The Bitter Sweet of Cruising...

Welcome to our Blog. Our latest entry always comes up first... 
Click this link if you want to start at the beginning:
FIRST BLOG ENTRY
If you want to start at the beginning of our trip:
START OF TRIP
If you want to see the story of our trip from South Carolina
(where we bought the boat)
 to Lake Ontario Click this link:
  SOUTH CAROLINA

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After an awesome weekend back in Whangarei, we are on our way back to the Bay of Islands where we plan to check out of New Zealand around the middle of April. 

We stopped off on our way into and the way out of Whangarei at our scallop "go to" spot and feasted on our daily limit both times! In addition, we caught 2 Kawais at the same time on our way in...  It has been a seafood BONANZA!

Fish Kill...

It turns into a bloodbath when we "bleed" them.

Before and After...

Once in Whangarei, we did some last minute provisioning for our trip north and visited with friends made during our time here...  The reality of cruising is that people come and go in our lives.  This is a very bitter sweet part of our life. Sweet, because we do meet so many amazing people.  Bitter because we always feel like we are leaving....

This was a big weekend in Whangarei.  The 5th annual Fritter and Wine festival was happening and Shelley purchased tickets months ago for this.  The night before we were invited to our friends, Peter and Claire's home who we met on S/V Dune our in the Barrier Island.  They live on an amazing hobby farm just north of Whangarei.  Surrounded by animals and fruit trees, they shared there home and their harvest with us.

They have 250 lime trees!  A staple in most cruisers diet seems to be Gin & Tonic.  While I don't personally imbibe, I do know that lime is an essential ingredient.. Here in New Zealand limes are not very popular, an so VERY expensive..  $23.99 per KILO!  By bringing a few bags from Peter & Claire's, we became VERY popular with our fellow cruisers when we gave them all away!

While we were there Peter helped me re-build out solar battery box that we use on the boat every day.  Before we left, I built it out of plywood.  It has served us well for three years, but now needs to be replaced.  With Peter's tools and materials, we put it together in a few hours!

On Saturday, they joined us along with a few other friends at the festival.  It was hot, crowded, and fairly expensive, but I have to say it was a GREAT TIME!  Being with our friends was so much fun.

On Sunday we enjoyed the play "Quartet", an amateur production at the Octagon Theatre with the lovely couple we met the last time we went to a play when we first arrived in Whangarei.  Here we were saying so long to Jenny and John over a lovely lunch and play.

On Tuesday we said more sad goodbyes, and motored back down the river.  At our first stop we met Barry & Wayne from s/v Naughtybouy, who are a great couple and our NEW friends....  See what I mean...  

After one last feast on scallops (the season ends March 31) we are making our way....

More soon...