Sailing around Australia; Deadlines are deadly

Coomera River, Gold Coast Queensland

1/5/2017

Deadlines are Deadly

Since we have been on Easy Tiger's Sailing adventures the one big thing we have learnt is that you can't plan the weather. In fact you can barely plan for the weather or, plan because of the weather.

Our son Luke  (DIY Sailing) was planning to sail his boat "Alice" from Cairns to the Gold Coast from where he would join us in the Down Under Go East Rally to the South Pacific. The trouble was though that the rally was planning to leave on the first weather window on or after the 11th May.

He had left it very late , flying in to Australia on the 3rd of April,  just days after cyclone Debbie wreaked havoc on the north east coast of Australia.  After having just a few days to acclimatise himself with the boat, pick up his crew from the airport, get provisions and fit a few handy gadgets, he set off from Cairns without being able to wait for the right weather.

Having a deadline on a sailing boat, I think, is a recipe for disaster. As Luke found out, trying to sail into headwinds and oncoming swell is absolutely no-one's idea of a good time. Once "Alice" rounded the cape she was subject to pretty rough conditions. That was when all the little things that the previous owner, the surveyor and the "advisors" said might need attention came to the fore.

By the time they made it to Dunk Island they were a pretty dishevelled lot on board the Alice. Luke's Facebook post from that day said it all.His "encounters" so far included"; 3x underway engine shutdowns , 2x blocked fuel filters, 1x cracked filter bowl, I x torn headsail , 1x torn luff rope on staysail, 1x toilet door dismantle, 1x tender fuel filter burst, 1x bilge pump blockage, 1x autopilot failure , 1 x wind instrument install failure, 50x rail dips, 7x blinding rain squalls, 20x toilet system backing up, 1x hatch leak into cabin, 1x touching the bottom in sand, 2x paint scratches from a mooring bouy, 1x 30m fishing braid caught in the Wind Generator, ONE MASSIVE SMILE ON MY FACE THE ENTIRE TIME (ok, 60% of the time). She's not always glamourous but learning lots about myself and ALICE that's for sure. Couldn't of done it without @howgoodisliving @bonviiie @laralif and my constant contact from moral support of @leanneludemann and mechanical expertise from @Steveludemann and @rhys_bennett101 constant inspiration from @riley.whitelum @elayna__c @sailing_nandji @sailinguma  #yewwwwww.

Sadly, Luke's "encounters" continued on the next leg of his trip, Dunk to Townsville and Townsville to the Whitsunday Islands. This time his list of encounters included drowning his laptop, go pro and hard drive, springing several leaks and a very sea sick crew member. By the time he got to Airlie Beach unfortunately the realisation that he still had two weeks of smashing into the wind and swell just to get to the Gold Coast temporarily removed his smile as well. A day after he arrived, he rang us with the sad news that the weather and the sea conditions had foiled his plans of joining us on the Go East Rally.

We were very sad to get the news of his decision, but were kind of glad that he had made the right decision to give in to the weather. The upside of that is that Luke has decided to come with us on Easy Tiger for the Down Under Go East Rally.

Our plans are also very weather dependent. The Down Under Go East Rally weather router has been in touch to say that May 11th departure is now looking unlikely. We may not be heading out to New Caledonia until the 16th or so, depending on the weather.

People often ask why it has taken us four years or so to sail from Perth to the Whitsunday's, then back to Brisbane. We reply that it's because we are like Mathew Flinders,  discovering Australia's southern shores. However, it's actually taken this long because we have learnt to wait for the right weather before moving off. 

The Happy Captain

The Mighty SV "Alice"

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Sailing Around Australia; Who Let the Cats Out.

Dux Anchorage, Gold Coast

April 2017

Who let the Cats Out.

With Easy Tiger back in the water for a week now, we have quickly got used to floating, anchoring and even more used to 5 o'clock drinks and socialising.

The main event during the week was the Down Under Go East and previous Go West Rally get together. This was held at the Southport Yacht club's Dux anchorage annexe which is just north of Tipplers resort, in Tipplers passage.  It's a pretty busy channel that runs off the Broadwater that runs north from Southport at the Gold Coast.

We arrived (with hundreds of other boats) on Good Friday. We anchored in between Richard and Dawn's "Por Dos" and a few hundred metres from Songlines which is John and Leanne Hembrow, the rally organisers. Within a few minutes of our arrival and dropping anchor, we had our first invite for 5   o'clock drinks.  

At drinks aboard Por Dos, we met Jo and Heidi from the monohull "Huck". These two have sailed from N'Orleans in the USA. John and Leanne Hebrew have sailed through Mexico and South America as well, so some of their tales were fascinating. Leanne and I were inspired. We keep thinking that in our general circle of friends, family and acquaintances that we have done things outside the box, but meeting and chatting with people like Heidi and Jo and John and Leanne makes us think that we haven't really got to the edge of the box let alone outside it.

