The Walk to Wateva

Bundaberg 16/12/2016

 

A  trek alongside the Burnett  River goes  past a solitary windswept tree, which could be a fir or a she-oak,  or any other riverfront genus (I’m not much of a flora or fauna identifier - suggestions invited). 

I call it the whispering tree.  The wind sets up a constant whooshing sound through its foliage, something like the magical sound you hear when you put a conch shell to your ear – the sound of the sea.  It’s EAR-ily beautiful and I appreciate the fact that I have time to stop and listen.

Further on, there’s a bridge across the creek with a metal grated fence, which also sets up its own chorus of harmonic vibrations.

Next there are a few towering Acacia trees (perhaps) with flame red flowers in full bloom. The irridescent green and crimson parrots hide amongst the colours.

Less pleasing are the birds that divebomb me as I walk; (“Plovers”, I’ve been told), making a strident, chattering screech of warning to stay away from their hatchlings. They swoop up close to my face, then veer away at the last minute, before coming in again from the rear. I’ve been told they have barbs on their wings and could do some damage if they make contact, so my heart skips a few beats on each attack.  A suggestion is to wear sunglasses on the back of my hat, but I doubt the effectiveness of this, given that the forward facing sunglasses don’t seem to deter them.

Across the field, Mike keeps his catamaran, “Wateva” tied back to a tree.   He is the friend whose industrial sewing machine, hot knife, and other useful gadgets I occasionally get to use.

At all but high tide, he  sits high and dry near the grassy bank in his own private little hideaway.  A herd of kangaroos protect him from intruders – another potential danger to avoid – the kangaroos that is. 

 The big bucks are quite territorial and can bound faster than a speeding car.  Apparently they can lean back on their hind legs and claw you to shreds if they don’t like the look of you.  Mike says they only come out before rain so there haven’t been too many around lately. 

I can always hide behind tall Mark, the now-famous “Shagger” interviewed for the “Creek to Coast” TV coverage of the Shag Islet 2016 Rendezvous (mentioned in one of my earlier blogs.)  Mark was the one weilding the paint roller, doing a stirling job of antifouling Shanti when she was up on the hard.   I can never express enough gratitude for all the help received since I have been here in Bundaberg.

In fact, it reminds me of the willing workers who contributed their time so generously in Melbourne to help see me on my way last year. I just hope I can live up to it.  Someone asked me recently if my passion was still as strong for this venture of circumnavigating the globe and I was pleased to find the fire in the belly was still alight.

 

But now it's time for a necessary interlude, shaking out a few more of Shanti's glitches and waiting out the cyclone season here in Bundaberg before starting north again next year. 

Only one more day here before I fly  to Melbourne and then over to NZ, so last chance to tick off a couple more boat jobs.

When I was in Townsville, my electrician friend, Colin Grazules, fitted a 7 stage battery charger under the quarter berth.  This is a great way to keep the batteries fully charged while plugged into shore power at a marina, (not something I had planned on doing a lot of).  It does tend to get quite hot in that enclosed space, so I cut a hole in the fibreglass bulkhead to fit a plastic vent.

 

The other hole that I had ‘inadvertently’ cut in the ceiling still caused me grief.  The small piece of wood made to cover it should have been varnished like its mates, but I thought it would be less conspicuous if painted the same colour as the ceiling.  Wrong again.  Even the slightest mismatch of shade and it stands out like the proverbial, so I bought some paint stripper and scraped it back to bare wood again.  It seemed like a good opportunity to varnish the teak around the companionway at the same time, which was looking very weatherworn.  Be good if I had a couple more days for a couple more coats - maybe when I get back.

 

Another small job was to re-seal around the chain plates.  Keeping water out of boats seems to be a perrenial process.   

 

I had gooped these down when I re-rigged in Melbourne, but one had started to leak again.  I say “small” job because it only took me an hour to scrape the old goop off from underneath, whilst sitting out in the 35 degree heat. 

Did I mention how hot it is here?  Quite consistently so, unlike Melbourne.  Generally around low 30’s during the day and mid 20’s overnight.  Fantastic really, so long as you don’t want to do too much work outdoors.

 The local watering hole has become a bit of a regular destination, which for a non-drinker like me, is rather surprising.  But it’s airconditioned and I’ve discovered pear cider in a glass full of ice goes down well.  Mike, Mark, and a few other bods spend a few dollars there and enjoy a few laughs.

