It’s been a while since we posted our last blog, and our activities since then pretty much fall into 3 categories: working on the boat, hanging out with Martin, and exploring the area a bit.

Working on the boat has taken up the most time.  The Christmas holiday comes during summer here, so combined with the generally more generous holiday/vacation time here, there are a lot of small businesses that are shut down for 2-3 weeks at the end of December and beginning of January.  For us, that means that our sails have to wait until January for the sail maker to start the minor repairs that several of them need.  We’re also waiting for the end of the holidays to do some rigging work where the local rigger could be helpful.  In the meantime, we’ve done a number of smaller jobs — completely disassembling and servicing the steering system, cleaning, making a new port head floor to replace the water-damaged one, re-finishing the cockpit table, servicing the outboard, etc.  The steering system was pretty painful to remove at every step, but once it was finally done, I found that the needle bearings (little stainless rolling-pin type bearings that the wheel shaft turns on) were rusted solid and probably had been for a while.  A new steering assembly is pretty expensive, but the manager of the boatyard here sent us to a local engineering shop that had replacement bearings and seals in from Auckland for us the next day for only about $30.  In general, doing boat work in Tauranga has been like that.  There are lots of marine and general industrial shops within a five minute drive that provide every imaginable service.  People are incredibly friendly and helpful, and anything that isn’t in stock here can generally be brought in from Auckland by the next morning.  It’s pretty amazing even for a first-world country.

Needle bearings rusted solid

  Completed steering assembly ready for installation after two long days of work

Don’t you think it makes the head look oh so roomy?

The bad news on the repair front is that when I started to repair the damage to the trampoline fittings, I noticed that things are quite a bit more serious than I thought.  Most of the 6 mm stainless bolts were sheared off when our hull-to-deck joint worked loose on the inboard side of the starboard trampoline.  Production boats like ours are built using a hull mold and deck mold.  Once the interior of the boat is built up inside the hull, the large deck piece is fitted over it like a clam shell, and the two are bonded together around the edge.  This is obviously a pretty critical structural part of the boat, and like most parts of our boat, it’s generally pretty strong.  The exception seems to be this area of the bow, where there was some sort of bonding material between the hull and deck that has deteriorated and disappeared, and inside there’s only a layer or two of fiberglass that has also broken away.  Pushing the boat too hard on the way from Tonga didn’t help things either.  Luckily, there’s a boat builder directly across from us on the other side of the river, and we had a nice chat with the guy who runs it. He should be over on Monday to have a look and will be able to make the necessary repairs.  It will probably be a bit pricey, especially since they can only haul out catamarans by renting a crane or using the railway, but it sounds like they do good work, and their labor rate is pretty reasonable (just over $35 US/hr) for this type of work.  It’s another repair that will have to wait until after the holidays, so it should be a busy summer.

Martin’s been a lot of fun.  At some point we discovered that we both love playing basketball, and he actually found a league here in Tauranga.  They’re now between seasons, so we’ve had to settle for shooting around a bit, but tomorrow we get to play in a scrimmage, and we’ve gotten some pretty good exercise as well.  He’s a great shooter, and is a physical education teacher in back home in Austria, so his fundamentals are pretty good as well.  Anyone who’s actually been coached can pretty much run circles around me, but given my height and age advantage I’m able to stay competitive.

The more we explore, the happier we are that we’re in Tauranga.  In addition to the nearby marine and industrial shops, there are two nice restaurant/nightlife/shopping districts.  The one at Maunganui is a major vacation spot for Kiwis, with beach as far as you can see in both directions and plenty of wind for kite and windsurfing.  Today we climbed “The Mount” and enjoyed the great views up and down the Bay of Plenty.  In true Kiwi style, the lower portion of the mount is actively used for sheep grazing, which makes for some nice scenic hillsides with no lawn mowing bills to pay.  The weather does take a bit of getting used to.  There’s local saying that goes something like “You get all four seasons in one day,” and it’s true.  A local told us yesterday that summer weather doesn’t really get going here until January, which is sort of good news.  The sun here is pretty intense, so if it’s out it feels warm even if the temperature is fairly cool and there’s a strong wind blowing.  If the sun goes behind the clouds though, it seems to get 10 degrees cooler almost instantly and as soon as the sun sets it’s cold.

Looking north over the Bay of Plenty from the Mount hillside

Looking back south over the tourist area and town of Mt. Maunganui

We still haven’t adjusted to first-world fashion prices, and life of the boat can be hard on clothes anyway, so we stopped off at the Red Cross thrift store on the way home from our hike and found some nice bargains.  The store had a pretty funny sign in the window advertising newly-arrived Australian fashions.  It’s definitely the only time I’ve seen a charity thrift store advertising their fashionable merchandise, and the clothing seemed about the same as in the US. When we checked out, I noticed that the cruise ship schedule for the year was posted behind the counter.  I had to ask.  It’s really hard to imagine people out on a cruise ship vacation getting excited about the Red Cross thrift store (“See, dear, right here on the map, the Red Cross thrift store is within walking distance of the where the ship is docking in Tauranga.  Isn’t that great?”)  It turns out that some of the vacationers do wander in but there is apparently quite a rush on cruise ship days from the Philipino crews who are either purchasing clothes for women and children back home or freezing in the cooler New Zealand climate and need something warm to wear.

Homemade “Quiche Lauren” and fresh local strawberry