On your mark, get set........(almost ready to go!)

Malachi front and center in the Town Basin, Whangarei

Busy-Busy-Busy that best describes the past week here in Whangarei. While I've been busy provisioning, packaging and preparing food for the passage, Jay's been busy crossing a number of little jobs off the 'to do' list. Getting ready to go to sea is alot of work!

Yesterday, I cleaned the lifelines and the stainless stanchions while Jay bleached the teak toe rails and scrubbed the deck! Malachi has never looked better.

I think we're all feeling ready to go and are getting a little antsy waiting for the weather to cooperate. The high pressures are slowly moving north which is perfect for us, but they're still down around 38 degrees south so our initial route as we depart New Zealand will be SE even though our destination is NE, ahh such is sailing. Jay has been brushing up on his celestial navigation math and is making great progress. Hopefully we will not have to depend on the stars to bring us home safely, but it's always good to have a back up plan. Each of the three legs of our passage home to Vancouver is approximately 2,400 miles and will take between 2-3 weeks. This means, that we'll be at sea for most of the next three months! Our plan is to stop in the Australs at the beautiful island of Tubuai, part of French Polynesia, to rest and relax before stopping at Tahiti to pick up some fresh supplies. Then we'll be off to Hawaii!

BUT...it's not ALL work. We have had our share of fun times as well. Last weekend, there was a special event as part of Whangarei's 'Endless Summer' celebration, an open air cinema! We went both nights to watch a movie in the park. Friday we saw the Kiwi flick 'Show of Hands' and on Saturday it was 'The Tale of Despereaux', the park was packed!

The kids have been looking for boredom busters and spent one whole afternoon creating, editing, producing and showing their own movie 'Daily Park News'. They all worked together and did a great job on this funny look at the local park. Be sure to check it out at:

http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=-4126750671671256407

DPN Cast and Crew: Maya, Jenny, Jocelyn, Eitan, Kyle, Grant, Jared

While hanging out at this most excellent playground, the girls met up with a group of local kids. They've really enjoyed spending time with them and learning some of the unique Kiwi phrases like 'keen as...'. The girls stayed for dinner on Saturday night then they all went to the open air cinema together, fun fun fun!

Jessica, Jenny, Liz, Jocelyn - spaghetti dinner on Malachi

And our friends from Austria are back in town and Dionne and I went over to Ahu for 'coffee' one morning, all I can say is WOW! Those Europeans sure know how to do coffee! Fresh apple pie, coffee, champagne, oj, chicken, sundried tomatoes etc. Jacqueline, you're amazing!

Me, Jacqueline & Dionne on Ahu

Peter and Jacqueline from Ahu

We've sure been feeling the chill lately as Autumn has arrived. At the cinema, we were all wrapped up in blankets and wearing our New Zealand beanies. One morning, Jenny was so cold she bundled up in like form to do her school work!

The days always start with school

Well, I've sure talked alot about Whangarei and thought I'd include a couple of new pictures for you all to see. The marina is located near the head of the Whangarei River, where a bridge crosses at the narrow to link to the opposite shore. We are on the south side of the river, where boats tie alongside the esplanade while the north shore boasts docks and pile moorings.

Malachi in front of the Marina office, restaurants and gazebo

Looking east from the bridge - Malachi is on the right

As you can see, we're tied to the dock right in front of a big gazebo on the esplanade, this has resulted in many wonderful conversations with visitors to the marina. This morning, the first rainy day in a very long time, we were visited by a group of local primary students. We could hear them outside trying to pronounce 'Malachi' and talking about our boat, so I went out to visit with them. The kids loved my accent and were thrilled to meet Jocelyn and Jenny and had all kinds of questions for them about our travels. I gave them some Canadian pencils, which they were very excited to receive, and they sang us a thank you song! It was a lovely experience. Instead of 'Miss' they called me 'Fire' which is the Maori equivalent, it was wonderful to hear them all say 'thank you Fire' as they continued on their way.