Rigging, Antifouling, Colds Sniffles and collapse.

We have been going for it since our arrival back in NZ. After clearing in with customs and MAF on the night of our arrival we were up and at it the next morning. Our work list included removing the mainsail, boom and solid kicker. The boom and kicker was off for repair. We removed the genoa so we could stitch it up and also to remove the forestay for upgrading as it was stretching under load. While this work was underway we hauled the boat and undertook a clean of the antifouling and recoat of the boat and propeller. We wanted to have the boat set up to spend a year on the mooring in Lyttleton, with little use, before we need to worry about it again. We have also undertaken upgrades to our boom preventer system, fuel supply to our cabin heater, engine service and numerous small jobs. We have now put the rig back together, headed across the sounds to pick up a mooring and collapsed. Nine days on passage and then a week and a half have taken it's toll. Add to this our various cold's, sniffles and lack of sleep we are having a bit of a rest. By rest I actually mean moored up with the sewing machine out making double glazing for our deck hatches. Using the machine with the hand crank has made my arm ache after six hours but we have less condensation now. Might have a lie in tomorrow. Spares are still needed for our engine freshwater circulating pump and we will take this to pieces when we get them.

The Marina and Services available at Picton and Waikawa were great. Berths were not a problem to get and we were told by the Ports of Marlborough Projects Manager that they have never turned boats away and will always find a berth for you. All the businesses in the area (known as the Marlborough Marine Center, which is currently expanding it areas for yachts) came to our aid and undertook the work on our boat straight away. Where we wanted to undertake the work ourselves they were happy to work with us. Many thanks to Sounds Marine (Glen Vander)) for our haulout, Waikawa Rigging (Geoff Robinson) for the work on boom repair and forestay, and to Tony and Sue Cooper of Charter Link Marlborough for there help in all areas and excellent knowledge of how and where to get things done. A great stop for any cruising yacht wanting to do or get work done and have lovely surroundings too.

Lovely to be in the Marlborough Sounds as we have not really looked around here to any degree. We passed through on our return from Campbell and Auckland Islands, and visited once when we sailed down to Wellington in 1997. A great place and remarkably warm all considered. We have had some great frosts on the yacht with real thick ice where water had pooled. However we were toasty down below with the heater on. In general we have the weather not as cold as we expected with some fantastic crisp clear winter days, and cold nights though. We do notice the different humidity with both suffering from dryer skin. In general we were seeing 75% to 90% humidity in the tropics where as here we see 50% to 70%. Mind you turn on the gas stove in the cabin and the humidity climbs and condensation starts.

Work for me lies not far away...........and we get these really descriptive emails from friends currently cruising in Alaska. Yes John, Kris we are jealous and look forward to joining you up there.