On Sunday, we went to the Cobham Oval pitch to watch the Otago Volts vs the Northern Knights in a one day cricket match (50 overs). The bowlers, batters, silly ins, silly outs, wickets, stumps, gillies, extras and maidens were all part of the excitement on a beautiful day. You bring your own chairs or blankets and set up comfortably in the grass around the oval to watch the action...and try to understand all the intricacies of the game. This is an unusual game because one side plays defense for the first half of the match and the other plays offense and then they switch. So one team bowls (or what is like pitching) to the other team who bats. The scores get quite high and we watched one Volt score a century (100 runs). The crowd did the polite clap when he reached that mark. It was an interesting afternoon (we'll admit to not staying for the whole game) and we it enjoyed it with some friends. Alison who is British had a better understanding of the game than most of us, so she did a lot of explaining as did some of the folks sitting around us. We have been watching local cricket whenever we can on our cruise – having seen our first match in the Caribbean. Plus we got excited about it during last year's Cricket World Cup when the New Zealand Black Caps were making their way into the finals. Michael's dad was also a fan and we still have the several page explainer he wrote for us on the game.
The mechanic has also been aboard a few more times and he and Michael are getting projects done. "Carl" is getting some tender loving care and lots of small fixes. Still waiting for the results of the blood work test (oil analysis).
Reconnected with some old friends Barbara and Dennis from "LandFall" who went and got married while away – congrats to them. It was a fun evening catching up with them again.
Ula, a Pacific Category 4 cyclone visited Fiji and some of Vanuatu and looked like it was heading for New Zealand. But, lucky for us, it took a turn and just brought some rain – and not even that much here in Whangarei. It did make for a cloudy, grim day though.
Once the engine is all sorted, we'll start making our way towards the Hauraki gulf and Auckland. Good luck to all the "powerball"players in the states. If you win a billion dollars, a nice donation to the Astarte cruising fund would be welcome!
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At 1/10/2016 11:01 PM (utc) S/V Astarte was located at 35°43.54'S 174°19.74'E
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