it was bent to match the
shape of the cabin top and then wrapped in fiberglass. Working with fiberglass is a really messy job,
and Andrew went through two gallons of epoxy and 30 yards of fiberglass
cloth. Once the fiberglass cured, it was
sanded down and painted. We had talked
to a welder in Opua a couple months prior about having some braces built for
it. He sounded like he knew what he was
talking about and gave us a good quote for the work. So after the paint dried, we strapped it to
the cabin top for the passage north, planning to finish the installation in
Opua.
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| building the dodger top in Napier |
We also took advantage of having a car and did some major
provisioning for the next season. We had
our anchors regalvanized and looked into regalvanizing our chain as well. We hoped our chain would last for the whole
trip, but we were really unlucky last year with getting it wrapped around coral
heads, and it was in bad shape. Unfortunately,
it turned out to be nearly twice as expensive to regalvanize chain as it was to
buy it new, so we sold ours to the salvage yard and replaced it with 200 feet
of new 8mm chain. While we were in a place with good medical
facilities, we also took the opportunity to go to the dentist for a check-up
and teeth cleaning and to the doctor to get our last shot for our Hepatitis B vaccinations
and a prescription for malaria (preventative).
Di spent quite a bit of time planning in more detail the
next leg of our trip, researching routes and weather, and reading the
guidebooks to determine specific places we wanted to see. She also worked for a couple weeks for our
friend Matt, who developed a video game for testing children’s cognitive skills. The game was in the testing phase, so she
went to local intermediate schools to schedule sessions and supervise the kids
while they played the game. It was nice
to have a little income for a while.
It wasn’t all work though, and we spent our weekends and
many evenings hanging out with Matt and April, and playing with Frazer (20
months old). April is an excellent cook,
and we ate very well while we were there.
We even had time for running and swimming and even a few rounds of
golf. It was really nice to spend some
time in one place for a while.
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| hanging with Matt, April, and Frazer |
By early April, our “to do” list for Opua had grown, and we
were getting anxious to get things started.
We got a good weather window on April 13th and said our sad
goodbyes to Matt, April, and Frazer, and set out on the 500 mile trip back to
Opua. We were able to sail for the first
two days, but then the wind died, and we motored the last two days, reaching
the Bay of Islands just after dark, around 8 pm. We dropped the hook near Russell in the flat
calm weather, as we didn’t want to enter the crowded Opua anchorage/mooring
field after dark.
The next morning we continued on to Opua and had the boat
hauled out at Ashby’s boatyard a couple days later. We sanded down what was left of our boot
stripe and put bottom paint on it, which raised our waterline by a few
inches. We also put a couple of coats of
paint on the rest of the bottom and replaced our zincs.
We decided the bowsprit needed some attention as well, as there
were cracks in the paint where the wood is laminated together. This is normal, as the wood expands and
contracts and the paint doesn’t. We were
concerned that water may have seeped into the cracks and starting rotting the
wood. Andrew ground out the cracks to
get down to the wood and found only a couple of very minor spots with a little
bit of rot. There were no structural
issues, and we were happy to find out that it was holding up so well. We filled in the ground out areas with epoxy
and repainted it. Meanwhile, Di scrubbed the hull, as it was
looking more yellow than white these days.
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| working in the boatyard |
After six days in the boatyard, we moved Saviah back to the
breakwater at the marina. We were finally
ready to install the dodger. The
stainless steel supports had been fabricated, and we drilled holes in the deck
and mounted them. We installed three 50
watt solar panels and wired all of the lighting, and then put a teak rim around
the perimeter for the water catchment system. We also added some handrails to the outside
edges, and then bolted it down to the stainless steel supports. We had a local canvas guy build a windscreen
and a sunshade to cover the cockpit. It
rained for the next couple days after it was installed, and we enjoyed the
benefits immediately. I’m not sure how
we made it this far without a dodger, but we will certainly enjoy it going
forward.
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| Saviah's new dodger |
Amidst the dodger installation, we were watching the weather
for a good window for the next leg of our trip.
We got one just as we were finishing the last of our projects. We borrowed a car and headed into town for
our last minute provisions and then to the customs office to do our clearance
paperwork. We really enjoyed our five
months in New Zealand. It is a beautiful
country and the people are really friendly, but winter was fast approaching and
we are ready for the tropics. We left
the Bay of Islands on May 17th, pointing north for the islands of Vanuatu.
