Be Careful What You Wish For...

I’ve been bitching and moaning that I’ve had nothing to blog about.  Woo hoo, my prayers have been answered… in the form of a flood.

Late Saturday afternoon we were warned by another boat yard occupant that by Sunday night or Monday morning we may need to leave our pontoon at the boat yard.  You may think a pontoon is a pretty good place to be but unfortunately our 17 tonnes pulling against a pontoon will tear it from its grounding and then our boat and the pontoon would make their way down river together. 

On Saturday evening, Michael went to the petrol station and got fuel for the generator and a couple of bits and pieces… milk, bread, etc with plans to get a few more things on Sunday.

Saturday night was absolutely pouring down and as our automatic bilge pump is not working, I stayed up all night emptying the bilge every 10 minutes.  At 5.30am, first light, I looked out the window to find all of the ground between the pontoon and the boatyard office was under water.  I then saw Andrew wading waste deep in water towards us.  I went out on deck where Andrew told me “it’s time to go”.

Boatyard Shed at 5.30am Sunday

The same shed earlier today

(Photo courtesy of Alan Hicks)

Michael started up the motor and Andrew untied (or more accurately… cut) us from the dock and gave us a shove.  Michael turned with the current and headed down river towards Devil’s Elbow… we may have been travelling with the current but we were travelling against the wind.  With the rain still pissing down, the wind in our faces and the current carrying us at about 10 knots, the rain became a real pain in everything.  It stung my legs like thousands of tiny needs and burned my eyes, making it impossible to see.  Michael did his best at steering with his eyes closed whilst I stood up at the bow with the boat hook trying to move large debris out of the way. 

About 10 mins into the trip, I went inside to empty the bilge and looked at the motor temperature.  We were overheating.  Michael eased off the throttle and basically let the tide just take us.  It took about 30 mins to make it to Devil’s Elbow and we anchored on the inside bend… the outside of the bend having the faster running current.

I was buggered.  I hadn’t slept in over 24 hours (whereas Michael had got in a massive 2 hours sleep the night before), so I had a nap.  Michael was watching our anchor to make sure we weren’t dragging and also trying to keep debris from hitting us.

A couple of hours later I awoke and to my relief, the sun was shining!  I went out on deck for my shift of debris fending.  What an array of objects you find floating down the river.  Grace was sitting on deck making a list.

·         Drum (musical)
·         Helmet (bicycle)
·         For sale sign
·         Road marker
·         Tyres
·         Watermelon, etc

During my debris fending shift, Michael was looking at the motor as it had finally cooled enough to touch and was trying to work out why we were overheating and losing coolant by the bucket load.

… then I saw it.  A pile driving rig, unattended, floating and spinning down the river. I called to Michael and a couple of minutes later a yachtie anchored on the other side of the river got in his tinny  and came over to us.  “That rig is unmanned, best you move”.  Unfortunately we had not yet sorted out our overheating problem and had half the motor on deck rending us immobile.  “Can’t mate.  No motor!  We’ll just have to try to fend it off”.

Runaway Rig

Knowing we didn’t have a hope in hell of fending off 50 tonnes with a boat hook and an oar, I ran inside and told the kids to get their life jackets on and to grab one for Dad and me.  I grabbed passports, wallets and the ipad and put them in a ziplock bag.  I then placed it in the “emergency grab bag” at the saloon doors.  It was at this point that the kids started to panic a little (okay… Jed didn’t give a shit and Grace panicked a lot).

I went back up on deck to see the progress of the rig and found the yachtie who had warned us and another tinny pushing at the rig and directing it away from us.  I looked a Michael and just about sobbed with relief.  I can generally hold things together in a crisis but when it’s over I’m as soft as pudding!

I don’t know who either of those men were… but I do know, without a shadow of a doubt, they saved our boat (our home) from certain destruction and possibly (probably) saved our lives.  I will be forever grateful that they put themselves in danger in order to save us.  

Runaway house boat complete with it's own block of land

I continued to fend the debris while Michael started putting the motor back together… without solving our overheating problem.  Nothing was stopping a gum tree that hit us, caught our anchor chain and started dragging us down river.  Michael started the motor (even though our overheating issue had not been solved).  Grace jumped in the anchor well and was raising the anchor and I was trying to remove the tree from our anchor chain.  The anchor got to a point and refused to budge so I told Grace to pull at it from the anchor well.  The awkward position meant she burnt her arm on the anchor winch motor... but the tough little cookie didn’t stop.  She whinged at me and kept pulling until I could take over from her.

