We are now legally in New Zealand. The complex and onerous procedures we’ve all read about are applied by thoughtful people with a nod to common sense - which means that all our preparation was greatly appreciated and we flew through the paperwork. We lost a few food items which we knew we would and had fished out for the guy. Mostly things that could grow (eg. popcorn) and fresh meat. Suprisingly all dairy was fine, as were our tins of fish and meat. We also lost our fresh fruit and vegetables - of which we were very low anyway.

We’re now in the marina, which has more complex and arcane rules. For instance, to protect the countless thousands of people who die from poorly installed shore power installations (or, more accurately, the zero people who die), we have to get a ‘Warrant of Fitness’ certificate. Its issued by an electrician who comes up periodically from Whangarei to do the work (and charges NZ$130 for the privilege, cash only). As far as I can tell, only New Zealand and Australia have this rule. Maybe New Zealand and Australian boat builders do such a shoddy job that this is uniquely required here? Because no-where else in the world that we’ve been requires it and I don’t recall an epidemic of death-by-shorepower news articles.

So that was the pacific crossing. I’ll do a post summarising a few things that could be interesting. For now, its catching up on sleep time ;)