Getting ready - 30/9

So we've spent the last few days with Garths dad Mike, getting the boat ready for another trip. There's still stuff from our apartment we had to sort through, and a lot of stuff that wasn't secured properly that ended up on the floor on the way up from Wellington. So there was a lot of mess and a lot of organizing, as well as a lot of fixing. I'm pretty sure Mike had forgotten how small the boat was, and having stuff everywhere makes it even smaller. In order to clean something you have to move a lot of stuff around first, so you have to create more mess in order to tidy something else. Which is daunting. It takes a long time and you don't make much progress, you just keep shifting things. Then when you want to get stuff out of the cupboards, all the boxes spew out and make even more mess. So looking around the boat at all the stuff is really overwhelming - we've finally gotten our heads around the fact that lots of stuff doesn't necessarily mean mess, but it takes a while for that to register when you're not used to it. Although in this case there was a lot of actual mess thrown in with the disorganisation. Mike's been a tremendous help and we've nearly gotten through it all, which is awesome! The boat is starting to feel more like our home now that everything is packed away and we've gotten rid of some stuff to make room. It's actually workable now, instead of just having junk piled everywhere. 

We had an exciting trip up the river to Whangerei, navigating at night and going under a very cool bridge that had to be raised. We also found out that the depth sounder is pretty accurate - it's about 10cm off though. We got stuck in the mud in the river, and had to wait ten minutes for the tide to come in and carry us away again. 

We had lots of things we wanted to fix before we left New Zealand, and lots of things we had to fix. I think we'll always have a list of projects we want to take on, and I doubt everything will ever be crossed off.

Our tricolour light broke on the way up, and we were running on our steaming lights which can light up the sails with the opposite light and be confusing. Garth went to fix them today and found that we had just been thrown around so much that the bulb had gotten loose. So we had lots of things like that to deal with - easy to fix but had to be done. 

We've had a bit of extra help - Mike called up an old friend of his in Whangerei, John, who came out to say hi and to give us a hand. He was really nice and even loaned us some tools to help get some of the work done. Garth installed a spare water bladder under the aft berth using John's hole saw, which made the job a million times easier. So he was a tremendous help and it was great having a friendly face around while we were in the midst of despair, surrounded by mess. 

The nice broker who sold us Heartbeat (not the mean one) stopped by to check in on us because he recognized the boat. It's really nice that he remembers his boats years after they're gone - one of the reasons we bought Heartbeat was because Sam seemed to genuinely love boats. Then he saved our lives by taking away all the junk we didnt know what to do with. We could actually see the floor! I think Mike's sanity returned once we could see the floor again. Then we had room to move around and finish all the work we were doing. So that was a massive help, and it was great to see another friendly face. He even took some pictures for us!

We fixed a lot of things - Garth and I installed a breather pipe on the water tank, to prevent a repeat of the drama we had on our delivery run. The water tank looked full, but half of it was full of air. We've been really careful since then, but a breather pipe is safer. Garth did a bit of sewing, repairing the rips we got in the dodger on the way up. We think the bit that ripped was old cotton thread instead of sail making stuff, so it's not surprising it broke. He made some neat little rope bags for the cockpit locker too, so that's all tidy, and put netting up in front of the open shelves. I love the netting, it makes our saloon look very serious! Garth also did some very pretty splicing on our new mooring rope, which he's pretty proud if.

I fixed our cockpit table almost on my own - it came loose from its screws on our trip up and has just been floating around the cockpit making a nuscience of itself. I sanded it back, filled it with epoxy, waited for it to dry, sanded it smooth and then re-drilled the holes. Fixed! I love that I know how to fix stuff like that now.

The last thing we had to fix for our cat 1 was the battery compartment. We had to wrap the batteries up in acid proof plastic in case they leak, which makes sense. But we spent 2 days wandering round town doing other errands and asking people where to get some, but nobody seemed to know. The hardware stores all sell it in bulk, but not in smaller pieces. I ended up walking for hours to find some, with no internet and no map and no idea what I was doing. Remember when I said I'd never go cruising without a push bike again? This still applies. 

Mike has been working hard to secure our engine case. It doesn't fit at all now we have a new engine, and it spent the whole trip up the coast tipped over on its side. It's all snug around the engine now, screwed on and tied down. He did a great job of it, and I don't think we'll have to worry about it again. 

Garth's uncle John showed up today to help us finish tidying the boat. Well, he showed up to go to Fiji and the cleaning was just a bonus we threw in. He was incredibly helpful, and we're pretty much ready to go. We're going through customs first thing in the morning, then no dry land for at least 12 days. 

Wish us luck! Hopefully you'll hear from us in about 10 - 14 days. You can follow us by the tracker in the 'where the hell are we' tab up the top of this blog, but please don't fret if it stops working for a while - it's amazing but it's a toy :)

Xxx Monique