View from the boat looking out into towards the harbour
Well, our trip around New Zealand is fast coming to a conclusion, it has been an amazing journey, with all sorts of challenges that I have tried to share with you as they have unfolded. The weather is hastening our trip back to Tairua on Wednesday and also the early morning high tides, to enable us to enter Tairua in daylight with plenty of water under us for the bar crossing. Certainly don’t want any stuff ups on the final leg!
This morning I had tried to change the impellers on our engines after waking up thinking about ‘what if’ as they had done a heap of hours now, however after removing the pump impeller face plate we discovered that we would need a special size bolt to extract the old impellers, which we were unable to find on board. Not often do we come up short for finding solutions but we did today. So rather than risk damaging the old one and still not get the impeller out of the pump body, I have decided to continue with the old ones until we arrive in Gisborne, where I hope to be able to pick up the right size bolt which I can keep as an extraction tool for future impeller changes.
Today, Sunday 29th April, we took a cab into Napier as it was raining steadily here now and there was nothing much we could do. We drove around past the port and into Napier and stopped by the Main Street. It was around 10:00am and most businesses were already open with very few shoppers to be seen anywhere as yet. The Main Street is very pedestrian friendly so we walked the length and back again heading North into the next parallel street to discover cafes everywhere absolutely pumping! Clearly this was the breakfast capital of Napier. After coffee we walked along the promenade until we were beginning to get too wet. We decided we would head back to the boat, Robin wanted to clean the front screens, they were very soiled from the salt and the wiper blades coping with keeping the screen clear. I wanted to catch up on some housekeeping i.e. (cleaning my cleaning product cupboards). Felt good to get that looking organised again. I also managed to post another blog. As this is our last night here, we will enjoy a restaurant meal nearby and get ready for a 6:00am wake up call. I said to Robin as we left the boat, “ I need to drop them key back to the sailing club”, so lets just detour around. We turned up, the car park was full and a Jazz band was in full song! We went in and I asked the bar lady,” are we allowed in here”, to which she replied, “absolutely”. We ordered drinks and dinner and ended up having a thoroughly enjoyable last night in Ahuriri. I realised, again, just how much I love Jazz music - it moves me! These guys had combined age of about 500 but hell, could they rock the house! All finished too soon for me - want to come back so much!
These ole boys rocked the house with some awesome Jazz and Blues. These boys have played Bourbon Street New Orleans - the home of Jazz.
Tomorrow we plan to leave early in the morning, after fuelling, for Gisborne. This is approximately a 4.5 hour journey, so much shorter than most of our legs. We wanted to be as close to the East Cape as possible to do a runner on Tuesday morning, to beat the incoming strong winds predicted later Tuesday morning. We may still see 30 knots but it will be from the south so it shouldn’t make things too uncomfortable for us, in fact it will probably seem like child’s play. Having said that, never , never take the sea for granted or it will guaranteed ‘bite your bum - hard’!