Going overseas

Preparing to go overseas.
The week in Nelson went well. I had organised for three young coaches to train our team in Nelson. This was a great success with both the pupils and instructors having a great time for the first three days. After that I took the team for training until Sunday. Teams racing is an aspect of yacht racing that I have not been familiar with, and still do not particularly like! 12 and 13 is also too young to cope with the nuances of sailing fast and intense tactics. The parents are still at it!
I returned to Auckland on Monday and spent that night at Phil and Erin’s. After some grandparent time with Zoe we drove down to Whangamata and proceeded to take stuff out of the storage room and put it in the ceiling storage area. This will make the room useable. The town was filling up with hot rods and people for the “Beach Hop” on the weekend.
On Friday we drove up to the big smoke where I had arranged to do the rum race on Cavatina. This is the Van der Stadt 34 that I will be sailing on to Tonga in August We did not do very well, but the boat is set up for cruising not racing and will be a very comfortable vessel to travel to the islands.
Saturday morning we did some washing and errands. After lunching with Stru and Debs we did some shopping and headed back down to Whanga. Before we left on the Friday we had told the RSA that we did not mind if they directed some motor homes to stay in our section. When we pulled in there were five motorhomes parked on our property! As instructed they had left room for us to park in our usual spot, and it was good to make the acquaintance of some other vanners.
After dinner we went in to the RSA where the Beach Hop rock and roll dance was in full swing. We stayed until 12.30 really enjoying the music and dancing from our era! When we got back to the bus we watched America’s cup for a couple of hours. Sunday was very slow. The motor homes left about 10 and Ron and Maureen arrived for lunch at about 1.
We are now packing for the trip to Europe on Friday. I will try not to take more than is necessary this trip although I have to taske wet weather gear and a life jacket. I have bought anew camera – 7.1 megapixels – so the quality of the pictures on this blog should improve.
Frank and Rita are coming to check out our estate today so I must get this away.
We arrive back from Europe on May 29th, so there won't be any blogs before then