Time flies

I can’t believe that it has almost been two months! It’s also hard to know where to start to catch up….

Life on board so far has not been quite as I imagined – but then I’ve moved house enough times that I should know to expect the unexpected.

The first couple of weeks were spent trying to unpack, identifying things I needed (or didn’t need) on board and organising work to be done on Near & Farr.

I haven’t had the boat out as much as I thought I would but had a great time when I did.  Ventured out with my mate Jude for new year, we left the dock on 28th of Dec and returned on 3rd of Jan.  We sailed to Rakino to catch up with friends from HYC and spent a few nights in West Bay, the wind was from the NE so it was the perfect spot – specially as we knew over half the boats in the bay.  The New Year was seen in with a party and fireworks from the beach Woohoo! New Year’s morning the wind had shifted to SW so we did a quick motor to Waikalabubu on Motutapu, dropped anchor and stayed there til it was time to sail home.  I set myself the goal of not going ashore while we were away -almost made it – a SUP ball rescue and BBQ on the beach were the only times I got my feet dry.

Provisioning the boat I’d brought a cheesecake and chocolate cake “packet” mix they were both extremely successful.  The cheesecake easy because it didn’t need to be cooked (next time I’d add fruit to the mixture) and the chocolate cake… well who makes chocolate cake on a boat.  I’m loving having an oven.  The other useful thing, packet sauces – we were able to have a very nice prawn curry for dinner thanks to a just add prawns and coconut cream packet. (it’s so easy to cook to impress when you cheat).  We had way to much food on board for a week, next time I will suggest that I get everything and the crew aka my house guests contribute financially and with drinks.

Lesson number One would have to be don’t move on to a boat in December, nothing can get done, everyone wants their fridge installed, engine serviced, antifoul done and bbqs sorted before they head out for the summer holidays, including me but sadly I was too late knowing this, at least I was first on the list once the “trades” were back from their holidays more on all of that in my next post.

Jude on the helm.

West Bay, Rakino.

Waikalabubu, Motutapu.

Beach BBQ with friends.