Again another early morning and today was pretty cold and damp so made it hard to drag myself out of my warm sleeping bag. Eventually I did and it was pretty much straight to work, lifting the dinghy out and onto the foredeck then pull the anchor and off we went. The day was overcast, a cold southerly breeze and pretty much just downright miserable. Again we all spent the morning on deck trying to keep moving and keep warm making the chug for a couple of hours further into the sound bound for Havelock Marina. About half way through the last part of the trip we entered the shallow part where we had to follow markers to the marina to save ourselves the embarrassment of ending up high and dry on a sand bank. We followed the markers all the way, sometimes biting fingernails as the depth dropped to somewhere around 3 meters (12ft) and considering we draw 2m (6.5ft) it was a good thing we timed it to go in on high tide. The last part of the journey is spent hugging the shore before the last stretch across to the marina entrance. We pulled into the berth that we were told, I had a perfect docking and we got all tied up only to find that they thought we were temporary visitors so we had to move again to the next pier. So drop the lines, motor out and with a bit of fluffing around got into the berth without much drama. It was then time for Emma to get the shuttle to Picton and collect my car while Roe and I had a good clean up and get Dulcinea ready for a few weeks sitting on her own. When Emma returned with the car we pretty much loaded it up, jumped in the car and took off bound for Christchurch.
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