Opua to Whangarei

We have had a wonderful first two weeks in NZ at Opua.
Opua is the closest port of entry to NZ from Tonga and Fiji so many boats stop here for some welcome rest before heading to their final destinations. There are often 6 or more boats waiting on the quarantine dock—where you wait for customs to clear you—each morning with more arriving as the day goes on. Up to 250 boats each year clear in here. Our check in was easy as the girls were ready to go home so whipped through our check in at record speed. They confiscated our mayonnaise and our wild rice mix but we had already eaten all of our meat and popcorn—we knew they were prohibited.
Northern NZ generally is known throughout the cruising world as one of the best places in the world to have boat work done. It offers quality work, where they speak English and the prices are very reasonable. This is a multi million dollar industry and many of the small towns are vying for the cruiser dollars.
Opua is a small village consisting of a small grocery store, a couple of restaurants and many marine repair businesses and is realizing the value of this. It is managing to persuade many boats to linger a while and do some work here while they are lingering. The week we arrived was sponsored by local businesses and every night there was an event with free food. We along with all of the fellow cruisers had a busy week and were almost glad when the week was over—too many barbecue sausages!!!! We did appreciate the pig roast though as after the gristly meatless pig roasts in the islands we had wonderful thick slabs of pork. It was fun to meet up with many of the other boats we knew already and meet others we had just heard on the radio.
We along with everyone else fell in love with the area and stayed two weeks having some sail repairs done and Ken did many other small jobs which had been put off. Poor Ken seems to have a repair a day and I get to go shopping!!
They run shuttle buses to Pahia (the nearest town) daily and weekly to Keri Keri, a pretty artsy bigger town. We had a great 2 hour walk along the beach to Pahia one day and back. Another day some friends who had rented a car took us to Russell which is yet another pretty small town in the area.
The weather was sunny and warm with the nights cooler than we had had in a long while so we had to dig out jeans and jackets.
On our last night there was a blues band and barbecue at one of the local restaurants. The band was great and was enhanced by several of the talented cruiser musicians who joined in and jammed with the locals as the evening went on. A great end to our stay in Opua.
During the time we were there many friends came in and it was fun to welcome them. Some we had lost touch with for some time so it was great to see them again.
We sadly had to leave before Mr John, our friends who had been traveling with us since Rarotonga was in as we had arranged to have our boat hauled out in Whangarei on the 24th. We actually passed them we were leaving and they were arriving. We will catch up with them later I am sure.
Our boat was to be hauled to check the gouge we had put in the keel on the reef in Aitutaki and we appear to have a leak coming in somewhere near one of the back steps. We will also repaint the hull with more antifouling paint. It is still pretty good from Panama but if we are hauling out anyway we will redo it.
We left for the 70 mile day passage to Whangarei when the winds had been forecast to be 25 knots from the north—perfect for us as we are going south-- only to find the forecast was wrong!!!! We had 10 knots and had to motor sail as we needed to make the anchorage before sunset.
In the morning we were happy to be safely anchored and the winds were 20-30 and forecasted to blow harder the next day.
We had a 2 hour motor up the river to get to Whangarei, a much larger city where they have a great haul out facility for our catamaran.
We had our boat hauled in Whangarei on a hydraulic vehicle which goes under between the hulls of our boat and drives it on shore.
We are at present doing a few minor repairs and will redo the antifouling under the hull.
The paint we had in El Salvador is not holding well so we are having to strip all of the paint off and start again. At least it is one of the easiest places to do this as everyone is very professional and helpful. We are still hoping to get the boat back in the water in time to sail to Wellington for Xmas.
Whangarei is a very pleasant small city with all amenities and very friendly people—the norm here in NZ. We are dodging showers and little bitey sandflies as we sit on the riverbank trying to do our work. We cannot complain as the temperature is warm and there is no snow in our lives.
Hope that it is not too cold where you are.