The motor was overheating before we even got the anchor raised… very worrying indeed.  But we did manage to remove all the debris from our anchor chain and motor down river a little to another anchoring spot.  I took over the helm and Michael dropped the anchor.  As the anchor bit, the stern of the boat swung violently around so that the current was again hitting the bow.  I could only hope the anchor held because if it didn’t there was no way I was getting the boat back under control.  Thankfully, it held.

Michael and I spent the rest of the day fending off debris in shifts until it was too dark to see anymore.

At 4.30 on Sunday morning, after a much needed sleep for everyone, something hit us with a great deal of force and started dragging us down river again.  Michael and I raced outside to find we were travelling backwards down river at about 5 knots.  I started the still unfixed motor as Michael raised the anchor.  Again the anchor was not coming up and we were spinning down the river, hitting banks and low hanging trees.  This would probably have been a good time to start praying but I stood hard and fast to my atheistic ways and, as tempted as I was, I did not attempt to bargain with God.

Steering having absolutely no effect with the anchor dragging, I decided I would be more useful helping Michael raise the anchor.  Together we managed to get it out and headed for the other side of the river as the bend was snaking back the other way.  We anchored and shortly afterwards a tinny came up to us.  It was a couple from a house across the river, Tracey & John.  They gave us their number and told us if we needed to abandon ship, to call them, they would come and get us and we could stay at their place. 

All day we have watched Tracey & John and one of their neighbours, in two tinnies, chasing down large items floating down the river… boats, concrete blocks, pontoons… and nudging or towing them and securing them out of harm’s way.  It’s going to look odd when the water subsides and there are concrete blocks and pontoons tied to the tops of gum trees!

I’ve met some bloody fine people during my sailing travels, and during this flood I’m lucky to say I’ve added a few names to the list …. as well as a few nameless faces.

 

Happy New Year

Well karma finally came back around our way.  After hours of online research, wiring diagrams, calls to the manufacturer of the motor, swearing and the occasional kicking of stuff, a friendly chat with a couple of lovely ladies in the laundry at the Sandy Straits Marina revealed that one was married to a retired auto electrician.  He, Bob, came straight over to have a look at why our motor was not starting. 

At a glance, all the wiring seemed to be in the right places, linked to the right connections but there was no denying the motor wasn’t starting.  A more in depth look was required.  Within no time Bob discovered the wiring was faulty and needed replacing.  Michael and Bob replaced the faulty wires, turned the key and the most beautiful sound known to a stranded, frustrated and almost broken yachty cut through the air.  Okay, okay… most of the time we prefer the noise of the flapping of sails to that of a noisy motor, but when you haven’t been able to move for a month, it was as joyous as hearing a baby laughing or children playing.  I cried!  I cried tears of sheer relief.

I have so far failed to mention our new yachty friends.  We’ve met a fantastic family who had just a month earlier bought their first yacht, a trimaran called Tradewind.  A family of 6… Mum and Dad, 4 kids aged between 5 and 12, 1 dog and 2 cats (and I thought we were fucking crazy).  For the first time on our journey, the kids have someone to play with, both Michael and I have someone to play with and even the dog has someone to play with.  A couple dinners, many wines, more laughs and we become quite close very quickly. 

 

Then it happened… as it happens to all boat owners, their first problem reared its ugly head, and it’s a major one.  Wood rot.  They were taking on water, a lot of water.  They, like I’ve done on so many occasions, cried.  Scared they’d made the wrong choice and that their family home was now sinking, they would be homeless with 4 children, 1 dog and 2 cats.  As ready as we were to move on, we were not going to leave these new sailors in the lurch.  We managed to do a very bodgy patch job, good enough for them to make it from Hervey Bay to Maryborough about 40 nm away on the Mary River.

Much preparation was required prior to the trip.  Michael and Alan had to come to the slipway and build a customised trailer to get Tradewind out of the water.  They were given the materials and use of all the tools at the slipway.  A couple of days later, they had the trailer built so we could start our journey to beautiful Scaryborough Maryborough.

The trip wasn’t completely uneventful and for the first time in quite some time we hit a damn sandbar.  We got off our boat and onto Tradewind to wait for the tide to rise. 

 

My boat fell down!   Things were falling off the deck and as the tide was low Michael and Alan were wading through the water retrieving our things.  I was online looking for the tide times in the area and found out that’s where a couple of crocs had been spotted and that traps had been set up there.  No need to tell the boys… I need them to collect the stuff falling off my deck!  I did keep a watchful eye out though but didn’t spot them and when the boys got back to Tradewind all legs and arms were accounted for.

We had to wait quite a few hours for our boat to right itself and for Tradewind to pull us from our sandy prison but eventually we were on our way again on a high tide so hopefully we’d be right for the rest of the way.  It was Alan’s first night sailing experience and he did a fantastic job.  He led the way, as Tradewind has no draft, so he could warn us of any shallows that could become our undoing.  We made it to about 1nm prior to the slipway at about 11pm, a mere 16 hours after setting sail, and anchored ready to pull Tradewind out first thing in the morning.

We’ve now been here for a couple of weeks, Tradewind has dried out, removed the boot, the prop, we’ve cut a hole in her bottom, each move could be a chapter in a book, but it’s not my story to tell, it’s theirs.  The rebuilding has begun and further issues have been found, but again, that's their story.

We spent Christmas and new year in the dusty, dirty, boatyard and really… we couldn’t be happier!

Types of Yachties

A couple of things I should make clear from the outset, I use the term “yachty” loosely. It refers to any sort of boatie, not just the ones with sails. 

Secondly, I will touch on three different types of yachties but these are by no means the only types of yachties in existence and every type has its exceptions.

Snotty Yachty

The Snotty Yachty has money…. serious money.  You rarely see the Snotty Yachty as they are usually too busy buying and selling small countries to spend much time on their shiny, floating apartment block.  Their marina berth is surrounded in barbed wire.  You try to make yourself feel better by convincing yourself, and anyone else that will listen, that “it’s just no fun when you have a skipper, chef and maid” pfffft!

Not-A-Yachty

The Not-A-Yachty lives aboard a boat but never, ever takes the boat out of its marina berth.  The Not-A-Yachty is helpful and friendly.  They will invite you over for coffee/wine/hash cookies, they will lend you a cup of sugar or an anchor (let’s face it, they don’t need it) but BEWARE…. The Not-A-Yachty loves gossip and within 20 minutes of downing 4 hash cookies they have spread a rumour to all other marina inhabitants that you rape and kill puppy dogs and keep their rotting corpses in your keel.

Grotty Yachty

The Grotty Yachty spends more time “on the hook” than in marinas.  They bathe nowhere near often enough and are easily spotted by the wet patch on their arse from dinghy trips ashore to get rid of rubbish or collect water.  In the event of unexpected visitors, the Grotty Yachty always has a couple of cold beers in the fridge and at least half a bottle of rum (in case of female visitors).  The Grotty Yachty will get their hands dirty for you, go out of their way to do you a favour and would give you the grease covered torn t-shirt (usually the only one they own) off their back.  The Grotty Yachty does not own shoes.

Are you are yachty?  Which category do you fall into?

 

 

 

The Little Engine that Could... Couldn't

I haven’t blogged since my little breakdown when we broke down because I was just a little too depressed.

We sat at Fraser Island for 4 days in dangerous weather conditions.  It was rough and there were quite a few bouts of vomiting and just generally feeling sorry for ourselves.  One day the wind was so strong it unfurled our front sail and tore it.  Thankfully it was only the sun-tough on the edge but we were in strong winds trying to untangle the ropes from around the sail and refurl.  Michael was nearly swept into the water by the flapping sail… things were really pretty shitty.  We couldn’t get to land because the tide was too strong for our little dinghy so we just had to sit on the boat and wait it out.

Finally on the Friday the weather forecast predicted favourable weather conditions for the following day.  I called the Boat Club Marina at Urangan and booked a berth for a week.   I called the VMR and told them we’d be sailing over but would need to be towed in.  All was organised and on Saturday morning we awoke and to our surprise the prediction had been correct (the prediction is never correct).  We tried to lift the anchor but it was stuck fast.  Normally you would drive over the top to release it from the sand but we had no motor.  It took nearly an hour of motorised winching and Michael’s muscle and determination to remove the anchor from its muddy resting place.  We raised the sails and started heading north.

 
You can see Urangan Harbour, it’s about 8.5nm from Fraser Island but you cannot sail straight there …it’s not called Great Sandy Straits for nothing.  Sandbars everywhere and drawing about 2 metres leaves no choice but to go around.  We had to head north for about 15 nm and then back south on the other side of the sandbar for another 6nm but as we had to tack, that ended up being about 12 nm.  The trip took us 8.5 hours.  The VMR then towed us in to our berth at Urangan and it was time to determine exactly how much trouble we were in.

Rescued again

A friend in Sydney has a mate up here who is a diesel mechanic, we contacted him and as he was on holidays he came straight over to look at the motor.  He advised the only thing the motor was now good for was as a reef.  We’d need a new motor. 

 

When we towed our friends up the Fitzroy River, we nicknamed our motor "The Little Engine that Could", now it appears that she can't anymore.

 

Online research and shopping, phone calls and wheeling and dealing, begging and borrowing saw us purchase a 2^nd hand motor that was much bigger and also more powerful than our previous motor.  It wasn’t going to fit so we’d have to raise the floor (despite my father’s suggestions to buy a bigger boat or go through the bottom).

Our new too big motor

The next problem was removing the old motor and getting the new motor into the boat.  We pulled the old motor apart and it was pretty light by the time all the bits were taken off.  The new motor is about 300kgs.   The motor sits under the floor inside… so we couldn’t use any sort of crane to lower the motor onto the boat and besides, we were at a marina and therefore couldn’t get a truck with a Hiab down to the boat anyway.  The mechanic has a truck with Hiab and got the motor to the marina.  A pallet jack got the motor to our boat and a block and tackle set up on the boom both removed the old motor and got the new motor into the helm.  We then had to set up an A-frame type structure with the block and tackle and lift the motor and manoeuvre it into place.  It took 3 of us a couple of hours but we all came out uninjured and feeling pretty proud of ourselves.

Now, I want to give the mechanic a huge wrap.  He invited us to stay (we thought it was just for the night) but he insisted that it was too dangerous on the boat with the mechanical work and that we stay at his place.  He and his wife opened their home to us and made us very welcome.  4 people and 1 dog moving into your place is pretty tough to handle.  After a couple of days we all really wanted to come home but didn’t want to seem ungrateful so just tried to be as unobtrusive as possible.  Each day Michael was driven to the boat to resume work on the motor.  Again, I cannot say how grateful I am to both of them but last night it all went pear-shaped.

Michael was still at the boat and the mechanic’s wife was at work.  The mechanic had spent the day in his shed working on his fishing boat and at about 6.30pm came into the house pissed and told me I’d fucked up his holiday and it was time to leave… now!

I grabbed the kids, the dog, all of our belongings and headed out onto the street.  I didn’t have any cash on me and Michael had the keycard and he doesn’t have a mobile phone.  I didn’t know where I was but had google maps on my phone.  I asked the maps for walking directions from where I was to the boat… 8.8kms.  Three of us (one with weak little spaghetti arms) were loaded up with about 45kgs worth of stuff started following the route on the map… it took us bush.  It was dark and I was trying to see by the light of my phone.  The kids were scared and I assured them there was nothing to be scared of except sore feet and that the whole experience was character building.  About 30mins into our walk home, Jed told me “I don’t like building my characteristics”… at least my son was giving me something to smile about.  We were walking along the path in the bush, stopping every couple of hundred metres because the load we were carrying was heavy.  I could hear animals scurrying about and I wished I believed my own story that there was nothing to be scared of…. then it happened… I fell in a fucking hole and twisted my ankle.  I sat in the hole and I cried… then the kids cried… then the dog licked us.  I picked myself up, dusted myself off, reassured the kids, gave the dog and hug and continued along the path until there was a path leading off to the side that would take us back to a road.  We would take the long route along the road rather than continue along the bush path.  It took us just over an hour to walk 1.5kms.  At this rate we might be home by morning.  On one of our many rest stops a car pulled up alongside us… it was the mechanic’s wife.  She’d got home from work, found out that he’d kicked us out and came looking for us.  She drove us the rest of the way back to the boat.

I really don’t want anyone to think badly of these people and I nearly wasn’t going to blog it… but this blog is essentially for me, a record of all of the good and bad we encounter on our adventure and I feel it would be remiss of me to leave this “character building” experience out of my story.  They have been generous to a fault and as I said, 4 people + 1 dog moving into your home is a lot to cope with.   We are grateful to both of them for everything they did for us.

We’ve got the motor in and wired up… it’s still not working.  More research and forum reading needs to be done and I’m sure it will be sorted out in no time.

Bundaberg to Fraser Island

It started well.  A beautiful sunrise but a lot less wind than predicted so even though our sails were hoisted, we needed to motor also.

 

Hervey Bay is really the only stretch of water we have sailed where you cannot see land anywhere.  On our trip north, we lost gears at the Fairway Marker and it took us 19 hours to sail (with no wind) to Bundaberg.  We hoped today would be better.  It wasn’t!

 

 

I don’t know what it is about the Fairway Marker, but when we got there this time, our motor coughed and stopped.  At least this time we’d done the bigger part of the trip.  Michael opened up the motor hatch to investigate.  I tried starting the motor and just got this awful knocking sound.  Bad fuel? Cracked injector?  Broken piston?  Who knows… but at least we had some wind and the sails were moving us along nicely.  We’ll worry about the motor when we anchor.

 

A couple of hours later, still sailing along beautifully and worrying about how we’re going to fix the motor at Fraser Island, there was a tinny, echo-y sound coming from under the helm.  I ran (yes, ran) inside and opened the hatch.  Looking for anything unusual (I’m actually getting good at that now… once it would have had to have flames shooting out of it for me to notice) I noticed our shiny new gearbox’s rear coupling was sheared completely off.  The noise was the propeller hitting the rudder under the boat.  Fuck, fuck, fuckity fuck!  Our 3 week old gearbox was broken… so was my heart.

 

Broken gearbox coupling

 

We didn’t have far to go and I was needed to navigate Michael through the sandbars so the gearbox would have to wait.

 

We made it to Kingfisher Bay Resort at Fraser Island and anchored.  Don’t take this lightly.  Anchoring whilst under sail is not an easy task.  Normally you would lower your sails, put your motor on, lower the anchor via the winch and reverse to pull the anchor tight in the sand.  When you anchor under sail, you have to turn into the wind so the sail holds no wind, drop the anchor straight down without the aid of the winch and hope your momentum stops before the bow hits the anchor chain.  We managed it after a couple of u-turns.

 

I’ve got to say, at this point I burst into tears.  I’ve tried to be positive.  I’ve tried to face every adversity that’s been thrown at us with good humour, but this just takes the cake.  I’m out of money, patience and the intestinal fortitude to keep going.

 

 I don’t need “I told you so’s” and they will be plentiful forthcoming, I don’t regret embarking on this adventure.  Our family has enjoyed excitement, faced terror, learned lessons, spent quality time together and also wanted to kill each other.  We’ve had experiences money just can’t buy.

 

This will not be the end of our adventure… but right now… I wish it was.

Rockhampton to Bundaberg

We managed to navigate safely out of the Fitzroy River and anchored the night at the start of The Narrows.  The Narrows are a sandy stretch of water between the mainland and Curtis Island just north of Gladstone.  At low tide it is impassable… I think you’d even have problems in a hovercraft, but at high tide is the quick way to Gladstone. 

 

When travelling north we went around the outside of Curtis Island, adding approximately 20 nm to the trip, as we didn’t think we could possibly make it through The Narrows.  Keith and Pauline assured us we could make it though so we took the short cut down to Gladstone.  It was easily navigated at high tide and was a quick and pleasant trip… until we reached Gladstone.  As far as I’m concerned Gladstone is the scariest place in the world.  All those huge container and cargo ships, I feel sort of like I’m riding a tricycle amongst B-Doubles on a Sydney Highway.  It really is quite terrifying.

 

As we were approaching Gladstone Harbour we came to a “fork in the road”.  Looking at the charts, both sides are passable but the right is a little deeper and a lot wider so we decided to take that channel.  I radioed in to Gladstone Harbour Control and let them know of my intentions.  They did not mention dogs, tutus or jellybeans and just told me to keep an ear on the radio for cargo ship movement.

 

 About 1 nm in, we were being pushed right up against the sandbar we were trying to avoid as a great deal of the channel we were travelling in was cordoned off for the laying of gas pipes.  A boat within the cordoned off area came over to us and yelled to us that this channel was closed, we would have to turn around and go down the left channel. Shit, fuck and damn!  Why didn’t the Harbour Control tell me this when I told them where I was going?  I guess I’m not their concern, the container ships are.

 

 

Our track is the yellow line

 

We turned and retraced our path back and just as we hit the point where we needed to turn around, Michael said “we’re heating up… look at the motor”.  I opened the hatch to the motor and was hit with the forceful spray of water.  Our raw water intake pipe had snapped clean off.  Michael stopped the motor and running repairs were required.  The pipe snapped right near the end where it joins to the pump.  As the pipe is copper, not rubber, the pipe was now too short to reach the pump.  Thankfully we had connectors on board so Michael cut a piece of pipe off about two inches long and reattached it with connectors. This bought us about 1 inch and lengthened the pipe enough for it to reach the water pump again.  All of this took about an hour and we were back on our way down the correct channel. 

 

Besides the markers all over Gladstone Harbour being confusing and seemingly making no sense, we managed to get through the Harbour without further incident and made it down to Rodd’s Harbour.  It was getting dark and a storm was approaching so we didn’t push our chances to try to make it to Pancake Creek. 

 

We awoke after the first night to find our anchor had slipped and we’d drifted about 300 metres closer to shore.  We had to move the boat. We didn’t have enough water under us and in a low tide we would’ve been beached.  We decided that despite the weather we would try to make it to Pancake Creek.  We started the motor and hauled the anchor.  I was motoring towards the heads when I noticed we were overheating.   We were in deeper water, Michael dropped the anchor, I turned off the motor and we went to investigate.  Thankfully it was only an airlock in the raw water from the previous day’s repair but the storm had increased in intensity so we decided to stay put for the moment.

 

We got stuck at Rodd’s Harbour for 3 nights. 

 

Rodd’s Harbour to Pancake Creek was a quick, uneventful trip where nothing needed to be patched, fixed or replaced.  We stayed at Pancake Creek for one night and then headed further south to Bundaberg.

 

Pancake Creek to Bundaberg is 66nm but again, they were reasonably uneventful miles.  We saw a whale and had a duck hitch a ride but that was about it. 

 

We spent 3 nights in Bundy, caught up with family and friends and had a carefree time.

Rockhampton

I don’t think I was dry the whole time I was in Rockhampton.  It was hot and I was sweaty.  Being on the river you think “swimming”.  You could swim in the river… if you were willing to take on the sea snakes, eels and crocs.  Needless to say, I wasn’t willing. 

 

We moored at the Fitzroy Motor Boat Club.  It was a non-descript little club that was rarely open but it had showers and a washing machine, that’s all I needed as there was a pub on every corner, so refreshment was never far away.

 

I actually liked Rocky as a town but the Fitzroy River had absolutely no redeeming features at all.  It was the colour of coffee and full of the aforementioned scary creatures.  It floods every summer and is not easy to navigate, even at high tide.

 

We spent a week in Rockhampton.  On our second night we went to The Great Western Hotel for the Young Guns Rodeo.  Kids as young as 4 riding calves up to the big boys riding bulls.  There was bull riding, the bucking broncos and the barrel races.  The rodeo clowns (actually called bull fighters) are amazing.  I reckon the riders have the easy job… try to stay on for 8 seconds and most don’t even achieve that.   The bull fighters worked for 4 hours and constantly put themselves between the bull and the rider… and not a barrel to hide in.

Bucking Bronco

 

 

The rodeo clowns dress like footballers,

is that a not so subtle dig???

 

During our stay Michael helped Keith replace his damper plate and Keith helped us by driving us around while we bought new generators, groceries and miscellaneous knick-knacks.

Michael working on Keith & Pauline's Boat - Tan T'ien

 

Once Michael & Keith got the new damper plate installed in Tan T’ien, we bid farewell to our new friends and headed back out to open waters.