New Year 2012

Wishing all our family and friends a very jolly, peaceful and successful 2012.

Sean's next relocation project

Visiting Whimsey and found that there are new tenants.

Mum, dad and the relos were very cross with us when we came on board but sadly we need to relocate them as we are going up on the hard next week.

Time to antifoul, replace zincs and get an insurance survey. Meanwhile the crew are landlubbing.

Christmas in August in Marrickville

We had a lovely get together to celebrate Erin's half century and Christmas in August. Great friends came together to enjoy mulled wine, turkey, veggie sausage rolls and a juice bar.

Back in Sydney

Busy, busy, busy!!! We arrived back in Sydney on the 8th of March and have not stopped for breath since.

We spent a couple of days in Quarantine Bay, dinghied ashore to Manly and walked to get back our land legs. Then over the harbour to Glebe and the fish markets. It was a murky rainy day but through the rain we spotted old friends "The Road". As we hadn't seen the boat since 2001 in Curacao we had our fingers crossed and sure enough it was still our old friends Shirley and Taff and Rubbish the parrot.

The St Patrick's Day photos will follow.

Moving South

We set off from Southport on a sunny Saturday lunchtime expecting to motor for the next 72 hours then hop into the nearest port. Less than an hour after switching on the engine to pick up the anchor we were sailing in a lovely 15 knot breeze past the high rises and beaches of the Gold Coast.
By mid afternoon we had found the Eastern Australian current which added a couple of knots to our speed.
Monday afternoon we were heading in to Port Stephens. Just 2 miles off the entrance we caught a mid sized tuna. Fantastic trip!
Tuesday was hot breezes and high humidity. The water here is so clear that we had a dip which cooled us down nicely. The skies started to darken and, as we sat in the cockpit drying off, a squall came through the anchorage with gusts up to 50 knots. Cannot imagine what the cyclone was like with 150 knots!
Some interesting skies - the clouds below looked as if they were tumbling!

Next week will see us day hopping down the coast to Sydney.

Brisbane Floods - Thank you Steve!!

Tuesday morning it looked as if we were better to stay in the marina in Brisbane CBD. There was a strong weather warning for Morton Bay and the current in the river was already looking very strong. As the day progressed and debris started to float past we felt this was the right decision. However by mid afternoon the forecasts had the river heights going above the height of the pilings which meant that there seemed to be a real danger of the whole marina floating off the piles and careening down the river.

We decided to spend Tuesday night in a hotel and review on Wednesday morning.

Low tide on Wednesday was at 8.30, we arrived back at the dock at 7.30 and the walkway (normally 6 feet above the water) was under at least a foot of water. The docks were still floating and we managed to get on board. We had decided to try to get Whimsey out of the river as the alternative seemed to be that we would lose her. The current was extremely strong by this point.

We stowed and got ready to leave. All around us our neighbours were doing the same. We warmed up the engine and at around 9.00 began to try to leave.

Whimsey was in a berth with the flood on our stern, this meant reversing out into the flow before we could turn out into the river. The strength of the water meant that on full power in reverse with lines tied to the dock and pulled tight we could not move back at all. At one point the wheel wouldn't turn and for several horrible moments we thought that the steering cable had broken - it turned out to be a surge of water holding the rudder to one side. At another point we thought that a rope we had tied to the opposite dock and floated down to us had caught in either the rudder or the propeller - this was where Steve stepped in to help and between us and the neighbours on E dock we managed to get free. We took this line to the windlass and tried to use this to pull us out of our berth.

This is the line we used.

It took us until 11.30 and it all happened in the last 15 minutes. Without the help of our neighbours, but more particularly a bloke called Steve who worked with us almost all of that time in the blazing heat, we would not have been able to get out of the marina. We had never met Steve before Wednesday morning.

We cannot thank Steve enough, he worked with us, gave us encouragement and advice, pulled lines, pushed us off and couldn't have helped more. We will find him and thank him in person but wanted to say thanks here too.

The neighbours on E dock had an engine failure and had to leave their boat attached to the marina.

On C dock and B dock we could see other neighbours having the same problems as us. Dockside marina has quite a live-aboard community and we regularly get together for BBQs so we are really hoping that our friends and neighbours who weren't able to get away are ok. For most of us our boats are our homes and have been for some time.

The water police and coast guard were up and down the river but could not help us to get out of the marina as the current was too strong and they had instructions to only intervene where life was in danger.

Once we were out into the river we had been concerned that we would have difficulty steering in the strong current, especially as there was a lot of debris to avoid. However we didn't have any problems and as we finally powered out of the marina had full control and were able to turn up and steer without difficulty. At one point the engine overheated and we had to anchor to investigate. Surprisingly this was not difficult and the overheating turned out to be temporary - probably debris in the water intake - and we were able to have something to eat and a few minutes rest.

We had deliberately chosen to leave when the tide was rising as we hoped this would slow the current, normally this would be impossible for us to make any headway but we travelled down the river at 8 to 10 knots (our normal motoring speed is around 4 knots). Once we reached the channel into Morton Bay the two sets of water meeting was a bit lumpy for about half an hour but nothing we haven't seen a hundred times before - except that the water was so full of mud that as the waves washed down the deck they left mud all the way down.

We motored across to Mud Island - about another half an hour in increasing calm waters and anchored in a peaceful anchorage with about 6 other boats. We were exhausted but relieved to be safe and able to report back to family and friends that we were out of danger.

Thanks to all of you who have sent us your best wishes. We send our best wishes to our friends and neighbours in Brisbane.

This last photo shows the gouges in the toe-rail from the rope to the dock.