4/1/13
We have survived Queensland's bureaucracy and I now own a boat. Cost to date $74,438,27
Are now camped up in a hotel for tonight and are both pretty stuffed. Managed to get about one hour's sleep on the plane so going to crash and catch up. It is very busy here at the moment with lots of tourists and boats on the water. Accommodation is expensive so we are going to camp out on the boat each night from now on. We will keep the hire car until Monday and come back in to Runaway Bay each day and continue the spending blitz. There are lots of little things needed. Bought a drill, disk and some paint to touch up some rust marks before it catches hold. And so the battle begins - Rust never sleeps. I'll have to find somewhere here that sells that acid I have back home to etch all the little spots before painting.
Going sailing tomorrow with Bill as skipper in the morning and then we will head back out and anchor for the night inside South Stradbroke Island. Scott's bought 8 crab traps so we are going to see if the bbq works. Will have to fill up the water and fuel tanks tomorrow so lots of practice docking. He's been practising his bow lines so at least one of us can tie up..
....This is where I must of.fallen asleep last night with the light, computer and TV still on. Where did I put my glasses.... hahahahahaha
Off this morning for a $5 full breakfast. Scott will probably order two of them....
5/1/13
27o 54.390 S 153o 25.202 E Curragee Camp Anchorage - South Stradbroke Island
$5 brekky to start the day.
Off to the boat and Bill was champing at the bit to get out for the day. Motored out past a couple of million dollars of boats with no dents. Went to Runaway Bay marina and filled up with diesel and water. Scott has a good feel for the helm so I've been on the lines and checking out stuff. It is a bit restricted behind the islands here so it's hard to check how well the autopilot handles the leeway under sail which seems to be the only disappointment so far. The boat has quite a bit of weather helm that we may have figured how to compensate for. We will have to get a bit more searoom to check it out - perhaps even read the manual? A lot of boats around too so we have to be careful. It is a weekend during school holidays after all.
"Super Helm Scotty"
Under supervision by Bill....Where does he get those shirts?
Dropped off Bill back at his place. Scott did really well manoeuvring in the tight canal. For such a large boat it is quite controllable. Went shopping and then back on the boat and out again to find our first anchorage. Only had to drop the pick twice until we were happy where we were. Tonight we've manage to unpack most of the crap, drop the dinghy off the davits, set up and use the bbq, drop in a couple of crab nets and sort of find somewhere to sleep.
It is a bit still, overcast and muggy. The hotel skyline is far enough away on across the water to be relatively pretty if in novelty value.
Running most of the powered stuff tonight and we'll see if there's enough charge left in the batteries tomorrow to motor over and get another $5 brekky
Scott wielding some BBQ magic
Is there nothing this guy can't do?
6/1/13
27o 58.040 S 153o 25.193 E Southport.
Woke up at 5:00 but anchor was holding well and went back to sleep until 9:00.
Went over to get a $5 brekky. Even managed to put a sail up and down and have got the auto pilot sort of sussed out. We will need to get out in the open ocean to check it out fully.
There was a sign up saying that the channel we were going to use is no longer dredged so headed up to the next one which was a bit iffy but, as the tide was coming in we gave it a go. Got in alright but the anchorage is compacted sand and the anchor wouldn't hold. Started to head back out but cut it too fine and clipped a sand bar. Put our name on one already!!
Only nudged up to it but the throttle cable broke and we ended up drifting onto it further. I worked the throttle at the engine and Scott did the business at the wheel and we did OK. Actually we were very calm considering the circumstances. When we got back into the anchorage and got some advice from an amused cruiser who gave us the good oil on where to find good ground. He asked if we needed any help and when we told what was wrong he said "Welcome to fixing boats in beautiful places".
It took about an hour to get the broken cable fixed and sorted out. It was meshing where the installer had been lazy and put the pins in backwards to make it easy to get to the cotter pins. So it's been fixed better than it was.
Only nudged up to it but the throttle cable broke and we ended up drifting onto it further. I worked the throttle at the engine and Scott did the business at the wheel and we did OK. Actually we were very calm considering the circumstances. When we got back into the anchorage and got some advice from an amused cruiser who gave us the good oil on where to find good ground. He asked if we needed any help and when we told what was wrong he said "Welcome to fixing boats in beautiful places".
It took about an hour to get the broken cable fixed and sorted out. It was meshing where the installer had been lazy and put the pins in backwards to make it easy to get to the cotter pins. So it's been fixed better than it was.
Finally got to the shops around 3:00pm. It was fun leaving the shopping trolley on the ferry pier and then puttering away in the dinghy. Did you always wonder how they got there?
Scott has the crab nets out and is having a beer on the deck in front the most expensive hotel in oz 
"TUN" beer $33 per carton
Camp chair $5.95
Boat $74,861.18
Being a bogun out the front of the Vesaci Palazzo ....priceless
TUN is our current version of EMU export
