Sailing around Australia; Feel the heat

Boatworks, Coomera, Gold Coast, Queensland.

Feel The Heat

This week the Gold Coast of Australia has been a heat wave. Temperatures have hovered near on 40 degrees celsius on the coast, while a little further inland 45 degrees was forecast for several towns. During our road trip from Western Australia to the Gold Coast we had regular readings on the car dashboard of 45degrees external temp.

Easy Tiger is being prepped for the next adventure. This means that she sits on the hard concrete yard. The hard concrete reflects the heat.

Part of our prep and for Easy Tiger’s 10^Th birthday we have decided to give the saloon area a makeover. After getting a few quotes and prices it was soon clear that it wasn't going to happen unless we did a lot of the hard core labour ourselves. We didn't factor in the heat though.

The first task required, was to tape up the whole saloon/galley area, sand back the bench tops and then sand off the worn cork floor. Not the sort of job that should be done in 40degree heat. But it had to be done. We decided to work Mexican hours to see if that was the best way to tackle the task. Mexican hours are starting early, then a siesta in the middle of the day and then an "afternoon" shift in the evening. This worked well for a few days until we found that afternoon shift just wasn't happening. We had stuck too much to Australian afternoon hours which means 5.00pm is beer o'clock.

Our sailing buddies, Brian (B1) and Maree are here at boat works as well. They, like us, had been back in Western Australia for a “spell” and like us were finding it hard to acclimatize to the Gold Coast heat.

As I was prepping the floor for sanding one particularly hot day, Brian knocked on the boat and came aboard to see if he could borrow our car. “I am off to buy a portable air-conditioner,” he said, “We can’t cope any longer without some sort of cooling”.

“No need to borrow the car”, I said. “I think we will come with you to buy one as well!” I probably should have cleared this with Leanne first, as an air conditioner was well over our budget. It was with a little trepidation I told her of my brief conversation with Brian. “Thank god for that. Let’s go,” was her reply.

Brian had a particular make and model in mind, as it would fit in the best spot on their boat “Urchin”. Another boat in the Boatworks yard, Aqualibrium had one of these, so after finding out where Gerry got his, I decided to do a ring around to see who would give us the best price.

I soon found out it wasn’t who would give us the best price; it was a matter of who would have anything like a portable air-conditioner in stock in South East Queensland. With a heat wave lasting a couple of weeks before we arrived and another impending hot spell forecast it seems that most people in South East Queensland were looking for the same thing as we were, portable Air-conditioners.

After ringing all the major big brand stores and being basically laughed at, I rang a smaller store who said that he had one left. We thought briefly about leaving Brian and Maree behind, while we raced to the store at the speed of light. We relented though and took them with us. Guess what? They got in first and paid for the last one in stock.

After some discussion with the sales guy (and pleading and begging from Leanne), the guy rang several other stores and located one portable air-conditioner in a store 20 kilometers away. Our heat wave was over. We would be cool tonight. Or so we thought, until we tried to get one big portable air-conditioner, plus Brian and Maree, plus the left over bits and pieces we can’t fit on the boat, into our car.

What to do? The store couldn’t deliver for a few days. We wanted to be cool, now. Thankfully Boatworks yard have courtesy utes available for folks using their boat yard which are available for three hours at a time. They are hotly contested among the boaties who are all trying to get things done on their boat in the shortest possible time.

Hurriedly we rang to book the courtesy utility from the Boatworks, Luckily one was available but only for two hours as it had to be back before the office closed. Then we had get back to the yard, change vehicles and drive to the far off store, getting there before they sold the last unit. If we failed, we would be feeling the heat for another month.

Fortunately, we were successful. We picked up the second last portable air-conditioner unit in South East Queensland. Leanne wept tears of joy as we plugged it in and felt the cold air it blew into our faces. Our 4.1kw of cooling power, plus our boom cover providing some shade over the boat have made a far more comfortable existence while we are getting through our list of chores.

The only time it has been switched off since that moment was the day I spent a day sanding down bench tops and floors, our new best friend, as I didn’t want to fill our new most favourite thing on the boat filled with sanding dust and grit.

Even that day is now a distant memory, now that we have our new floors in, our new bench tops and our lovely new seating. The only problem is, that it is even harder to get out side, feel the heat and get things done.

As for the makeover of Easy Tiger...well we think she now looks...HOT!