It has taken several weeks of deliberation to come to the decision that its time to sell Imagine.
Sailing the Pacific is getting harder as we get older. It’s time to give it up before I have a major injury and can’t do anything. Although the thought had been to give up blue water sailing and stick to sailing the eastern coast of Australia. I think it’s a good time to give up the sea and explore Australia by land.
I will finish off the planned maintenance and then put her up for sail. It has been great fun while it lasted, but it’s now time for a new adventure.
Thank you all for your support and reading about our travels. There may be a new blog about my 4×4 exploration of Australia.

Saturday was a good days sailing. Again it was calm sea and light winds. Last night was a different story. We were plagued by squalls. This meant the sea conditions got rough and the wind constantly changed direction and speed.
Now that day has broken, we hopefully have seen the last of the squalls for a while. At the moment the sky is overcast with a 20kt wind. This is pushing us along at 8kts. Which means we should reach the bay of islands late Tuseday afternoon.

Saturday and the beginning of day four. Day three the sea was calm with less than a metre of swell. It was a clear day with a lite 17kts wind.
Overnight the wind went up and down causing us to do a few sail changes. We are sailing into the middle of a high, meaning no wind. This morning the wind has dropped to 8kts. Imagine needs a minimum of 10kts of wind to move her 27 tons. So we are presently running with the headsail, staysail, mainsail, mizzen and motor.

As we left Fiji through the Navula Passage the wind started at 5kts off starboard, by the time we got out of the passage the wind had swung around to 27kts off our port. The wind has stayed on our port side all the way so far. The Sea was very messy as the ocean comes up from 2000m deep to only metres deep off the reef. It took us a couple of hours to get to where the swell had settled down.
We have the main sail reefed to number 2 and have been using the staysail overnight and most of today. The wind has finally dropped to 15kts and we have put out the headsail. We are making good time, averaging 6.5kts. They are predicting the wind will stay like this over night. We will see.

Thursday morning after checking the weather (25kt south east winds and rain of the next 10 days) we decided to leave Wallis and sail to Fiji. It took 1and 3/4 hours to get back around the island to the main wharf and customs. By the time we had cleared customs and waited for the police to do their bit as immigration officers it was 11.00.

We hauled anchor and headed to the pass in the reef. Another hour long trip. We reached the pass it was 12.00 and low tide. This made it easy to get out of the atoll and into the deep blue ocean.
The first day as usual was good sailing making good time. By nightfall there were squalls on the horizon. These squalls dropped our speed down from 7.5kts to sometimes 3kts.

Daybreak and the squalls were still causing problems with winds gusting up to 30kts, pushing us slightly off course. This has continued all day. The south easterly winds haven’t appeared.
It’s now dusk and we have reefed down. We will see what the night brings.

Back in the water on Monday, Tuesday slept, Wednesday went shopping and Thursday Lydia arrived. Lydia has been on Imagine several times before, this time with her engineering background she came to help remove the old steering system and install the new hydraulic system.
Thursday night we relaxed, chatted and played cards. This morning Lydia and I started. First the morning swim before breakfast. We then unbolted piece by piece the old steering system. Now we have no steering. This afternoon we measured up brackets for the new system. Tomorrow we will start to make them. B continued with the painting and then cleaning up our mess. None of it was easy as the northerly swell came in the bay and rocked Imagine all day.

We are back in the water! Ten days of hard work and Imagine is back in the water and looking great. Hull is antifouled below the water, above waterline is a nice clean white. The rubrail is repaired and the brass strip is shiny. The anchor chain has been replaced. We are just waiting for the new Gipsy (cog to match the chain) so we can use the new chain. The startermotor and Volvo electronics have been replaced (the motor starts now). More of the toe rail has been finished and the rear ladder glistens.

We had ten days of hot weather while we worked on her and today it’s raining.At least the rain has given us a chance to rest before we start replacing the steering system and keep going with painting and refit…so much more to do! ( B thinks that the “all done title is not quite appropriate)

Another early morning start. We had taken the brass strips off the rubrail yesterday, and B began sanding and cleaning it, so today she kept ongoing with that.I epoxyed into position the new transducer for the forward facing sonar. I had just finished when B found a surprise. Part of the rubrail was rotten. This ment a trip to the hardware store for some timber to rebuild it. It took most of the day but we cut out the 2.4m of rot, finish sanding and treat all the rail with wood restore product. On top of it it was a hot day with no wind and we had no option but having a cold shower middle of the day to cool down and keep working. Sometimes B had no choice to play contortionist to reach the rubrail and Andrew had to keep balance as he was most of the day on top of the ladder.

The warm water trickled down my back as I stood under the shower, not worrying about how much water I was using. Just letting the water refresh my aching body. It was the first time in quite a while that we were able to have a long hot shower. The marina facilities were nice and clean and a welcome necessity at the end of the first day on the hard.

We had Imagine lifted out of the water yesterday to spend 10 days on the hard stand. We have lots to do and today we got stuck into it. B started sanding the rubrail ready for painting. While I removed the damaged transducer and cleaned the hull ready for the new one.

By lunch time it was raining so we both started scrapping the remaining barnacles off the hull. We ended the day with me removing some of the name Imagine from the hull to make it easier to paint the white hull. B removed the skirt from the back of Imagine.

As we couldn’t do much work on Imagine we decided to go for a sail. I jump started the engine and we hauled anchor. It was a nice breeze and we sailed to Motohe Island where we had lunch. A bit swelly there so, we went across to Islington Bay on Rangitoto Island. This is where we spent the night along with thirty other boats.The wind was blowing 25 knots and the rain made us appreciate even more our sheltered cockpit.
It has been raining most of the day so we have just been doing things inside. When I went to start the engine to charge the batteries, it wouldn’t jump start. After a lot of work I traced the problem to the starter motor. Jump starting the battery it the last few days increased the current to the starter motor and it worked, but today even the extra current wouldn’t turn the starter motor.
While I was working on the engine, B attacked the wood cupboard and my tool draw. Now the wood is sorted into sizes and my tools are all neatly laid out. It looks wonderful. I wonder how long they will stay like that? From now on I have to ask permission to access my tools and make sure I put them back at the same place hahaha…Who said that we are living the dream life?
The rain has stopped just long enough to give us a beautiful sunset.