As with all good 5 o'clocker sessions, we got back to our boat about midnight. No dinner required we went straight to bed for our first night on anchor in more than a year.

Next morning we declined the offers of breakfast at Tipplers resort, in favour of a bit of a sleep in. That didn't happen though as the adrenalin and excitement of being out here "doing it" was still with us and we were up bright and early to check our anchor, our battery levels and generally get into the groove.

Mid morning we went over to John Hembrow's boat for him to download the New Caledonia and Vanuatu "Rocket" cruising guides. I have to say, these are far and away the best cruising and sailing information guides I have used. Sad to say that the rest of the day after I downloaded the "Rocket Guides" was a write  off as I was transfixed with viewing images and looking at routes and tracks that we will be taking over the next 6 months. In fact I probably don't really need to go now as I have seen so much over a couple of days is spent glued to the rocket guides.

Sunday we had a bonfire and barbecue at the Yacht club's shed. Another late night, then Monday was John Hembrow's birthday. A big night was had singing and dancing at the Southport Yacht club's shed.

Quite a few boats  left the anchorage on Monday, as  a few more rally participants arrived at Dux. Skellum, the Albatross, Aqualibrium and More R&R added to the number of Catamarans in the anchorage, while Squander helped the monohull numbers.

Tuesday night was the barbecue for past and future rally participants. There is something nice about meeting people that share your apprehension, nervousness, anticipation, excitement and sense of adventure. It didn't take long for the party to crank up and yet another enjoyable but late night even did the Hokie Pokie at one stage. (It was that sort if night!)

We had  to be up at the yacht club shed for Leanne Hembrow's Yoga for yachties sessions. Leanne's yoga sessions were a really good way to stretch out the unused muscles. There's nothing like throwing a few downward dog, slinking cat, striking cobra and (my favourite) happy baby poses, to work out the late night cobwebs. Really great way to start the day but as a few Cat owners comment. feeling calm and relaxed doesn't help bring on the motivation to get jobs done on board. Each night at Dux had been a late night. I was one cat owner who was starting to feel like a cat, up all night and sleeping during the day.

Today we have retreated to Wave Break Island, near the Gold Coast Seaway. Most of the rally crowd have dispersed to all points of the compass. We are enjoying the calm before more gatherings of the Cat's and monhulls start in earnest early May.

You don't have to be crazy to own a catamaran, but it helps!

Sailing Around Australia; Throwing the toys out of the cot.

Dux Anchorage, Gold Coast, Queensland

April 2017

Throwing the toys out of the cot

Today is Good Friday and a very, very good day it is indeed.  Today we have thrown the lines off and departed the Boatworks dock to motor up to the Dux anchorage, where in a few days time we will meet up with several of the Down Under Go East Rally for this year and some of last years participants as well.

It was with quite a deal of apprehension that we let go of the marina berth, with it’s electricity, water and dry landing, the courtesy car, the assistance and the shops for any small forgotten item. I am not sure the dy will feel the same without a regular trip to the hardware store.

In the last week, since our return from Cairns, Easy Tiger was lifted to the hardstand where she had a nice new coat of anti foul applied to the hulls, sails out of storage closet and hoisted and engines cleaned, serviced and started.

All seemed fine with Easy Tiger as she was lowered into the water for the first splash in 14 months. Then I said it. Yes, I said to Leanne that all seemed good. My apprehension that something had to go wrong with a boat that had been out of the water for so long, had started to fade.

We had been almost twelve hours in the marina berth getting everything sorted when Leanne decided to do a load of washing in our on board washing machine.

The load of washing even went ok, until it came time for the machine to drain the rinsing water. No go. Error 03 it said on the panel. My first thought was that the line might be blocked or something had dried inside the drain hose.

So dangling upside down into the area where the hot water system is, I managed to undo the drain hose for the washing machine. I could blow through it and suck water through it quite easily. Damn. It seemed like it wasn’t an easy fix.

I drained the water out of the washer, spilling quite a bit into the floor of the boat. Now sloshing around in the washing water, I tried to get the machine to do another cycle and see if it had righted itself. No go. Again I had to drain the water manually, spilling even more on to the floor.

So, now it was time to ring the washing machine company. While I was doing this Leanne mopped up the spilt water and then put our de-humidifier into the spare cabin to dry things out.

To be fair the washing machine is probably two years old. The company said that they would send me a new drain pump for free which I was impressed with, but they would not pay for any labour involved in the repair, which I was not impressed with. The new pump arrived the next day, the day before Easter.

