About the time we showed the first two in and finished introductions, the third guy relayed a thumbs up through the second, who announced to us that we had we had passed the biofouling inspection. What?! This surprised us somewhat because, just two days before, Maryanne had finally received a rejection in response to her latest tranche of supporting evidence following her last comprehensive dive/photo shoot in Tonga. Apparently, there was some crevice they couldn't quite make out, we had re-checked and cleaned the hulls since then, but they didn't know that. Now we were given the all-clear, just like that.
Maryanne had worked so hard to jump through all the necessary hoops toward compliance (I helped with some of the actual cleaning, but she did all the photography and paperwork). I got a brief flashback to our interview for her green card in the U.S. The guy looked at us and after about a minute, declared us a Real Couple. No, there would be no need for Maryanne to crack open the veritable filing cabinet of carefully curated evidence she had brought along in support of our case. Have a nice day. Next!
I had to pull her away to keep her from using this particular opportunity to show off her advanced administrative skills, thus giving the guy a chance to rethink his decision. Today, even though it must have rankled her a bit, she took the news with an appropriate sigh of relief and then directed her attention to fulfilling the requests of the officials before her. I, as always, tried my best to stay out of the way, be helpful when asked to do things, like show someone to an engine compartment, and sign my name where directed so that I will be the one to blame when it all goes wrong. We have a system...
Once we were declared to be fully admitted into the country, we were finally allowed to breech the chain-link fence by pushing a gap in the end, and then step into the world at large.
We are officially cleared into New Zealand
Marsden Cove is nice, in a curated sort of way. When we first saw it in 2017, it was still fairly new, with spindly trees and plots of damp dirt where sod would soon be put down. Now it has a bit more of a filled-in look, but it still has the feel of being somewhat remote, at least by road. It is less like a village or a town than a mini outlet-mall surrounded by custom homes. There's a couple of nice restaurants, a couple of cafes, a boating store, a gas station, a liquor store, and a medium-sized grocery store, all spread out amongst enough big patches of grass to make doing the rounds between them seem a little less than convenient if that's your goal. Otherwise, the many meandering walking/jogging paths make it a nice place for a stroll to those not trying to be engaged in commerce. Even the quiet streets past the big houses make for nice, de facto places for a sunset amble.
Stingrays swim in the shallows of the network of new-build waterfront properties where most of the homes have private docks so they don't need to worry over any marina dues
We saw all we could see and then even supplemented our exploration with a longish walk to the nearest beach through a zone of what appeared to be baches that were a bit more modest than the jillion-dollar homes surrounding the marina basin.
The nearby beach (Marsden Cove Reserve) was nice to visit, especially at low tide (a chance to stretch our legs after our passage)
Having seen pretty much all that Marsden has to offer, tourist-wise, and feeling it a little too remote to be useful (without a car), we moved all way up to the head of navigation for the Hatea river, right in the middle of the city of Whangārei.
A calm motor up the river to the Town Basin Marina (right in the center of things so all is an easy walk)
We really like Whangārei. It's not amazing, per se, but it's quiet and pleasant and peaceful and walkable. It has just enough bustle to feel interesting on evening walks along the river near the marina. It's the first real place we ever saw in New Zealand and was a great introduction to the country's laid-back civility, friendliness, and comeliness. It has all the major stores we're likely to need (giant hardware stores, supermarkets, etc). It's New Zealands most northerly city (a city being any community with a population of over 50,000, Whangarei has 56,000). It's kind of an average town by New Zealand standards, but their average is higher than most. With the Hatea River waterfront it is picturesque and the local council have filled it with walkable loop-trails and fun art works; its main shopping area has a good pedestrian only section too.
Alas, we weren't here entirely, or even predominantly, for the fun. With the big haulout looming in our near future, we were primarily in the center of town for the purpose of starting several of those job balls rolling. We bought flooring and yard supplies and had tradies come over to look at the work and give estimates. Jobs were scheduled and coordinated until we at least had a preliminary plan for our first few days out of the water, and (of course) replenishing our provisions.
Between, we made a point of enjoying the local pubs and restaurants at an above-average frequency, just in case we don't make it through the coming haul-out, I guess. There are no restaurants within easy walking distance from the boatyard. We even made it to the newly-opened Hundertwasser Art Center/Museum. It was in the late planning stages when we last left. Now it's a full-scale, multistory building that looks like something Dr. Seuss drew into a scene of the Hatea waterfront.
Friedrich Hundertwasser was an interesting and indisputably strange guy, with more than a few strange ideas. One of his most notable ones was that straight lines and flat spaces were bad, "cowardly drawn with a rule, without thought or feeling". This from a man who has never apparently tripped on a ruck in a rug or been anywhere near the Great Plains.
I must say that I like his designs, with their curving lines and their bold uses of bright colors. He does, however, seem like someone who might have been annoying to his acolytes. He refused to use plans to build anything. If something was mid-construction and he didn't like it, he would have it torn down and redo it all over. That may at least partly explain why the three-story museum in Whangārei, which was built after his death, but with the same philosophy, ultimately cost twenty million dollars to complete. In archived films shown in the museum, he seems to me to be trying way too hard to project an image of the eccentric genius artist, whose every whim must be accommodated in the name of artistic posterity. Like I said, he designed some neat stuff and he had some good ideas about conservation and sustainability, but I'm not sure I would want to be buying a plot of land adjacent to his. That said, the café in the museum is an amazing restaurant in its own right and well worth a visit. He made New Zealand his second home (originally coming from Austria), and they happily adopted him as one of their own.
After one last bike ride through the pretty parkland of the Hatea River Loop, we loaded them aboard and made a short trip down the river to Norsand Boatyard, where we plan to spend the next few weeks.
A mix of chores, fun and fresh provisions at last; we got to eat out, and made a point to take a tour of the Hundertwasser Art Centre/Museum (which hadn't been open when we last were here)
Anchorage location >> On google maps
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