We're way up north along the east coast right now in a tiny place called Whangaroa Harbor. The town is a pier, a store and a cafe. If you drive past it, the road becomes gravel and it's barely passable. We've come up here to stay at a small campground where the owner runs dive trips out to the wreck of the Rainbow Warrior. There are plenty of other dive operators further south with more polished operations, but this feels good. The guy has been a diver for 25 years and seems to know the area very well. His boat is not huge, but pretty quick and should be OK to dive from. He rents and sells gear and has some pretty nice stuff. I usually use equipment as a barometer of a dive operation. If the gear is new and well maintained, I get a certain comfort level with that.

Our friend Marc that we met on Rarotonga is supposed to be coming up here tonight so we can all dive tomorrow. He just finished his Divemaster course but this is cold water, not the tropics. It will be fun to watch him in a full wetsuit and over 30 lbs. of weight.

Last night we met a couple from Half Moon Bay California. A retired school teacher and his wife. They have taken 3 trips around the world, and recently bought a house here in New Zealand. They spend about 3 months here every year. They gave us some contacts in Bali, Indonesia which we intend to follow up on. They have stayed there several times and it sounds just like our kind of place. It is run by a couple of university instructors that are also artists. It's in a very traditional village and the people there adopt you like family when you stay there. The timing could not have been more perfect. We are just starting to think about the time in SE Asia since we can't get into Australia in February until we have figured out where we're going afterwards. We need to have an onward ticket before they will issue us a Visa. We are thinking now that we will fly into Bali, stay for a while, then fly to Singapore. Anyway, it's a few months away, but we will likely book our Bali tickets soon so the timing was great!

We are heading to Paihia (pi-hee-a) tomorrow and will be there until the 26th when we head back to Auckland to pick up Scott Fox. We plan to sit and drink tequila with him in the parking lot of the airport at 6:00 am when he arrives. Welcome to our world Scott:) Actually, we'll do a small shot and then let him sleep since he will have been traveling for about 36 hours by the time he arrives. We do have a few wild days planned for him when he first gets here, but I'll fill you in on those events after they happen!

I'm still hoping to get some diving in Poor Knights Islands done before we head south, but it will depend on weather and time. Diving on Christmas day is definitely an option for me. You all know who is the 'Grinch' in this family:)

Well, time to get dinner started. Pasta this evening. I'm getting the hang of cooking in a campervan. Limited space for storage and working, but nothing a few glasses of red wine can't cure!

Until next time,

Eric & Val