Sailing around Australia; The Week that Was

15/12/2014 = Crown Marina, North Haven, Adelaide

The Week that Was

In the blink of an eye a week has gone past, making it 2 weeks since we got back to Easy Tiger and preparations for continuing our sailing adventures.

We decided after a few days of scrubbing, rubbing and polishing, that a change of scenery might be nice. Marina Adelaide is a very good marina, and Richard the yard manager had been very helpful but the lure of moving (even if it ws just a few kilometres) was irresistible. 

With the generous offer of a vehicle, we had a quick visit to another marina on the west coast of Adelaide called Crown Marina.

As there are shops, a tavern and the Cruising Yacht Club of South Australia all within walking distance of the marina, we booked in on the spot and will be here until the first week of February.

Easy Tiger hasn’t enjoyed being left for months on end with just water rats and sparrows for company. So we are very wary about what we will find as we start our preparations for the next part of our sailing adventures. For example, we had been told that there were sparrows nesting in our sail bag. So we hoisted the main sail to remove the nests but  couldn't get it down  because the mast car ball bearings were full of dirt and jammed. These small jobs I see as just part of having a boat, I said to myself as I spent the day cleaning out the mast track and the mast cars.

We had been cleaning up after water rats and sparrows for several days, so I hadn't had time to check the engines. Then came moving day. After firing up the starboard engine I soon found the next problem. The saltwater pump had seized. 

Not to worry, I said. Just part of owning a boat. But, the further I got into the task the darker my mood became. As the saltwater pump is on the bottom of the engine, First of all I had to manouvre my body (182cms (6ft) and 90kgs) into the engine bay, then I had to lie on the engine, wrapping my arms around it, in a very intimate bear hug.

Anyone who has done a similar task would know that engines have many sharp pointy bits, arranged so that if you are lying on the top of one, giving it a bear hug, said sharp pointy bits stick into ones arm pits, rib cage and worst of all the area that men hold most dear.

This was so that I could twist my neck at a very unusual angle to be able to see one of the three bolts holding the water pump on to the engine. I could just get in to place to see the bolt that needed to be turned. What I couldn't see was approximately 2 centimetres above the back of my head, where there was a piece of aluminium which holds the steering cable. Every time I moved more than 2 centimetres I would bump my head on it.

To add to my mounting injury list and my darkening mood, after untangling my self and staggering to the phone, I rang the suppliers of the offending water pump. The supplier  told me that there were no new pumps in Australia and the price of supplying one ex Singapore is $1000!

After recovering from the shock, and while almost incapable of coherent thought, Leanne suggested I try WD 40 to try to get the pump spinning freely. Like any man whose wife makes such good practical suggestions, I gave an appreciative grunt then stated categorically that it wouldn't work. Just to humour her,  I used a couple of cans of  WD40 to drown the pump and had it spinning freely about ten minutes later.

Buoyed by that success it was back into my impression of an Indian rubber man, to renew my acquaintance with the lovely sharp pointy bits. After almost an hour of practicing my full vocabulary of curses, I had the pump back in place.

Relieved, I fired up the engine but; the pump was still not working. Another hour of bending at very un-natural angles and being continually prodded by the sharp pointy bits, I removed the  pump again and fitted a new impeller to the pump.

This time I was very circumspect about starting the engine. To my absolute delight, it pumped water as it should.

After a couple of hours to regroup and apply a few band aids, we did a weather inspection. It looked like thunderstorms were about to hit. Looking on the weather radar, the thunderstorms seemed to be going well north of where we were headed.

Another hour was spent looking at the weather and to-ing and fro-ing between leaving our safe haven or travelling around North Haven. By this time dusk was approaching. All of the above would normally mean that we would stay put.

Not being normal though, for some reason we both said at once, OK let’s go.  The ropes were thrown off at 7.00pm and we headed out into the river with huge black clouds off our starboard side.

Gladly, the hour long trip went by without incident and by nightfall we were tied in to our pen at Crown Marina, with 2 very big sighs of relief.

The surrounding area here at North Haven is much nicer than the industrial surrounds at Marina Adelaide.  The beach side walk trails have encouraged us to restart our exercise regime and the nearby tavern beckons for our weekly "date nights".

Also there are several other live aboard who we have met, each with stories to tell. 

Easy Tiger minus Water Rats and Sparrows in her new pen at Crown Marina.

