Trains and Taps

(Sydney - Gold Coast)

Well, after a four month hiatus, we are once again heading back to the boat - last seen sitting up on stilts half way up a mangrove river in Redlands City Marina in Queensland.

Spending time back at Sydney home has been a joy - playing poker regularly with Charlie, bit of gardening, visiting the Montys and the Conways ..but mainly doing very little other than enjoying time away from the boat. We needed it.

I’m writing this on a delayed overnight train that - allegedly- will have us arriving into Brisbane at dawn tomorrow morning - we’ll see.

It was a slow journey bizarrely punctuated by a gentleman two rows back, who emitted an ejaculatorial grunt every 20 seconds. ..and (Chez advises) smelled of bad BO.

Gotta love a bit of public transport!

The train’s extended delay compounded into an end of the line stop at somewhere called Cassino, where at 3:30am we were transferred to a waiting bus for a 3hr drive to complete our journey.

We do eventually arrive back to the boat - and first impressions are good. The yard have relocated her slightly in our absence, but there’s no damage, no mould, and she does look pretty good.

Second impressions: the fridge isn’t working, and I can’t arrange a technician until next Tuesday - that’s the day after our splash back in high tide.

Oh well, plans need to be flexible, and we nudged ours slightly to now splash in the day after Mr. Fridge has been. Fingers crossed it’s just a re-gas - if not, we don’t get another suitable tide for 3 months! Spent the next couple of days sweating under the hull sanding and applying antifoul.. the usual boatyard antics.

…and now today’s the day - fridge fixed, it’s now time to splash back in.

Dropped back in without issue, then we had the shallow mangroves to negotiate…

With a couple of muddy bottom scuffs stalling our progress along the way, both with jaws clenched, we finally made it out! Away from the mangrove trap we’d found ourselves in. All in all, not a bad boatyard, but not somewhere we’d choose to return to.

Motored over to North Stradbroke Island (AKA ‘Straddie’) where we dropped anchor in the flattest calmest waters, sun shining above in blue sky - it’s a pretty good reintroduction to the water!

After a beach stroll, we’re joined by Ron and Sue from Eudora (Kiwi friends who endured the same storms as we did at the end of last season). Had a nice chat on board, and caught up on Serenity Now for sundowners later on - nice couple, I had a good chat with Ron.

One of us slept well - no prizes for guessing who.

Left the next morning, following the tight channel markers down to Tipplers Passage where a combination of shallows, lots of boats and an inoperative depth gauge made for a less than satisfactory anchoring (through necessity, pretty much slap bang in the middle of the channel). That, combined with some clammy intense QLD heat, has not made for the perfect second day back on the water! Fingers crossed day 3 turns out to be as good as day 1!

Awoke just shy of 5am to howling wind and rain.. and England losing the semi final of the T20 Cricket World Cup to India. Ho hum.

The day improved with the cessation of the rain, and the arrival of the sun (just barely). As we headed up to survey our surroundings, a group of friendly ducks joined us - they hopefully lingered around the back of the boat, eager for some bread.

Upped anchor and made our way to our next anchorage - a two hour hop towards the Gold Coast, along shores lined with ill designed gaudy Mc.Mansions.

The new anchorage is a narrow tuck between sandy reef and shore - can confirm the reef is sandy, as we spent a frantic moment briefly touching it.

With some revs, and a bit of luck, we were free again, and soon dropped a little further down the beach in a slightly more suitable spot. Turns out - we both agreed: it wasn’t a suitable spot after all: its a bit tight in all sides.

Instead, we opted to head down towards Southport. Both a lot happier we dropped outside Australia Fair shopping centre, with skyscrapers looming around us on one side, SeaWorld on the other, and JetSkis left right and centre.

Joined by Sue and Ron we spent a few wet, windy and miserable days boat-bound. With grey skies above, both the boat’s batteries and our moods dropping below acceptable levels .

Upside: there’s a swimming pool and a shopping centre within a few hundred metres of where we’re anchored.

When the rain and grey skies eventually passed, we took advantage of the pool.

Chez and I floating on our backs holding hands.. ‘like otters’ as chez observed. This got me thinking about quite how lucky we are: a happy couple, swimming together - on a week day afternoon - holding hands in the sunshine.

My mood from a few days back seems to have well and truly lifted! As I have been occasionally heard to say:

‘Nice times!’

I had a few more dips in the pool. This despite a nice Russian lady telling me she’d seen a shark’s big dorsal fin touring the boundary. Fingers crossed the net keeps him out!

A dark cloud appeared:

We suffered an awful howling night of wind. Add in that a little baby cyclone is forecast for next weekend. We both feel like we have PTSD from those two storms at the tail end of last year, and could do without it!

Spent a busy Sunday filling up our water tanks. A process significantly hindered by the local council:

Firstly they’ve put tamper proof taps on all the faucets - these require a deep recessed ‘key’ to operate. Having been fleeced by the local chandlers for $25 for one such key, I then discovered the council have doubled down and also added hefty padlocks to all taps.

As I frustratedly walked round the park opposite the boat, a nice local called Hugh (and his dog Raphael) spotted me with four empty 20lt water bottles. He put me on the right path - he’s been living aboard in this location for the last 12 years, and knows all the workarounds. I’m writing this with aching shoulders some hours later, having carted 3 or 4 dinghies worth of water back to the boat.

The benefit of slowly filling up your water from a slow push button tap outside a shower block in a public park is that you get to see the most colourful of Queensland characters:

- A gang of 5 goth girls who set up camp in the gents shower. Drug taking I assume, but couldn’t smell anything. Being Goths, it might have just been to avoid the sun. Who knows. They came up with a secret knock to get back in (it’s just five slow equally spaced hard knocks if you’re interested).

- An exceptionally well tanned, but gaunt bag lady who took her rubbish laden ex-shopping trolley into the shower with her.

- ..and a surprisingly nice, but somewhat volatile looking homeless guy who told me I could use two spanners to smash the councils padlocks - and in a seemingly unrelated comment told me he had eaten a great tasting cheese last night, shouting over his shoulder as he left:

“Really fucking smooth”.

Good to know.

We’ve got a bit of provisioning to do tomorrow before an early start on Tuesday to catch the tide through the shallows as we head North.

That’ll do for now.

Having read this entry back, it doesn’t read like it, but it has actually been good to get back out on the water. The missing Sydney bit has been eased by good chats with Charlie each day, and the occasional reported bad weather has been generally outweighed by good hot Queensland sun.