Showers, beer, whisky, laundry, shopping, no watches.... we have arrived
If we had continued at our pace we would have arrived in Nelson on Thursday just before midnight. So we booked Customs and Quarantine for 0930 on Friday and spent the night drifting in faint zephyrs at a couple of knots. The wind did blow for 10 or minutes from time to time, up to 10 or 18 knots.
On Friday we arrived at the Customs dock with 30 seconds of the appointed time. The 2 officials were extremely friendly and did their job properly without any drama. We thought, what a wonderful introduction to NZ.
Friday... yes... showers, beer, whisky, laundry, no watches and off to bed for a proper full night's sleep.
Saturday, today, is a bit of a work day. Dinghy off the fore deck. Get the straps set up (where was that obvious, easy to remember place I put them?) and hoist the dinghy onto the davits. Remove and flake the storm jib. Remove the inner fore stay. Give the boat a thorough wash down absolutely everywhere. There was damp salt on and in every where on deck - every bit of stainless and hatches and windows and rope and solar panels and gel coat areas. Then shopping to resupply in anticipation of Jackie and Judy's arrival.
By the way, we never used the storm jib. On the last day at sea proper, approaching and rounding Cape Farewell we were hit by winds in their 30's and gusting into the 40's. If we had anticipated it better and in time, the storm jib would have been good. Nevertheless, as we reduced and finally completely furled the main and just had a whisker of a head sail we were quite under control. Storm jib packed up in its bag:
So what do we do when there are no watches to be on or to be off? Well, we do not look at waves. We do this sort of thing:
and 
And then we have visitors - we do not have visitors when we have watches. Surprise visitors Lars and Peter, we've never seen them before, bring us a gift of a lovely white wine:
And the best treat, when we do not have watches, is that Jackie and Judy arrive. Their arrival is a very special treat. Here we are, after dinner at a very nice Spanish restaurant, having a drink in the cockpit late in the evening:
and they bear very special gifts:
and we still do not look at waves when there are no watches.