 Next week it will be the Sandy yachtie, now that I’ve learned how to drink.  I look forward to seeing some familiar faces.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

She floats!

Bundaberg; 4/12/2016

It turned out to be exactly two weeks up on the hardstand, with the usual mad panic and time-compression over the last few days.  Each morning I'd write another list of at least a dozen jobs then prioritize them like some crazed project manager. 

Small things can so easily get overlooked, or get done wrongly, and throw the train off the rails.

Assumptions abound (I'm sure you've all heard the saying about making an ass of u & me), like the stainless steel rudder stock being a stock standard size - bu-boom; wrong!  The boat was built in South Africa where 31.9mm (not 32mm) means the new rudder bearings don't quite fit.  So it's take the whole lot back to the local engineering shop for adjustment.

And then there's the order of things to get in order. No matter how many times I checked with the shipwright that the rudder going back on was just going to be a "dry fit", to be removed again later, giving me time to antifoul the subsequently inaccessible bits, that was not the way it went.

Quite understandably really.  The major effort of digging holes in the ground, stacking blocks of wood, aligning, manhandling, jacking and forcibly encouraging the rudder back into place was not something to be repeated.  So homeless barnacles can once again make their home on the back edge of the skeg.

Then there was the epoxy filling and fairing, then painting with "Interprotect", a two pack epoxy paint, each of which needed curing time before the next stage in the process, so jobs like the priming and antifouling had to stand patiently in line.  It was often very frustrating to hold things up for the sake of a half meter of bog going off.  I entertained myself in the meantime by cutting and polishing the hull, a job which I would have liked to have done back in Melbourne but never quite had the time.

It seemed like a good idea to raise the waterline again.  This had already been done in Melbourne, but was higher at the back than the front of the boat, and patches of thick black weed were continually creeping up the topsides.  With a bit of guesswork, we added an extra 50mm at the bow. which was graduated gently back.

I was delighted to find she now floats along a perfectly even line from bow to stern.

Being back in the water is fantastic!  Even if the undredged marina has me settling into the mud on the bottom at low tide twice a day; an eerie feeling as she creaks in her bones in the middle of the night.

I had briefly contemplated leaving Shanti out on the hardstand for a few weeks while I am away but changed my mind about that.  It would have meant continuing to live aboard in that noisy, dirty environment, which was not at all appealing.  It took hundreds of litres of water to hose and scrub her clean once back in the marina, a very satisfying job.

There are still about another dozen or so jobs to be done before I leave.  It took the best part of the last three days and many trips to the Laundromat to clear all the fibreglass dust out of the boat.  It's nasty stuff that gets through the tiniest cracks and causes awful itching on the skin. Luckily the shipwright lent me his vacuum cleaner so I could get most of it off the squabs and anything that couldn't be washed. The cockpit locker especially was thick with it, and every single item had to be taken out onto the dock and hosed off.      

 

This morning I painted a second coat of Interprotect on the new fibreglass rudder post.  I'm happy to report not a drop of water to be found in the lazarette.  No more leaks - yay!!  Well worth the hard hit to the credit cards.

 

While I still had a little paint left, I put some on the old, crazed sink in the head (bathroom).  Both will need topcoating tomorrow.

 

I was mistaken about the leak over the stove that I had previously thought was coming through the deck organizers, requiring a hole cutting in the ceiling. Bu-boom, wrong again!  Another job to cover the unnecessary hole .....  Turns out it was the vent above the stove after all; the closest and most obvious place in hindsight.  This morning I gooped that down, so hopefully no more leaks from there.

 

 

While on the hardstand, the wind blew the companionway door over, breaking the Perspex in half, so I had to get a new one made. This one is thicker, tinted and made in two sections, so I can have the bottom half in while sailing, adding some protection from any big ugly breakers that may decide to join me in the cockpit. 

 

I also got the idea for a canvas cover with a couple of battens in. This affords a more convenient protection from rain or following seas, making it easier to more quickly enter or exit the cabin.  A friend here has an industrial sewing machine which he kindly let me use yesterday.  I recycled the canvas from my old bimini, which had just enough material for a pair of sailor's pants.

 

 

In exactly two weeks from today, I fly to Melbourne, so had better get on with finishing off my list of jobs (who am I kidding?)