Sailing Around Australia; 100% Success Rate

10/12/2014 = Crown Marina, Adelaide

100% Success Rate

In february this year I wrote a blog titled "who you know not what you know".  It was about the really amazing people we had met during our sailing around Australia adventures.

At that point, we had made it across the Great Australian bight and found refuge in Streaky Bay. Since then we have sailed via Port Lincoln to Adelaide.

From Noel and Sue Seymour's water cannon greeting at Bunbury, Brian (b5) at Albany, Heather, Peter, Jill and Bill in Bremer Bay, Ken at Hopetoun, Fud and Faye as well as Ray in Esperance and then Geoff and Heather in Streaky bay the people we have met up with have really made this adventure.

Amazingly, we have maintained our success rate with meeting terrific people have helped us out in each and every port we have visited.

In Port Lincoln we met Gary, who helped us out with a lift to here or there. One day he took us to Bunnings, but unfortunately his car broke down while we were there. I managed to get a lift back to the boat with Pamela Price. We didn't know it at the time but we would later get to know Pamela's thoughtfulness and generosity.

When we first arrived in Port Lincoln, we anchored out the front of the Port Lincoln Sailing Club. We  went  ashore to do some shopping. On the beach a fellow came up to us asking questions about the catamarans. His name is David Kerr. He had just bought a catamaran and was busy organising the trip back from the sunshine coast to Port Lincoln.

We invited David and his wife Sonia to join us on board for dinner that night. We had a lot in common, although David has far more toys than I could even dream of. They run a business based in Alice Springs that keeps them busy travelling back and forward. With David and Sonia, we shared fun trips to the pig farm, (where everyone should order the "elvis" pancakes) and  lunches at their house. They have become firm friends.

David has really earnt my respect. Having never sailed before, he sailed his catamaran all the way  from Sydney to Port Lincoln (including Bass Strait) with only himself and another inexperienced  mate on board.

After several months in Port Lincoln, we sailed around to Adelaide. While we were away from the boat
working, a fire in a boat yard up the road brought fireman Ian Sulley to the marina. Ian is another who has a dream of sailing off into the sunset. Easy Tiger caught his attention and as we had our phone number on the side, Ian sent us a text and we kept in touch during our stint in Arno Bay.

When  we got back to Adelaide, we invited Ian and his wife Susan on board.  After a tour of the boat and bit of story telling, Ian and Susan offered us the use of their car... for two days. How helpful. Then they offered to have us around for dinner. Then, they told us they were off to India for three weeks and we could stay at their house plus use their car while they were away. How generous!

The need to work took us from Adelaide to Arno Bay.  Leanne was working in the local Grain storage silos. In a strange twist of fate, I was offered a job truck driving for a family with a large farm in the Arno Bay area. It turns out that the guys I would be working for were Pamela Price's sons. The lady who gave me a lift back from Bunnings in Port Lincoln.

We got into working pretty hard and long hours in Arno Bay. After Leanne had worked a  long and particularly frustrating day, there was a knock on the door. It was Pamela with a bunch of flowers, some home made cheesecake and a smile. Pamela  introduced Leanne to another lovely lady called Barbara, and these simple, generous gestures made our stay in Arno that much easier.

In each and every port that we have visited, the biggest highlight by far and also the biggest revelation for us has been the fantastic people that we have met. We have a 100% success rate at meeting great people in each port we have visited.

Leanne says that the greatest lesson for her is about "paying it forward". That is, when one person helps another, it motivates that person to help someone else and a chain reaction is created. It has changed our focus from ourselves to wanting to help others. What a really nice mindset to be in.

 

Sailing Around Australia; You Dirty Rat

1/12/2014 = Marina Adelaide 

You Dirty Rat

It seemed like we had left Easy Tiger for an eternity. It was actually July when we packed up and left Easy Tiger in care mode at Marina Adelaide. We hadn’t planned to leave so long, but a severe case of the dreaded “budget deficit” disorder meant we had to rejoin the workforce.

After six months of landlocked “adventure” the day of return travel to Easy Tiger crawled along as times of great anticipation do. We travelled by bus from Arno Bay to Adelaide. This is an 8 hour trip which we put a positive spin on by saying it would be nice to see some of the country side. After about 3 hours of looking out the window it was getting hard to justify the decision to take the bus. The country side was flat, bland paddocks of straw. In fact miles and miles of straw dotted with the odd farmhouse or small town that resulted in another 10 minute stop over for the bus.

At long last the bus pulled in to Adelaide central station. Leanne hailed a taxi big enough to take our 80 kilos of luggage. Peak hour. Another hour crept past in the taxi until finally we were offloaded at Marina Adelaide.

