Sailing Around Australia; Gunna

3/2/2014 Gunna

While planning our Sailing Around Australia Adventure, we talked about lot’s of things we were “gunna” do.

After both having demanding, active and responsible jobs where the days just flew by, we were both quite concerned about suffering a restlessness or even boredom that may cause us to rush through our adventure. What we really want is to take our time and smell the roses.

To start each day we were “gunna” do an hour of exercise to keep a basic level of fitness up. We were “gunna” spend an hour a day on maintenance and cleaning the boat and I thought we were probably “gunna” cross the bight in mid to late January 2014.

So far if I were to present a scorecard I would say that we would get a D. A couple of times we have got up early and gone for a good brisk walk along a beach or around the town we were visiting at that time. Three times we have had a game of Frisbee on shore with Brian and Maree off Urchin.

We scored a little better for keeping the boat maintained and clean, but we can’t claim that this is all that regular either.

As for travelling across the bight in January, well, we are still anchored in the Duke of Orleans bay today, being the 3^rd of February. This is the one item that we really have not had any control over though, as our movements are vitally reliant on the weather ahead.

At this stage with a “trough” developing off the west coast and bringing a large high pressure system over the bight, we think that we should be able to make the crossing from Friday or Saturday, arriving in Streaky Bay on Wednesday morning.

After Leanne’s back pinged when she bent down yesterday, we have really had a serious talk about at least keeping up a basic level of stretches and moving the few muscles we don’t use regularly such as leg muscles. We use plenty of core muscles just trying to stay upright as the boat bobs and bucks on the water.

Today, we have promised each other that we are “gunna” make a much more concerted effort to do some physical activity every morning, rather than turning on the computer and sitting in front of that while saying it’s too rough to get the dinghy to the beach. Or the other thing that happens is calling in to one of the other boats and having morning tea, while our plan for a beach exercise session dissipates.

  

In terms of cleaning the boat, we need to get back into our routine. I was tackling this the other morning, when I found some little brown spots spread across the front deck.

About the size of a match head, it looked like metal rust spots. A look all around revealed many of these spots. To scrub them off i tried using spray and wipe first, then vinegar, then Gumption, then bleach, then cut n polish while I was looking around for any metal that I could see that was rusty or corroding in any way.

Leanne and I pondered on these rust spots for maybe a week or more. We asked the B’s about them, they couldn’t shed any light. More brown spots started appearing exactly where I had spent a few hours scrubbing others off.

I examined very carefully the aluminium mast and the stainless steel rigging. No sign of any corrosion. Plus we had this all professionally inspected before we left Mandurah.

Still quite perplexed I got out all the potions and formulas that I could muster and started scrubbing them off again, even though they seemed to breed more and more each day.

I put my head phones on and was getting in to scrub mode when I noticed a small bird sitting on the life line, which is a stainlees steel cable that goes around the outside perimeter of Easy Tiger to stop things and people falling off.

The bird was like a sparrow. It’s body was small, (about the size of a tennis ball)  brown and fairly plain to look at. I didn’t take much notice of it.

I was getting quite caught up in the removal of these brown spots when a movement out the corner of my eye caught my attention. I wasn’t sure what the movement was, but turned my head to look at the bird. It seemed to be smiling, I thought to my self, that's kind of cute.  As I turned to go back to scrubbing, I saw that two pals had joined him on the other side of the boat, sitting on the lifeline.

Then I saw another slight movement, just enough to catch my eye. It was as quick as a flash of lightning. So quick I was left to question if I saw anything at all. Another. There is no mistake this time. The movement is something being ejected from the rear of the cute little bird. Something the colour of rust!

The cute little birdies immediately lost their appeal. “Shoo” I hissed at them. They just sat there and smiled. “Shoo” I hissed again this time waving my hand at them as well. They maintained their position and their smile.

“Shoo”, I said again, this time far more forcefully, flinging my hand and throwing a new mirco fibre polishing rag straight at them. They didn’t even flinch, just ejected another small dot of sparrow poop on to my nice white gelcoat. The polishing rag sailed by them in slow motion and drifted down into the sea water.

After retrieving the polishing rag and hanging it on the line to dry, I was now on a mission to rid these not so cute birds from the boat. I whacked the end of the stainless steel lifeline with my hand. The bird simply jumped up and flew over to the other side of the boat to join it’s two pals. Unfortunately, where I hit the lifleline there was a small fray and the one piece that was sticking out sank about 2 millimetres into my hand like a needle.

Not to be outdone though, I crept around to the other side of the boat. Sighting the three brown  feather balls, I sprung up at them, lunging to try and strike them. Success to me, as they flew off to another boat, but, in the moment before I felt success, I felt stinging in my little toe. Looking down I see that I had sprung up on to the deck and had embedded the hook attached the fishing rod that Leanne had left there the night before, a few millimetres into my right little toe. After hook extraction, using my still stinging hand and now a stinging toe to match, I moved back to my scrubbing duties.

Two minutes later, five brown sparrows landed on the bow rail. I packed up the srubbing gear and went inside. Taking the broom back to the foredeck, I began halfsword fighting and half maypole dancing with the broom. This was very effective at scattering the birds to no0t return, but as I hadn’t kept up my exercise regime like I said I was “gunna”, I couldn’t keep it up for long, before I had to have a cold drink and a lie down.

Next morning as we prepared for departure, Leanne was coiling up the mooring lines on the foredeck. “Hey”, she said, “I thought you were “gunna” clean the front of the boat?”

I said nothing. I really didn’t want to tell her that a full grown, red blooded Australian man had been whipped by a brown tennis ball sized rust poopin sparrow.