Saturday 31 December New Year's Eve in Russell

The town councils of Paihia and Russell are sponsoring a firework display at midnight tonight. The forecast is for still more rain but Dorothy (long time cruiser and resident of Opua) assured the Cruisers Net this morning the rain usually stops in time for the display. Usually being the key word.



Fireworks over Paihia

 We got to Russell early in the week to stake a claim for best position to view the fireworks in the Bay and Chrisandaver Dream joined us yesterday. Being cautious of peaking too early and falling asleep before midnight Chris and Dave waited until the late hour of 8.30pm to come over to us. In the tropics it would be dark by now and this is the time we'd be thinking of going home and going to bed. Not us crazy bein's tonight. We sat, chatted, nibbled on nibbly bits and had a sip of wine and suddenly it was the last five minutes of the year.
A dash up top into the wet but not raining (Dorothy's prophecy did come to pass) night and lo the sky did light up with a myriad of twinkling lights. We accompanied the display with the now compulsory oohs and aahs and a glass of sparkling wine.
Earlier in the day David and I had reviewed our 2011; another fantastic year made so by the people we met, both new cruiser friends who will be friends for life and local people in the places we visited, and the new countries we travelled to, Fiji, Vanuatu and New Caledonia. Jackster has looked after us well in return for us taking care of her with plenty of new upgrades added in NZ early in the year. At the vote it was a unanimous agreement the new improved, bigger bimini was the best and most valuable improvement giving us a dry cockpit in rain, warmer in winds and better visibility. All we ask now is for 2012 to be as good.
Happy New Year to all our families, friends and blog readers.