E63 once again...

Well, as I sit gently rocking at my computer station on Kalai drinking a delightful Peppermint tea, it certainly has been an interesting couple of days!

Having spent Sunday tidying up some loose ends (and enjoying a delightful long curry lunch with C's workmates), I thought I had better check the flight time before sending a very early alarm for Monday morning.  Just as well, as the plane was more than two hours late leaving Dubai and wasn't expected to arrive in Melbourne until the relaxed time of 0835... it looked like my hopes of getting to Auckland early enough to catch my 5:15 pm Naked Bus were in serious jeopardy.  

Fortunately  the NB people had seats available the next morning, so I booked a contingency seat in case...

Naturally I woke several times wondering if by chance the plane had made up time and got up to check on the web around 0500... and promptly went back to sleep for a couple of hours.

Labour Day in Victoria meant very little traffic Monday morning - Cath's little coupé was barely impeded at all! 

Nearly 30kg's of luggage included two solar panels meant I was loaded up, but managed to get everything checked through OK.  

Sure enough we left Tullamarine over 2 hours behind schedule, arriving at Auckland right on1600hrs instead of at 1345.  I raced through Customs and was on a City Shuttle by 1645 and I thought, we could just about make it by 1715 to catch the bus... alas, rush hour meant that it was 1745 by the time I finally arrived and the bus was long gone.

I sat and had a coffee as I considered my options... R & R's place was all closed up and there was no reply to messages - I guessed they must have been away.   Fortunately I remembered that I also had Ryoko's mobile and she was on her way, walking home from work.

A delightful evening catching up and enjoying a meal together was great - even if I had to be up to catch the 0730  bus - which eventually arrived at 0800... must be a theme here?

The bus sure is a nice relaxed way to get North - plenty of seats and a chance to read/snooze.

Unloaded at Opua hill, loaded up the gear and set off - after getting 100m down the road a young lad, Andrew, pulled up in his ute and said "Jump in, mate!"  Door to door service ensued...

Everything looked pretty ship-shape and the canvas people had done a nice  job repairing and re-stitching the covers... but the growth under the waterline looked a bit ominous.  Turns out that there has been an unusually strong fouling of all the local boats - perhaps due to an increase in nutrients in the river?

Unpacked all the gear and headed over to JB marine to tee up the engine service for tomorrow, then over to Doug's boat yard to check all was OK for the haulout in the afternoon.  There's a nasty weather system heading this way from the islands with 60kt + winds anticipated and will arrive by the weekend, so we need to be finished and tied up tight back in the berth sometime Friday... hopefully in the morning!

Fitted two new led lights up for'ard, re-mounted the brass instruments on a new panel I had made - they look much better!  Picked up $500 (2 cans!)worth of paint that had been put aside for me - hopefully there will be some left over for next time!

Off to bed - busy couple of days ahead!