Going

A week brings us round trip from Whangarei Heads to Great Barrier Island and back, and back from our serendipitous holiday from internet access.

We compared notes on favorite parts of 2013 at dinner today, and we had quite a list to choose from.  Alisa was keen on Minerva Reef and Tonga, with the passages in and out of Minerva making her "least favorite" list.  The Aucklands were my fave for the year past, with a nod to Port Davey, where we started the year off.

Hauraki Gulf

Last day of 2013

It's all completely hectic, of course - keeping the boat up, and sailing the damn thing all over the place ("Just because we do this all the time, doesn't mean it's easy," I said to Alisa today), and raising the boys and keeping my career in science alive at a level where I can make reasonably useful contributions in my field and pay the bills.  If you're a reader, you know that all this regularly gives us gray hairs.

But looking back on a year like the one we just had is certainly enough to make me glad that we're still going.  As routine as this sort of life as might have become for us, it still adds up to something very rewarding when we take a moment to think about it…

Happy 2014, from Galactic.