Gathering up our bags and  urgently walking around the corner of the building we got our first sight of what is now our home. Easy Tiger.  Like players in the last leg of the amazing race, we sprinted (as well as you can carrying 50 kilos of luggage) down the gangway and along the jetty to pen S2. I was sort of expecting someone to be there to say “congratulations Stave and Leanne, you are team number1.

To say that we were stopped in our tracks would be an understatement. I caught a glimpse of Easy Tiger’s black sail bag first. That is, the material of the sail bag was once black. Now it was motely grey colour. There were also spots of white giving a dappled effect. Bird pooh, layers of it.

My eyes (and my heart) dropped to the rear transom where I was about to board Easy Tiger.  A bird’s nest. Or what resembled a bird’s nest covered the entire back steps, both sides, and the entire cork floor of cockpit.  There was nowhere on the rear of the boat to put a foot or take a step without treading in pile of what we thought was bird’s mess. There were piles of weed, feathers, some sticks and left over crab shells literally covering the floor. Oh, and pooh; you couldn’t imagine a bird producing so much “waste”.

After being away for so long, working long hours and “pining” for our sailing adventures, it was quite overwhelming to see our beloved boat and home in such a state.

We were up bright and early the next day, to start the clean up. First we made a clean pathway from the door to the jetty, then we broke out the scrubbing brushes, the heavy duty truck wash detergent, ajax spray and wipe then got head down and bum up.

Over the next six hours, passerby’s on the jetty commiserated with us as they made their way to their pristine boats just metres away. I couldn’t believe that Easy Tiger and one other power boat had been singled out by the birds to be used for nesting, eating crabs and toilet requirements.

Further inspection and discussion among the few people around the marina didn’t seem to shed any light. One puzzling thing was the amount of crab shells, and chewed crab bits  among the litter. I thought that the birds would be dining on fish, more than crabs. The marina did seem to have plenty of resident Bream and Tommies.

On and in the sail bag, it seemed more bird mess like. This just added to the intrigue of the mess down on the deck.

After another day of scrubbing, the marina staff came to work on the Monday. They also commiserated with us over the condition of Easy Tiger.  Richard the yard manager said that they would have evicted the culprit, but their hands are tied by the fact that water rats are protected.

WATER RATS! I hadn’t really heard of Water rats, so I googled them. That told me that they are members of the platypus family, the largest of these is the Australian water-rat (also known as rakali), a very attractive animal weighing up to 1.3 kilograms as big as a medium-sized platypus.

That explained the mess on ground level, the crab shells and the fact that it was only on our boat and one other.

After we spent 2 days cleaning up after this protected species, I have found a new scientific name for the Water Rat = Veri messius Pesti muchiuss.

You dirty rat!

Sailing Around Australia; The Great Barrier Reef

The Great Barrier Reef aboard Reef Magic

This blog is dedicated to our wonderful children Bree and Luke. We both Thank you for your generosity and giving us treasured memories of a fantastic day out on the reef.

So let's back track here... Bree is a Helicopter Attendant working for a company called Reef Magic. Luke managed to get the day off (mid week) and the three of us stepped aboard Reef Magic at 9am, all excited for what the day would present. We were welcomed aboard with a great big hug and smile from Bree.

I was enjoying watching Bree at her new job, encouraging the tourists to book a helicopter flight. Feeling pretty relaxed, I was really excited about the day. I presumed that we would spend most of it snorkeling around the pontoon.

Little did we know that our darling daughter had booked our whole day up with adventure...

First we had a 10minute helicopter flight. This was amazing looking down over our Great Barrier Reef from above. It was like watching the beginning of a documentary of the reef... they normally start with filming from the sky looking over the reef with all it's beautiful colors of aqua to dark blue… spotting turtles and stingrays.

Our daughter, Bree is the Helicopter attendant on Reef Magic

 

On the way to the Heli pontoon.

Back on Terra nearly firmer.

We were still reeling from our flight and before we stepped foot back onto the pontoon we were told we had to run to get a wetsuit fitted cause we were now booked to go on an introductory dive...well...OMG...as quick as flicking a switch, nerves are now eating my stomach. I look over at Steve and he has already gone a pale shade of grey. Luke was all excited (why wouldn't he be...he IS a dive instructor, so this is a walk in the park for him… with his eyes shut). I felt really nervous. 

