Spring, Chess, Earthquakes and flu

Last Friday of the break and a post has not been made for quite some time now. Some bloggers post several times a day... how do they find time to have a life?

Term 3 finished in a whirl of strong winds and stormy weather. Eric went up to Spirits Bay to help with a major stranding of whales. This was the second one on thelast few months. He worked through the night to keep the beasts wet and alive. The wind was very strong. It sounds like an exhausting experience but also pretty special to get close to such normally elusive animals. The whales had beached on one of the most remote beaches in Northland. We are 4 hours drive from Auckland and the whales were 2 hours North of here. There are some pics here:
http://www.nzherald.co.nz/nz/news/image.cfm?c_id=1&gal_objectid=10676472&gallery_id=114106#7106088

While he was up there, I took off on the last day of term for Christchurch with the College Chess Team. We had spent the whole term preparing, both for the games and for the costs. We raised $3000 to pay for the trip - half of it came from a charitable trust and the rest came $1 at a time from selling frankfurters at about 10 different events. So it was great to have all the prep done and to start driving down to Auckland.

We had a flight from Auckland to Christchurch and for two of the team it was their first flight. Not the easiest initiation to flying as we hit some pretty serious turbulence coming over the Southern Alps. There was a team of girls going to some other event in Christchurch on the same plane and they were laughing and screaming at the same time. Everyone else on the plane was gripping their seats and hoping the swooping and shuddering would stop!