It's been ages since I wrote a journal. The boat was pulled and put on the hard in the yard at the end of January. We moved into an apartment near the beach in Mount Maunganui. Jonah has been enrolled in the local primary school. We work on the boat doing a bunch of maintenance stuff while the workmen grind and glass the bow. They have built a new bow platform and will install it this week.

We are in a mad rush now as we are in the final countdown to leave NZ. We are supposed to leave around April 5 and we have so much to do. The boat needs to be cleaned and provisioned. All the stuff from Storage needs to be moved back on the boat, we need to move out of the Apartment and we need to sell the car. Yikes - its a lot. Oh yeah I have to prepare school materials for Jonah to get us through August. I will be manically writing to journals detailing this effort. Can't wait to get back to Fiji - its been fun here but I love the tropics. Sweet as. That's a Kiwi phrase meaning "Cool/Great/Excellent".

I have been "varnishing" all the wood actually I use Cetol which is way easier than varnish. The conditions in the boat yard are so dusty and dirty that varnishing would be a miserable activity. The wood is looking great. I went with the new darker cetol that looks more like varnish. Jordan has been a whirlwind of activity and has completed almost all of our maintenance tasks although there are lots of little things to finish. We have a rebuilt generator and we have great hopes that it will work.

Jonah has been having a great time in school here. He is learning how to read and having lots of fun. After school he hangs out with Victor and Emma from Scafhogg. Annetta has been really great at letting him hang out at their boat while we work in the yard on the boat. I don't like to let Jonah play in the yard - its dirty and dangerous and all his toys are at the apartment. I bought him a scooter to play at the marina with all the other kids on scooters. He has a bike which he uses at the apartment. We are going to take it apart and pack it into a waterproof bag.

In general our material goods seem to have a grown a wee bit but the good ship Queen Jane is amazing in the amount of stuff you can stuff into her. It's remembering where you put it that is the trick! Actually now I know what we really use cruising, what we carry will be really what we use. I had tons of stuff that I never used or could have purchased anywhere. Jonah's toys have been reduced although I have to do a final pass before we move back on the boat.