First of all, moorings: I am now the proud owner of one quarter of a concrete block. Shortly, when I gather the outstanding $750, I will be on the real estate map, in the form of a four-tonne piece of concrete and a pile of rusty chain lying in the deep mud off the desirable shores of Te Whahapu Bay. This photo here is not the new mooring, but it is one I encountered whilst having a little dander about in my canoe off Paihia beach a couple of weeks ago.
And as for engines, well, the houseboat runs on a 90hp Isuzu diesel engine. This engine has probably done many many thousands of hours in a HGV before it started its retirement years in our boat. Unfortunately, the supposedly reconditioned engine wasn't so much reconditioned as taken apart and put back together again without much thought as to the 'condition' bit. Turns out that a barely functioning piston was put back in and shards of metal have progressively been thrown round the engine. Oh, I don't know - may be it wasn't a piston, perhaps it was a valve...whatever, it didn't look too healthy, even to my glazed-over eye. We're inhabitants of Waitangi right now. About two k 'down the road' from our normal mooring in Paihia, shown here:
