August 2008 - Brisbane

Can you believe it’s August already?!  Again, the crew has been berated for being slack with the updates. So, to pick up after Christmas........after a shaky start to the new year with my foot injury and some technical (mechanical actually) difficulties with the new van we arrived back in Brisbane safely.  For those of you who missed “the foot” incident – During our travels (via road) down South for the Festive Season, the tailgate on the Toyota utility that we were using at the time parted company with the rear of the vehicle and landed on my big toe !  OOWW was not what I said!  Four hours in Emergency, x-rays, cushions, stitches, yelling (cause when a Doctor says “this is going to hurt” it DOES) and pain killers saw a very put-out crew member being wheeled in a wheelchair nursing crutches, for when I could stand and let the blood flow down to my toe again, back to daughter’s house for an extended stay.

Slowly, we headed further South for Christmas and New Year and eventually returned to our floating home when the crew was able to at least walk without assistance.

Happily on our return the yacht was still afloat and all was as we left it. Even the yellow dinghy was safely tied up.  Not so a little later on.........The dinghy story.  Once upon a time some persons as yet unidentified, decided to help themselves to our little yellow dinghy after the skipper forgot to padlock it to the dinghy wharf in town while delivering some visitors ashore to their car.  The stranded skipper (forgot his phone too) having only a couple of coins in his pocket walked to the nearest phone, called the Police and then called the crew with a very short message ie "the dinghy's been stolen, come and get me".  How would I go and get the skipper from shore if the dinghy had been stolen you ask?  Well, it was one of those evenings when we had several persons on board for tea so I had a couple of dinghies at my disposal.  Two persons were dispatched in one dinghy to collect the skipper but decided to leave him on shore (now with their mobile phone) and take off in hot pursuit, hopefully in the right direction, of the thieves.  Instructions were issued from the skipper still on shore, for the crew to call the Brisbane Ferries on the radio to ask for their assistance in spotting the dinghy (I must say they were very helpful apparently scanning the shore with their spotlights on their route) and the remaining guests opened another bottle to cushion the blow.  It wasn't long before the ferries reported seeing two men in a dinghy downstream and thought it may be the offenders (I told them the only offending things those two men did was not open the champagne before they left) !  Anyway, the Police did find the dinghy (around 2.30am) AND phoned to tell us and duly returned the dinghy the next morning AT 6:30AM – do they think we keep the same hours? On inspection we discovered the thieves had unsuccessfully tried to prise the motor off (chained on), unsuccessfully tried to lift the fuel tank out (chained on), unsuccessfully tried to either take the oars (also chained on) or tried to row and if they had tried to lift the dinghy intact out of the water they would both now have a double hernia (its VERY heavy) so ha ha, picked on the wrong dinghy didn't they?  Oh yes, they did take our bailing bucket (Huh?) Still can't work out why. Oh well makes a good story. – 

The Police returning our dinghy

We have not had too much opportunity to get out of the Brisbane River and into Moreton Bay as it takes us around 3 hours motoring with the tide, to get to the River entrance.  The crew has been working in the city and the skipper has been working on the boat. We did, however get back to the Gold Coast for the wedding of some fellow cruisers over Easter and very much enjoyed the clear blue water around South Stradbroke Island for a couple of weeks.

The Best Man on the day – The wedding theme Barefoot Hawaiian.

It’s amazing what you find in sails that have not been used for a while.  At our address here in Brisbane we are next to the Botanical Gardens and have come across other cruisers relating stories of “guess what we had on board the other day?”  Now these things tend to swim or fly, across to the boats closest to shore in search of a nice dry, quiet home.  One boat had a baby python take up residence – aaagh! another a bird and on Bluestone (we are further from shore than anyone else) we had a friendly rat decide that the folded mainsail was the best place to build her nest.  Fortunately, we evicted her before she had time to deliver.  You know how pregnant women crave certain foods?  Well, we enticed this rat with the usual – salami – cheese – bread - to no avail.  No, she liked Twisties – they were her downfall. 

While walking through the beautiful Botanic gardens one afternoon we came across a couple of British tourists taking photos of the garden, or so we thought.  On closer inspection a python around 7 foot long was slowly making its way through the scrub to hibernate for the winter.  The photographer was waiting to capture a good photo “the minute he puts his head up”, so the skipper obliged by getting a stick and encouraging him to put his head up for the photo – well, tourists, photographer and crew took off in all directions when brave skipper encouraged the snake with the stick.  Don’t think the poor guy ever did get a photo.  Funny as.

Old friends have joined us in Brisbane.  A couple we know from Hastings, Victoria have also decided the cruising life is for them and cruised into our little community by the city.  A few nights have been spent catching up on stories of their expeditions and just a few bottles of red consumed in the effort of re-living our own journey up the coast.  We never tire of looking at the many photos we have taken over the past two years.  Our journey has been an absolute joy so far and we are looking forward to exploring new waters.  

The next leg of our journey will be to sail up to Maryborough or Bundaberg in September.  This will be the first small step to Darwin to join the Darwin to Kupang Rally in 2009 – very exciting!  We intend to spend the good part of a year in Indonesia.