Our friend Noa kindly lent us her aging small jeep for a couple of weeks. She was off sailing to some remote islands between Stewart Island and Antarctica with a bunch of scientists, some Petri dishes and an expectation of having to hove to in 70 knot winds.

She proudly calls the car ‘Shit Box’ and I can confirm it’s an appropriate name. But this go kart is also massively fun to drive and has the ABBA ‘Here we go again’ CD, which Dave may possibly be tiring of now. Shit Box has seen us right the last few days with runs to hardware stores, trips to the beach and helping move our sails around.

Yesterday after a few delays, with the help of a mobile crane, a few blokes in high viz vests and a break in the wind, we were able to get the newly rigged mast standing upright and proud again.

It feels like it been a bit of a quest to get to this point. Not as long as completing on our house sale for which we EVENTUALLY have a completion date. The thing about replacing all the standing rigging is it is one of those jobs which looks exactly the same as it did before. Replacing canvas work or upholstery is visually rewarding.

I’m not imagining that we’ll do this job again in our ownership of Grace. It is one of the major overhaul jobs that you can do to your boat. It offers peace of mind, knowing that the stainless steel wires holding your mast up are new and not hiding any corrosion.  And it also keeps the insurance company happy.

Getting the mast up is not the whole job. Dave is currently reconnecting all the wires that run through the mast that provide power to various instruments. Booms need reinstalling. The sails need to be put back on, likewise the running rigging (ropes). I’ve done odd bits of sewing maintenance on the cockpit tent.

Noa is now back from her southern ocean jaunt. She had 10 days at sea and described it as pretty full on. They did manage to get ashore a couple of times which she said was incredible. Penguins just everywhere. And blue cod the size of small children. She told a tale of being on the back of the boat as it was bucking around stupidly as she struggled to bring the fish in. She had an internal dialogue…’Should I save myself or the cod?’

No matter where you are in the world, three B’s bring people together. A barbecue, a few beverages and a bonfire. And as the evening progresses, maybe some singing of dubious quality from most of those participating.

Friends declared an End of Summer party. It’s still 20 degrees in the sun here in Nelson during the day but evenings are now cool, in single digits. There have been two dusting of snow of the tops of the distant hills. But the daytime weather has been stable and bright and sunny. Lovely autumn days.

Getting to their house, probably 3 miles away in a straight line involved…

A.       Going ashore in the dinghy from the mooring, carefully caressing a bowl of food to be shared

B.       Loading our bikes onto the back of a borrowed car

C.      Driving very carefully as the car and the bikes were enduring a somewhat wobbly relationship

D.      Unloading the bikes on arrival

E.        Eating, drinking and socialising

F.        Riding the bikes back in the dark to the dinghy dock (almost exclusively downhill so nice and whizzy whizzy)

G.      Swapping bikes for the dinghy to retrace of wake back to the boat

This morning we’ll need to reverse this travel plan to go and collect the car. Meanwhile Dave is replacing some of the cabinetry in the cupboards. We removed it as part of the rig replacement to check the chain plates.

Our standing rigging is almost to the day 10 years old (the wires that hold up the mast). Our insurance company requires the rig to be less that 10 years old. And it’s generally the industry standard too. We’ve sailed a lot of miles so the whole set up has had lots of use. It looked absolutely fine but gremlins could hide within in the wire, unseen and lurking.

So Grace currently sits on a mooring, mast-less. Much work has been done in the last 3 weeks and by Wednesday, she should be back together again. The boat rocks so much more without the mast on. It’s Sunday morning and lots of ‘fizz boats” (small speed boats) are heading out for a morning’s fishing creating wake. Don’t want to spill the morning cuppa.