Getting ourselves ready to go took some doing, and there were a few surprises.
The port of departure was Marsden Cove marina, just down the river from the town of Whangarei, were we spent some months in a delightful marina in the middle of town. The town had everything we needed but eventually got kind of boring as we were ready to get on with our lives.
Since we could only leave Whangarei during a high tide, and we can't enter Marsden unless it's a high tide and they're on the same river and it's a 3 hour boat ride, we needed to motor on down to the Marsden area, drop the hook and spend the night in what turned out to be a really sweet anchorage.
After 3 years away from our preferred lifestyle it was good to be using an anchor again.
During the 3 hour trip to Marsden we noticed that the output from the exhaust had the bright lime green color that the engine coolant uses...bad heat exchanger.
So at great expense we pulled the old one out, took it to town and had one made. Reinstalled the new one and it made an amazing difference in the boat. The engine runs cooler and the boat doesn't heat up after a long motoring bit.
We finally met with the New Zealand officials who checked us out of the country, filled up on duty free fuel and left on a high tide.
The trip took 12 days from Marsden to Savusavu, bypassing a return trip to Minerva as we were also finding a problem with the hydraulic steering and didn't want to have steering issues when entering the atoll.
If you recall we have always had the Hydrovane on the boat, so we starting using it and it was great. Takes no battery power, no pumps growling all night and everything is calm and quiet.
We grabbed a mooring ball here at Waitui Marina, who shuttled all the various government people out to the boat to check us in to the country.
We are on Fiji time now, moving slowly. Have a Jib to repair, steering to fix, and need to find a better rum to drink.
We will be here for a long time and aren't in a big rush. We have reserved a hurricane hole spot for cyclone season starting in November.
Later it will be up across the equator, maybe stop in a couple places before getting to the Marshalls then a long summertime boat ride above Hawaii and over to Seattle.
Then I think we've crossed all the oceans we need to cross, will look for a coastal type boat, or something else...
Meanwhile, we're tourists again.
BTW...Fiji seems to be a cultural crossroads so there is a huge variety in the restaurants, stores, markets and people who all have welcomed us with open arms.
Stay tuned...
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