Hi to everyone! Time to let you know what we have been up to since the last post. Well, as a lot of you know, we were back in the UK for over 4 months over the summer. That was a crazy trip home to catch up with everyone. Here’s a whirlwind snapshot of some of the things we did! In no particular order, cause its all a bit of a distant memory now!
We paid a long overdue visit to the see our eldest son Ethan and his girlfriend Becky in the lovely city of Belfast where they have bought a lovely house together and are living life to the full. Infact, we visited them twice whilst we were back and they looked after us really well!
We were taken all over Belfast; the titanic museum, restaurants, pubs, live music, farmers markets, museums and back at their house we were treated to some of the best lamb roasts I have ever had. Thanks guys!
We celebrated Caleb’s birthday with a trip to the local posh Chinese.
And whilst we are talking about Caleb, we are super proud of him as he starts his officer of the watch training and joins the Merchant Navy to work on huge commercial ships as a bridge officer cadet. Well done mate!
Our youngest son Vinnie kept us super busy driving up and down to Bristol to various events. The first was a film viewing for the end of his degree course at Bristol film school. We had a lovely afternoon and evening with Vinnie and all his course mates, watching the students films and the oscar style awards ceremony and then hitting the town later that evening
Vinnie came back to Nottingham with his girlfriend Ruby to celebrate his 21st birthday. It was a raucous affair!
The next event was a very special day and we were so proud of Vinnie as we celebrated his graduation day with him. Well done mate!
I shot this video of the day
Vinnie and Ruby moved in to a flat together in Bristol to start the next chapter in their lives. We went down to visit for a couple of night and they very kindly put up with us! Thanks and hope you settling in okay guys.
We caught up with lots of our old friends in West Bridgford. It was great to see everyone again! One night, Jane hosted us all at her house for a big party. It was a great night.
We did plenty of travelling around. Our good friends Andy and Jen put us up for a couple of nights at their lovely home outside Leeds. We went for a glorious walk on arguably one of the hottest days of the year!
We took a trip down to Bideford in Devon to see our good friends Charlie and Jen too, and had a lovely weekend of eating and drinking too excess! We met Charlie and Jen when we used to live in Portishead.
On that same trip we also stopped a night in Portishead and caught up with John, our friend we buddy sailed with down the coast of Spain and Portugal all the way to Gibraltar. We went out for a curry and reminisced for the evening. It was great to see you again mate!
We got invited for a lovely weekend away in Monyash in Derbyshire by our great friends Sally and Andrew at their caravan. We had a great time, including a lovely walk in one of my favourite dales, Lathkill Dale.
We saw Sally and Andrew a few times, but here are some pics of night we had at the local pub in East Bridgford, we were joined by Sarah and Steve and their son Ben too.
I managed to bag myself an invite to a long weekend cycling from Calais to Bruges and back with two long time mates, Matt and Paddy. It was an awesome trip, and somehow I managed to keep up with them both. We managed to sample many Belgium beers and had a great trip. The pictures should tell you more! Bruges is well worth a visit.
While I was off enjoying myself in Bruges, Ailsa caught up with her oldest school friends Ian and Rachel for a night out down the local
It was great to catch up with one of our oldest friends Tasha! She hosted us for lunch on several occasions and we talked long in to the evening as well as being introduced to the game Mexican Train, which they proceeded to soundly beat us at. We look forward to the rematch!
I caught up with all the guys from my old band Fat Digester at the Boho Festival just outside East Bridgford and they invited me to play guitar on Funky Muthas. Massive thankyou to Rowan for letting me take his stage and so good to catch up with the guys again!
Talking about live music, we had an amazing Sunday afternoon meeting up with Andy and surprising an old friend Gordz who I hadn’t seen in years. We were well entertained by Gordz and his fantastic family. What a great afternoon!
The last week or so was hard, saying goodbye to everyone, particularly all the family. We said our final farewells to Caleb and Ailsa’s mum Judith.
Thanks to everyone that put up with us on our long trip home, particularly to Judith and Julie, the two mums for looking after us so well! It was a busy few months, and we haven’t mentioned everyone that we managed to see.
After the long week of goodbyes, we made our way down to Heathrow on that depressing bus ride from Nottingham and had a very smooth journey back to New Zealand via Singapore and Sydney arriving on the 21st September. We got back to the boat to find it cold and damp and pretty dreary looking, still sat in the boatyard where we had left her. Getting the diesel heater on helped a little, and Ailsa spent a few days cleaning Azimuth and making her a home again. Meanwhile, I started work on getting her ready to go back in the water. We had three weeks until splash day.
It took pretty much all of that time doing the final touches, including giving her bottom a coat of paint.
Ailsa did all the provisioning for the next few weeks and we prepared ourselves mentally to go back in the water again after 5 months in the boatyard. We managed to sell the car a few days before we left and then finally the big day arrived. We couldn’t have asked for easier conditions with no wind.
Its a nervous moment watching your boat being launched again! But it went really smoothly, and no water came in from the new through hull fittings either. Oh and the engine started without issue too…. always a relief. We motored off down the river and stopped for a few nights at a really nice anchorage called the Nook. The weather had other ideas. Technically it is only just the start of Spring here in NZ, and we were to be hit by two huge low pressure systems over the next few days with not many options to hide out at anchor. We moved down the river and waited it out. For two days the wind blew a hooley! I think it hit 42 knots, which is the most wind we have ever experienced at anchor in all of our years of sailing. Thankfully the anchor held and we came through unscathed. In the pictures below, you wouldn’t know this anchorage was crazy!
Finally the storm passed, and the weather was perfect for a 60 mile sail up the coast from the Whangarei estuary up to the spectacular cruising grounds of the Bay of Islands. We took two days to do the sail with a stop over night at an anchorage on the way. It was champagne sailing, flat seas and Force 4 winds on a beam reach. It reminded us of why we love sailing so much!
So now we are sitting in our first anchorage in the Bay of Islands and its stunning! But that will have to wait until next time…..
By the way a huge thanks to all of you who have purchased my book Sailing Planet Earth. If you feel inclined, please remember to give me a 5 star review on Amazon! Many thanks to those of you who already have.
All the best for now. Dom and Ailsa on Azimuth.