From Maurice and Louise-Ann Nunas aboard Akama, a Krogen 48 Whaleback, currently in New Zealand: Our thanks go out to the many friends and relatives who have sent us private emails about Maurice's cancer treatments. So far so good, as they say. He has one more operation being scheduled, hopefully the last one. We still anticipate resuming our voyage next season, in about a year's time. The window to go north to Tonga, Fiji and so on is open now and we are obviously not ready. For a change, AKAMA is ready but we aren't! Meanwhile, we are still at Gulf Harbour Marina, just north of Auckland. The marina has all conceivable services, including Wi-Fi for email and web surfing, which is how we communicate. While there is no telephone service to the yachts, we have been pleased with Skype (<http://www.skype.com/>www.skype.com), which we recommend to anyone that would like to make free and nearly free telephone calls just about anywhere in the world. This is by far the best VoIP telephone service that we have tried. If you have Skype and would like to chat with us, our Skype user ID is nunas.m, or just do a search for Nunas and you will find us (and our kids) easily. We have a small rental car and get around quite nicely, despite the terrible traffic into and out of Auckland, especially at rush hour. There is a shopping mall at the Whangaparaoa town centre, about 15 minutes drive of the marina, so there is no need to go into Auckland most of the time. Hugs to all, Maurice & Louise-Ann Nunas http://nunas.com/ http://nunas.com/mailman/listinfo/distributionlist_nunas.com