It was like suddenly everything went into high speed. Before I knew it I was asked to sit in front of the tank on a bench seat while they secured it around my waist. All done, snorkel on, regulator tested, flippers on, all I had to do was walk 2 meters to the pontoon steps to descend into the ocean. I went to get up and nothing happened. I was pinned to the bench seat. The weight of the tank including the weight belt around my waist I could hardly move. I felt even more fear as several arms reached out to help me get up, legs felt like lead. The only thought in my head… OMG I don't want to drown (just quietly, have always had drowning as one of my fears). Next we were told that we had to conquer a mask clearing exercise and had to remove and replace the mouth regulator several times, all under water. Steve has gone completely quiet!!!

Getting rigged up for the introductory dive.

Diving with "Wally"

Very apprehensively we both descended down the stairs into the water now standing on the platform hanging on to a thick rope, skin gone white over knuckles. I simply couldn't wooss out even though I wanted to. What would my kids think? Oh god please do I have to do this. Dive instructor is now saying put my head under water and breath with the regulator in my mouth! Hmmm, ok, that's no too bad. Slowly, as he showed us how to do each of the exercises and I managed to achieve and pass the tests, some of the fear was dissipating. Maybe I COULD do this. 

At this stage I had descended down about 2 meters and was asked to hold another rope so he could go back for Steve. He was now trying to pry Steve's fingers from the rope up above. Steve was feeling panicked and claustrophobic with all the gear on. To his credit, he too found the courage to dig deep and slowly down he came to meet up with me.

We are now swimming with arms linked with the instructor. . Eyes wide open, all the senses on high alert, breath thru my mouth, don't panic, equalize ears, oh and I think I'm ok. This is not too bad.

The instructor pointed to a sandy spot on the bottom, this was to be the photo area. Down we went. I was so caught up with all my senses on high alert that I had completely lost sight of Luke. He and an underwater photographer suddenly appeared along with a massive Mari Wrasse called Wally.

Wally was obviously used to the limelight and I was completely taken by surprise when the photographer reached out, put her hand on Wally’s head and pushed him into position for a snap shot. This fish loved being pushed this way then that way, click, click.  

I was now feeling very excited and was amazed at his size and how he felt, he seemed to love the human contact. His colours where amazing.

I'm starting to relax.  I remember thinking about how I could now understand the attraction both ours kids had to diving. It was another world down there. Being up close and personal with a massive fish like Wally and swimming amongst the other fish was awesome. My eyes felt like they were about to pop out of my head. My brain was smiling but I dare not move my lips. Don't want that regulator falling out of my mouth.

I was really getting into all the fish swimming around us when the instructor with arms linked in ours started to head of into deeper water. The deeper we went, the more uncomfortable I became. I ended up feeling quite panicked. Water kept seeping into my goggles and it seemed to get harder to draw breath through the regulator. I needed to get up to the surface and quick.

Once we broke thru the surface of the water the instructors attention was on Steve. I hadn't known that we had both given him the sign at the same time to go up. We slowly made our way back to the security of the pontoons platform. It was over. We did it. What an experience.

That one definitely got both of us out of our comfort zones. Overall it was great. I totally admire my children for their adventure and courage to dive as much as they do. I would love to have another go one day. Next time to go nice and slow and not feel quite so rushed.

After shedding the tank and all the gear we raced over to the queue for a smorgasbord lunch. I felt exhilarated from our heli flight and the diving.

Bree came to join us for a quick lunch and said that we had 10 minutes before we were each booked in for a massage at 2.30.

Then, she had also booked us into an Outer Reef Snorkel Experience with the marine biologist. I was itching to get into the water for a snorkel so I gave up my massage.

Luke and I on the adventure snorkel.

The weather was perfect and the day was perfect. The Outer Reef Snorkel Experience was the highlight of my day. There is so much life and beauty down along the reef where it drops off into the deeper water. We spent ages drifting along the reef wall listening to the Marine Biologist and learning all about the Eco systems.

The trip back to Cairns went very fast because for most of it all I saw was the inside of my eyelids. Feeling very happy and content having had a day full of adventure and fun.

It was such a beautiful day out there and the generosity of both our kids touched us both cause we didn't put our hand in our pockets for one thing, THANKYOU both for an amazing day out. Bree when you read this I want you to know that you are so, so very special. You worked so hard organizing all this for us and we just loved every second of the day. Thank you my darling.

Leanne Ludemann

Luke, Bree and Leanne during a fun day at the Great Barrier Reef.