Today we spent a beautiful morning sailing around Lyttleton Harbor. Lyttleton is a port town just southeast of Christchurch. There are three ways to get to Lyttleton: Sail in from the Pacific Ocean, drive over a windy mountainous road, or drive through the tunnel connecting it to Christchurch. We chose the tunnel. Very cool! It's about a mile and a half and it's a pretty nifty piece of engineering.

The sailboat was a small wooden boat that was nearly 100 years old and built from New Zealand Kauri wood. This is the equivalent to our Redwood trees in scale and resistance to decay. We had a crew of 1 since none of us are really experienced sailors. Remember our escapades in Rarotonga at the sailing club (10-31-05) The day was perfect for sailing. A 10 knot wind blowing from the south-east as we were sailing in that direction so we had nice long slow tacks back and forth across the bay heading towards the mouth and out to open ocean. We never made it to the open water, but just as well since the weather started to turn just after we got back to port.

All in all, it was the exact day we were looking for. Scott added to his already pink, peeling skin, and Val & I just got a shade darker from the extra time in the sun:) Check out the photos for an idea of the day.

This was Scott's last full day here, so we decided to have a quiet dinner and just played some cards. Tomorrow I'll update the home page with a complete recap of his time here.

Until then, happy trails,

Eric & Val