Auckland, New Zealand
11/26/2007 - 12/14/2007
Duncan's work mates gave him this very apropos leaving card.
We both finished this round of employment on October 26th. Saying goodbye to colleagues and friends is never easy. Working in another country is yet another dream fulfilled by this cruising lifestyle. New Zealand is a great place to live and work.
With goodbyes, teas and leaving drinks behind us, we moved on to "shutting down" our life in Auckland and becoming cruisers again. Since we do not know where we will end up at the end of 2008, we decided to close down the mailbox, empty the storage unit and sell the car.
Let the tasks begin. The most noticeable difference between working in an office and working on a boat is the type of exhaustion felt at the end of the day. Office equals mental exhaustion. Boat equals physical exhaustion.
Holy cow, that's a lot of goodbye signatures for a contractor that's only been around for a couple of years!
We will miss the Sunday marina BBQs.
We will miss our friends, Jim and Tori, from the marina.
Finally, we had Rachael, Ralph, Matthew (not pictured) & Ana over to Whisper for a visit.
The most challenging task was emptying the storage unit. Most of this stuff will need to come back aboard Whisper!
First step, see what is in the storage unit and organize it in to things to keep and things to sell. Dingy, sails, storm-drogue - keep. Dive gear - keep. 110V TV/VCR, old DVD players, shelves, miscellaneous junk - try to sell. Old fenders, BBQ grill, accumulator tank, battery - sell. On and on it went.
Second step, bring the stuff to keep back on to the boat. Uh Oh! Where will all of this stuff go?
For several days, finding a place to sit was a challenge. We cleaned each section of Whisper from deck to the deepest crevasses of the bilge. Slowly, we found places to stow all of keep items. Whisper is now within an inch of her waterline.
Duncan used the New Zealand auction site, TradeMe to sell the storage unit contents, the old marine gear, and the car.
Ummmm, what is this? Even with our storage challenges, we acquired a new toy - a collapsible kayak. Here she is in the collapsed state.
In the midst of all the organizing, we had a night or two visiting with friends. Scott and Nancy came over from Sydney to visit their bach on Waiheke. We joined them for a yummy BBQ.
Meeting their newest family member, Jackson, was a highlight.
We sold the old BBQ and acquired this shiny new one. Ooooo....Aahhhh. How long will it take for it to lose its shine?
Duncan went up the mast to replace a burned out bulb on the deck floodlight and replace a bit of running backstay chafe protection.
Robin stepped in to high gear for the provisioning once the car went up for sale.
Then, when it sold so quickly, she had to make quick work of the provisioning to take advantage of the car while we had it. Luckily, friends loaned us their car for the last minute provisions.
Leaving the Bayswater channel with our view of the Auckland skyline, we waved goodbye to the ANZ tower and the Vodafone buildings. Auckland has been a fantastic home for the past three years.
Three weeks goes quite quickly with so many loose ends to tie and things to stow in small spaces. We worked from dawn until well past dusk to get everything done by December 15th - our desired departure date from the marina.
Departing on the 15th did not look too promising when we started, but somehow we made it. Duncan did an amazing job of organizing and selling our stuff on TradeMe. We even met some interesting people from each sale. The guy who bought the sextant (we had two and decided one was enough) gave us some delicious home-grown potatoes.
Somehow, everything came together and on the morning of December 15th, Duncan untied all of our dock lines and we left Bayswater Marina.
One chapter closes and another begins.
Very strange. Leaving Bayswater Marina to the sound of friends air horns generated a range of emotions. Excitement, sadness, anticipation and appreciation. What a great place to call home - we miss you already.