Commissioning

Interesting day today. I composed this yesterday and tried to upload it and I was denied access to my blog. After four hours of working with various tech types at Hostgator (my web hosting service) and wordpress (my blog outfit with two different logins for my blog and my account with them), I finally discovered that somebody had hijacked my blog. From there it got worse as I tried to reconstruct who they were and how they had changed my user name and password. Once I got that sorted, it then became a matter of removing their privileges and restoring mine. No gory details but is was basically awful as when I went to delete them, wordpress wanted to delete my access to all my old posts as well. Lesson learned – make sure I log out as administrator ever time I log in. Anyway…………….

Our time has been a mix of being dockside at Pacific Disgraceway Marina and off enjoying some of the North Island’s sites. The emphasis, however, has been on commissioning and dealing with the inevitable issues that come with a new boat. Each time out, our list grows shorter as we spend more time away from the dock. Our runs have generally consisted of heading north to Whangamumu and Whangaroa as well as south to Great Barrier Island among other places.

The following two pictures were taken off the sometimes fearsome Cape Brett on an unusual flat calm day.

To give a sense of scale, the hole thru the rock is large enough for Iron Lady to sail thru. Larger tourist boats do so routinely but we took a pass on even a flat calm day.

The following three pictures were taken in Whangamumu. An interesting contrast between the dead tree and the surrounding bush.

And Iron Lady looking back from the bow.

Whangaroa is a beautiful harbor with very unusual rock formations.

A pretty little stream with several large waterfalls leads off from the anchorage. Time did not permit a big explore this time but there are some nice pictures in our older post of our circumnavigation of New Zealand in the first Iron Lady.

The new Iron Lady has several water toys – among them a 15 foot aluminum bottom inflatable with a 70 HP Yamaha and a smaller rowing dinghy patterned after the salmon fishing boats that were traditionally used in the Pacific Northwest.

We occasionally get unwelcome visitors that we ask to move on.

I had another shortly after moving aboard while Steve was down in Auckland. I got up one morning and found a fellow sleeping on the matrix deck on our coach – couldn’t believe it. He said he had been in the hospital and had been discharged late at night and had gotten lost. His cell was dead and he couldn’t call his mate. He did have a bandage where an IV had been inserted so his story was at least partially true. Either way, I told him to leave in no uncertain terms.

Anyway, I will close for now with a picture of our dinner aboard in Whangaroa.

Vegetable skewers with havarti cheese, roasted corn and snapper (caught that afternoon) saviche Peruvian style with red onions marinated in lime and lemon juice and sweet potato. It tasted even better then it looks.

I will close for now with a typical NZ sunset from the land of the glowing skies as the Maori say (technically Rakiura which is Stewart Island). Anyway – please enjoy.