Stir Crazy – Opua, NZ

Here comes the rain again...
Here comes the rain again…

We’ve been ready to leave NZ for the past two weeks, but the weather gods must be having too much fun messing with our heads. Just when we think there’s a window opening up, it gets slammed on our fingers. Ouch!

So here we sit bouncing around in the anchorage in Opua, watching the systems come through like freight trains and trying not to go stir crazy. We’re regular customers of the Opua café, and the two chandleries and the corner store, but other than that there’s not a lot to do here. We can’t even go to the outer anchorages in the bay as we need wifi to do the daily weather check.

Meanwhile, like Melbourne, New Zealand is giving us four seasons in one day, every day –

morning sun and early fog
morning sun and early fog
Then more rain...
Then more rain…
then gorgeous sunshine...
then gorgeous sunshine…
And a bit of fog to make it interesting...
And a bit of fog to make it interesting…
And lots of rainbows...
And lots of rainbows…

Toucan is doing her best to keep the wait interesting. Two days ago the watermaker lost pressure and stopped producing. Without it we’d be stuffed in Fiji, so Bruce spent a long time checking all the fittings and pumps and water flow. Stymied, we managed to find Rick from Open Ocean, who’s a great guy with a lot of knowledge of all things watermaker-y, so he came out and disassembled most of it, taking it back to the workshop to bench-test. Yesterday he came back with the fix – the high and low pressure valves were all gummed up after many years of use, and needed replacing. Hey Presto it works! So yesterday afternoon we made water for 3 hours, only to discover that a) the tank level indicator hadn’t moved at all and b) we now couldn’t turn the damn thing off. The answer to problem b) seems to be the wiring to the relay switch which controls the on/off switch, so Rick will need to pay us another visit on Monday. And then we discovered the answer to problem a) – when we were on the hardstand we had some re-glassing done in the anchor locker, and the guys working on it must have dislodged the hose that connects the watermaker to the water tank. So we just spent 3 hours putting nice fresh water into the anchor locker. Sigh. At least the anchor chain will be clean.

Our best guestimate for departure is now Thursday 2nd June, but who knows? I can hear the weather gods chuckling….

It's a nice view when the sun's shining
It’s a nice view when the sun’s shining

2 Replies to “Stir Crazy – Opua, NZ”

  1. Dear Di and Bruce,

    David and I have loved reading the blog of your journeys from the States to New Zealand and were very frustrated that we couldn’t meet up in St. Martin when we were there more or less at the same time as you.

    I think that you should publish your experiences; they are very interesting and entertaining!

    1. Thanks Sue! Yes, so sorry we didn’t get to meet up – I’m sure there’ll be another opportunity somewhere in our travels 🙂

Leave a Reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *

This site uses Akismet to reduce spam. Learn how your comment data is processed.