Making the most of a beautiful day

Re-posting since none of the photos came through - urgh, Google! What are you doing to me? When Picasa Web got shut down by Google and replaced by Google Plus and Google Photos its been so much harder for us bloggers. Hopefully I've sorted it out, but we shall see...

On Saturday we took the boat out for a few hours to fish and generally enjoy the harbour and the sunshine. Jef spent all morning/early afternoon cleaning the boat – Kien and I are so grateful! We motored out to a spot across the harbour where we saw some other fishing boats somewhere around Stanley Bay. We anchored up for a few hours and dropped the line over. It was a bit choppy out there, but not too bad. Kien was so excited - he's been saying he wants to catch his own fish on his own rod, because the last time he had something on his line the rod snapped.

We had a pleasant afternoon on the water, and as the sun was setting we decided to come back into the marina before it got dark. Auckland is so beautiful from this vantage point.

Coming in to Westhaven marina to our berth is very pretty, especially at sunset.

We are going to make the most of these beautiful weekends out on the harbour while we still can, and very soon we will be putting Cariere on the market. With our limited time it is hard to justify having a 28ft yacht and paying for a marina berth to keep it in when we can hardly use it. So I'll savour these times.

The fishing trip

2 weeks of school holidays and all routines go out the window! But we are back, and I'm reining this little dude in again. We are back to the points system for earning screen time - and here's his story, which is worth 3 whole points (and I'm being really generous by making a point worth 15 mins instead of 10 minutes set last term).

About last (last) weekend

Oh, are we already into a new week? Already? I still haven't quite caught my breath yet after last (last) weekend, and last weekend just gone. They go so quickly, don't they?

So here's what we got up to last (last) weekend. It all started on Saturday with a visit to the Auckland Beekeepers Club apiary to see the hives being opened and the honey extraction process.



Kien and I have watched this process many times on youtube, so it was really nice to be able to see it for real.





We are all pretty excited to get ourselves a hive which we are going to put onto our roof. Urban beekeeping is such an exciting prospect. I'm wanting to enrol in a course (night classes) in May to learn all about hive management and the beekeeping laws etc.

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On Sunday we went to the Stardome Observatory - specifically to see rocket launches. We thought they were going to launch real rockets, but alas they were just water rockets (which Jef has already got/done/rigged up at home). But it was still a good outing. We saw a cool show about our solar system, and we looked through the solar telescope to see the sun spots. Kien ran around, collected cicada skins, and climbed trees while watching the water rockets propelling up into the air.



We even found a live cicada, which we suspect is ready to shed its outer layer since it was so placid and even let us touch it.



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We then went home to grab a few things and headed out on the yacht to the deep fishing hole near Stanley Bay.





I caught a couple of small snappers which we released, but other than that there was no fresh fish for dinner. It was fun to be out there on such a beautiful day, and the cityscape was beautiful from our vantage point.



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Back on dry land in the early evening, and it was time to head off to the Auckland Lantern festival.



Kien loved the dragon dance.



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That's all folks - except during that weekend I also converted part of our berm out front into a vegetable patch.



Yay, looking forward to beets, onions, kale, silverbeet, spinach and bok choy over the coming weeks/months.

Beautiful sunset at Devonport

So yesterday after we got home from Kien's swimming lesson we headed off to Devonport Wharf for a spot of fishing. We were hungry for some fresh mackerel.

Whilst here we witnessed the most amazing sunset.



When the sun had dipped below the horizon the sky was even more spectacular.





It was a fabulous summer evening of fishing, and all the more worthwhile with Jef catching 2 mackerels. Jef BBQed his, and I baked mine. Delicious!