Moonwalker back in New Zealand

Moonwalker has been back in New Zealand since 22nd of November 2012 after a very boring 8 days at sea. It was a slow trip, on which we managed even to score a couple of full night asleep just drifting around. We had to motor loads eventhough our motoring capability was seriously diminished after bending the shaft when we were on the rocks in Pangai.

We had the most amazing surprise as we approached the Bay of Islands in the wee hours of the morning, when Relax, a power boat belonging to the ex-owner of Moonwalker Trevor Grass came hooning on us with Russ' mum, sister and two nieces onboard... what a magnificent present! It was a classic winter NZ day,  cold, grey and rainy, but they were out in force to see us! The next boat to give us the salute was our beloved Undine with Peter Richards and a very pregnant Catherine onboard! How cool was that! Then we saw Dan, out on the kayak just to say hello to us! The radio was on full blast on with a few mates calling their welcome home on the VHF.

But Moonwalker didn't seem to want to come home. The engine died, along with most of the wind, so we had to sail upwind with whatever wind was left all the way to Opua. This was an easy task until we got into the Opua area which was obviously crowded and left us with very little space to manouver. Russ decided to check the Quarentine berth and saw a big gap along the outside but thought we were sailing too fast, so I didn't get anything ready... but as we passed by, he changed his mind as he realised there was no way we would have been able to manouver amongst all the boats so we threw a line to some austounded but keen cruisers, and headed to the berth without fenders or proper lines tied up!

Oh my what a stressful time!, I managed to squeeze a few fenders as we scraped the rubber rails of the pontoon, and got another line ashore and our land hands managed to slow us down a bit more and more and more until we stopped just before the Quarantine berth was finished. Puff... Oh my, I really didn't need that bit of adrenaline to finish my cruising time!

We had many friends on the land, but they are unable to come to the Quarantine pontoon so the whole welcoming party was quite of non event as until we got cleared we could not go anywhere.

But we were home, with long black marks on the side of the boat which thankfully came of with little effort, wet and cold but OH SO VERY HAPPY!

We are now into our 5th month on land, moved back into our house in the last month and are not getting Moonwalker ready for his so needed haul out.

Brisa and I are loving our life ashore, Russ is still trying to find his footing, missing the simplicity and cheap life onboard, but nothing another exciting project won't fix. He is being kept busy by doing up our house and now getting the boat sorted.

Now the big news is that now we are expecting our second child! I am already 17 weeks and the due date is  around the 20th of September! We are very happy and so looking forward to meeting our new future crew member.

We will keep you all posted on our adventures, meanwhile I am still putting photos up on the Picasa photo Albuns you can access on the link on the left side of the screen.

Moonwalker's adventures may have stopped for now but it is not finished! Keep tuned!

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