Safely into Auckland's Pier 21

Our very pleasant trip south continued with an overnight stop at the little Fairway Bay Marina (35 berths) which sits next to the huge Gulf Harbour Marina (1050 berths). We were made very welcome there and had David and Patricia, who run the fantastic Gulf Harbour Radio weather forecasting radio net, over for coffee. It was lovely to put faces to their very familiar voices.

Fairway Bay Marina

From Fairway Bay we motored the ten miles or so further south to Auckland with flat sea and no wind and Maunie is now snug in an even smaller marina, Pier 21. If you zoom into the Google photo on http://www.yit.co.nz/yacht/maunieofardwall you'll get a great idea of our location; we are within east walking distance of the city (and only a couple of hundred metres from a handful of excellent chandlers and other boat-related businesses). Our next door neighbours in the marina are Colin and Ana on Ithaka and Lisa and Lester on Obsession are across on the opposite pontoon so it's been good to catch up with friends.

We're blessed to have other mates in the area, too, so last night took the ferry across the harbour to Devenport for a great bbq supper with Shona and Malcolm, old friends from the UK who are now based here. It was certainly a bbq with a view:

Malcolm, Rob and Hugo with the asparagus on the bbq! Downtown Auckland in the background.

As sweet as.... A proper Kiwi pudding: Pavlova

So we're nicely settled here for a month and the coming week's plan is to spend mornings on boat jobs (revarnishing worn bits of the interior woodwork is the main task) and afternoons exploring the city and surrounding area. 

The week after that we have Steve and Barbara (who is Shona's younger sister, for those trying to keep track of the social circle) arriving from mid-Wales, along with daughter Amy, who is our Goddaughter and also is sister to Rob who appeared in the bbq photo above (there will be a short test at the end of this). Anyway it'll be great to see them and we hope that the 'one or two little things' that they are bringing for us won't have grown to completely fill their luggage. We're arranged that the warm weather will stay for next week so we can take them sailing out into the islands of the Hauraki Gulf.