Boat work and photos

Since we arrived on Sunday,we've been very busy. Maunie's in the very nice Opua Marina where the staff are really welcoming and helpful and the facilities superb. We've put all our clothes through the excellent launderette and even put the cushion covers from the pilot house through the washing machines to get rid of the accumulated salt and grime of a year's blue-water sailing. Meanwhile we've hoisted and fresh-water rinsed the sails before taking them off and the local sailmaker will collect them this morning for servicing. 

There is a huge chandlery here, the best we've seen since Las Palmas at the start of the ARC, so we've been buying boat spares and equipment for the various jobs that we have on our list. The team in the shop are real sailors: one crewed on Team Phillips, the ill-fated Pete Goss catamaran that dramatically broke up on a transatlantic record attempt a few years ago and he told us that they had no warning of the disaster which was all over in a minute or so - the crew spent 9 hours in the life raft. Bob, the sales manager, is an American who sailed here a few years ago and stayed and he's offered to help us with fitting a new seal to our propeller shaft - he's also offered us the use of his car today to go to the supermarket!

So, we haven't yet really had time to venture out of the environs of the marina yet but we'll do so over the next few days. The nearest town, Paihia, is a little seaside place with just a few shops and Whangerie is the nearest city, about an hour's drive from here so we're looking at renting some bikes to explore the stunningly beautiful countryside.

In the meantime, here is a selection of photos from the past couple of weeks:

 Above: Changing light, on the last evening to NZ

 Arriving in the Bay of Islands

Stormvogel motoring into Opua

Racing crew on Stormvogel

Farewell to the Trade Winds