Up this morning to discover that the hostel bar has a breakfast menu so after a good feed and the all important coffee, we set of to explore the waterfront.

With excellent timing we found the sail NZ booth just in time for the 10am sailing. We were crewing on an America's cup racing yacht.

Once out in the bay we hoisted sail using winches called grinders - very hard work - and were off.

Great to be sailing again feeling the boat heel over and the wind blowing in my face.

Andrew steered under the harbour bridge.

It really looked like the mast was going to hit the bridge but we through safely.

Later I had a turn at the wheel and seemed to do reasonably well.

It was great to steer the boat, reacting to changes in wind just seems to come naturally to me.

There was also a mad Chinese bloke on board, who I felt sure would go OB at some point as he seemed determined to climb and jump everywhere and sit as close to the edge as he could.

After our sailing we had a walk round the harbour and had lunch. The sailing experience seems to have given Andrew an appetite as he ate what looked like a whole lamb. We also met a chap from Coventry University - it's a small world.

We then continued our nautical theme with a trip to the maritime museum. I was highly interested in the exploits of various Kiwi nautical adventurers - but Andrew complained that I was spending too long reading about them. Maybe he was concerned that it would give me some ideas and I would want to do our next round the world trip in a kayak or yacht - now there's an idea!

After that it was back to the hostel for a rest. The hostel meal this evening was chilli con carne with rice, with the chilli looking suspiciously similar to what we had with the nachos the night before.

We then headed to a couple of bars in town. The second one we went to seemed to be a cross between an Austrian and an English bar. It had wood panelling and wood tables with an open fire and lots of cricket memorabilia hanging on the walls. There was also a large stack of Jagermeister behind the bar. We had a drink in the hostel bar before retiring to bed. The barman was concocting new cocktails one of which Andrew tried and it got named JW after me.

Day 15    Day 17