Arrowtown book buyer Miranda Spary continues her regular column about her recommendations for a good read and life as she sees it ...
Oh gosh, adventures on the high seas; I mean adventures tied up in the marina ... Two days on the boat and our skipper has had to head to the nearest big town to get his five-year Greek visa so we can go to Rhodes.
He's leaving us all alone for a whole day.
Things are going swimmingly until dusk, when an enormous metallic-mauve super-yacht comes in.
It's Egyptian with a French name and registered in Panama.
A very experienced crew backs it in with so little space between us that the fenders look like they are going to pop. Only problem is, they then ask if we can move Miranda along a little.
Who? Us? We don't even know how to start her yet.
Within seconds the Egyptian/Turkish/French crew are on board doing stuff - boatie stuff that looks so simple when people who know what they are doing do it, and I wonder if we will ever get to that stage.
No-one would have mistaken us for a couple of old sea dogs.
I hid in our cabin and my darling poured himself a gin and tonic, sat back and watched the show.
True folk of the landlocked Wakatipu Basin and proud of it.
I know many of you Schadenfreude junkies out there are feeling let down we haven't had a serious mishap yet.
I have lost count of the number of emails asking if there have been any dramas so far.
Not surprising, given my darling's history of burning boats, beaching them, crashing into reefs, rocks, other boats, including TSS Earnslaw, leaving them lying upside down straddling the white line on the road and generally abusing them ... But so far nothing of note.
It may be because we have not actually gone anywhere yet.
Miranda has spent the winter having her bottom scraped and resealed, and the previous owners left us every single thing you could want on a boat, and more besides - enough linen for a small hotel but pillows so hard you could concuss someone in a pillow fight with them, seven frying pans but no pepper mill, boxes and boxes of spare parts and other handy things.
It's taken five days so far to sort it all out.
But, of course, there are still things missing.
While I was out shopping for a vacuum cleaner yesterday (second day in a row on this mission), I got a chance to see TSS Earnslaw and the Remarkables on 3-D TV - about 50 3-D TVs, in fact.
The Turkish equivalent of Noel Leeming had a whole wall of them and I squealed and frightened the poor salesman when the entire shop filled with pictures of home.
It looked spectacular and I wondered why we ever want to go anywhere else.
I went back there again the following day armed with the Turkish word for vacuum cleaner, but they were only showing pictures of tropical fish.
Everyone is so helpful here (even when they can't help!), and today was no exception.
I finally bought my vacuum cleaner and discovered they didn't sell the bags (this is all sounding so simple but remember that the Turkish appliance salesman speaks as much English as I do Turkish).
They escorted me to another shop whose owner opened up my vacuum cleaner and rang someone else.
Within minutes, a small van roared up and two men got out and looked at my vacuum cleaner.
Then one of them ran next door and brought back an English speaker.
So now seven men are standing round me and my machine and I am asked if I want to order some bags and have them delivered. Yes, please!
Everything gets delivered to the boat - a man who sells 20kg bags of oranges cycles past each morning with his stock .
The laundry man cycles up and collects dirty washing and brings it back washed and dried and folded flatter than I can iron it, all for a shamefully low fee.
If you want to make friends in a hurry here, let it be known you are interested in buying rugs.
I am so popular, and all the rug sellers on the waterfront know my name.
Tomorrow there will be some surly faces as my darling told one of our new friends that he could bring some rugs along to our boat and see if we liked them.
The others will be very cross to have had the rug pulled out from under their feet, so to speak.
As I write this, he has just delivered a boatful of beautiful rugs and promises me he is selling them for much less than they cost him. Yeah, right.
Even here in the marina, the water is gin clear and there are dozens of pretty villages along the coast.
Great food, great weather and the kindest, most welcoming people I have ever met.
And it's always nice to be somewhere where the New Zealand dollar isn't the wimpy guy.
We accidentally went to a political rally last night - our boat broker was getting an award for exceptional services to tourism and we wanted to cheer for him.
We went along at 5.30pm to the Ataturk memorial (one in every town) and there were thousands of people there waving beautiful flags.
Helicopters flew overhead and every other person was in police uniform.
Security checks let you into the area where the stage was, and the top decks of the tourist boats nearby bristled with heavily armed military.
I suddenly felt that being in this crowd was not for us.
Something about heavy security always makes me feel insecure.
The rally was to welcome the leader of the opposition party (Turkish elections are next month) and he has huge support down here.
We scuttled back to our floating home.
Back on our boat, we suddenly heard music and bands and the whole procession - the politicians, police and this massive cheering crowd all marched past giving us a fabulous grandstand view.
Phil Goff could only dream of this sort of turnout.
It's a bit hard to read with so much to see and do all day, but I did love Joanna Trollope's latest novel Daughters in Law.
With four boys, I am likely to end up with a few DILs myself, so it was fascinating reading about Rachel and the way she gets her big fat foot (so like mine) in her mouth so often.
You don't need to be a mother-in-law to know that planning other people's lives for them will only lead to disappointment.
The DILs of the story are all very strong and likeable girls and poor Rachel has to learn some uncomfortable new skills.
I haven't looked it up yet, but I notice that the last page of the book has links to all the reading questions for book clubs, author interviews and other excellent ways of avoiding jobs that need doing.
Welcome back to the Wakatipu, glamorous Mrs June Fox.
She used to be June Shaw when she had Hair 2000, and she's come back to Queenstown with her lovely new husband, Michael, to enjoy her new role as a grandmother.
