Above is yesterday’s dawn.  Here is today’s. 

        Both pictures taken from THE HAWKE OF TUONELA on her mooring facing east at about 7:30 a.m.  Dawns are late because New Zealand is on the western edge of the GMT +12 time zone--in fact most of the South Island is geographically in GMT +11--and the country has extended  and we are still on summer time.

        The ketch, whose anchor light is shining in the top photograph, is one of a dozen cruising boats anchored between the mooring fields.

        Today’s fog soon burned away, and the morning became sunny, the harbor smooth.  A front with some wind is predicted for tomorrow, so although I didn’t much feel like it, I took advantage of the favorable conditions and got in the dinghy and touched up the topsides.  There is a balance here of working early before wind comes up, but late enough so that the sun can dry the dew from the hull. 

        This afternoon we have ten knots of wind against tide and THE HAWKE OF TUONELA is in constant motion.

        I have still to touch up the white hawk cove stripe, and then polish the hull for the first time since I painted it three years ago.  I bought polish today.

        My new solar regulator, a Blue Sky Energy Solar Boost 2000E, is effective.  With it’s technology, which independent sources verify does boost solar panel charging, and my new replacement solar panel, I now even in partially cloudy conditions have excess capacity.

        On the mooring my only electricity usage is this computer and the music system.  Cabin lights are only on briefly in the evening, and my reading light in the forward cabin is an LCD.

        Twenty years ago on RESURGAM I was only able to play music for three or four hours a day without running down the batteries.