On November 24^th, New Paige was hauled out of the water (on the hard).  What a mess!!!  This was our opportunity to get a lot of work done.   All boat owners are very conscious of their bottoms (no pun intended) and getting on the hard is a regular maintenance item (regular being once per year if lucky).  The fuel and performance of your boat is directly linked to a clean bottom.  We have not had New Paige out of the water since we left California so it was time.  As you can see from the props, we had a lot of growth.  Off they came, to the prop shop for cleanup.  They were cleaned, repitched (the blades shape were changed slightly), and prop speeded (a coating that keeps the growth off).  In taking off the props, Roger noticed some wear on the port shaft bearing (left side of the boat), the bearing that the shaft spins in wore out.  This is quite an unusual thing to happen.  Luckily our friends, Scott & Mary had a spare and we were able to replace it quickly (or have one Fed Ex’ed from the US).  Roger also took off the TRAC stabilizers (keeps the boat from rolling side-side) and changed zincs (protects underwater components).  We also took the opportunity to paint the anchor chain.  Off came 400′ of 1/2” chain which we spread out on the cement and I repainted the 50’ & 100’ marks.  This will really help when we anchor and the chain is free falling into the water to see how much has gone over.  400’ of 1/2” weighs 1200 lbs. so when it free falls it falls fast.  We stayed on board while we were out of the water and that certainly has its challenges.  The most important one being how full your holding tanks are getting, yuck!!!

I have been swimming three times a week at the local pool and the gals that I do an aqua jogging class with came over for “High Tea and Bubbly.”  Karen wrote a book on the Boulder Bank, “Rolling Stones” and we had a small celebration for the launch of the book.  Any excuse is a good excuse for a drink.  I really enjoyed my pool time and these ladies have become good friends.  I will miss them when we leave NZ.

Paige and her friends Grace and Meg stilt walked in the local Christmas parade on December 6th and by the time they finished the parade it started to rain hard.  Oh well, they had fun anyway.

We finally got our new addition to the Allard family.  “Bella” arrived on December 12th quite by surprise.  We made arrangements with Carol (the breeder) to fly to Nelson with the dog.  It was more economical for her to come to us than for us to go to her.  We told Paige that her and Roger would fly to Auckland to get the dog so off we went to the airport.  I kept Paige busy while Roger met Carol and Bella.  When it was time to board the flight, Paige walked by Carol and surprise there she was!  This past week has been interesting, we’ve had some late nights, messes on the floor and Bella has become Queen of the boat.  By the way, Bella is a Yorkshire Terrier.

Time to get ready for Christmas…  until next time!

Joan