While this was being organized, Leanne noticed that the dehumidifier was turning itself off after only running for a few minutes.  I had just packed all the manuals, receipts and information sheets away after searching for the washing machine book. Now there was another frantic search for the dehumidifier book and another Google search for trouble shooting the IONmax dehumidifier. A call to the dehumidifier company revealed pretty much the same as the washing machine. It’s older than twelve months, therefore out of warranty. In fairness to the company, they are quite happy to have you send to Victoria, then charge you the technicians time followed by a charge to send it back. They were even happier to give a basic estimate of $350 for the repair of a $400 machine.

With the information we decided to throw the dehumidifier out and buy a new one. That will cost $389 delivered.

Meanwhile, back to the washing machine. With the new pump in hand I decided to tackle the job head on. Our washing machine is located in a very tight location under the bed in Easy Tiger’s rear cabin. I had to take the door off and then lift the 80kilo machine up on to the bed to then roll sideways to then lift through the doorway to install it. It would take a herculean effort to get it out but that had to happen as the pump is located in the bottom of the machine.

I rigged some straps underneath the machine and positioned myself on the bed with my knees up around my chin. Leanne then squeezed herself into the doorway so that she could do the twisting once I had the weight of the machine.  Surprisingly it slid out of its position quite easily and wedged itself between the cupboard and the door way. With several attempts accompanied by noises normally made by gold medal weightlifters, the machine came up onto the bed lying on its correct side for getting it through the narrow doorway. The problem now being that I was on the other side of the machine to the doorway with it resting on my lap.

With the twisting and wriggling that an Indian rubber man would have been proud of,  I managed to writhe out from under the washing machine and then squeeze between it and the cabin roof to end up face down on the floor, sweaty, smelly and exhausted.

To my absolute delight the drain pump took less than tem minutes to replace with the new one, which meant that I had only a short recovery time before again I was wrestling with the machine to reinstall it into the professionally crafted and exact fitting space we had paid to create for it. Again I lay on the floor pushing at the bottom while Leanne stood above me pushing at the top. After an hour or so of grunting, pushing, and levering we had it right.

Convinced that it was ready to go, I plugged it in and turned the dial to the shortest cycle. The machine burst into life, filled its bowl with water and washed for the next 5 minutes while we watched with baited breath.

Then we heard a whirr and a clunk. We heard water being pumped over board. We high fived each other in glee, thinking the problem solved. Or so we thought. The machine had always drained the wash water and that was what it was doing now. We sat back down. We waited with trepidation. These machines seem to take an eternity to get through their cycle when you are sitting there waiting for them. At last with a click and a whirr, the moment had arrived. Drain. We waited. Come on, drain. Please …drain. Alas it was not to be. Even with a new pump and a cleared drain hose the washing machine would not drain. Cheekily it just displayed Error 3 on it’s red display screen. It just sits there daring you to drain it manually, to spill water all over the floor and to use the dud dehumidifier to try and dry it all up.  But it was late Thursday night, so nothing else we could do but cut the power and kill that annoying red error code. Now facing the fact that being a problem in the electronics and out of warranty, the washing machine may well be the next thing to be thrown over board.

But now it’s Good Friday, we have motored up to Dux anchorage and the washing machine and dehumidifier experience is temporarily forgotten, while we enjoy a sundowner with other boaties.We have all Easter to relax before we ring the company to haggle some warranty or repairs.

Fortunately, it’s only the toys that need to be thrown out of the cot, not anything critical to Easy Tiger’s sailing adventures.

The offending **&^#%86 washing machine

Sailing Around Australia; Cruisas Interruptus

Cairns Queensland

March 2017

Cruisas Interruptus

Its ow been 5 weeks since our great road trip from Western Australia to the Gold Coast to restart Easy Tiger's Sailing adventures.

With Easy Tiger having been in storage for a year, there were of course a number of jobs that needed to be done for for relaunch.

For example,  replacing a leaking through hull fitting and sorting new tie downs for the old kayak and now a new kayak.

Also, we decided that being nearly ten years old, Easy Tiger's inside could do with a makeover which we achieved in two short weeks. As we were whittling away our to do list, we were getting more and more excited about getting Easy Tiger back in the water and heading off wherever the wind took us.

Then our daughter called with some exciting news. No, not grand kids; but they had bought their first house. How lovely it would be for us to go to Cairns and help them move in and get settled. Arrangements were made and tickets were purchased for us to arrive in Cairns the day after their settlement.

Since we were going to leave Easy Tiger for another three weeks, we calculated that leaving her in storage at the boat works was the cheapest option we could find. Plus, on our return we could finish our to do list before antifoam application on the hard stand work area and then into the water she goes.

Then we got a call from our son. He was looking at buying a yacht and sailing for a year or so. He had found one that he wanted us to look at for him. It was in Cairns. So without further ado we were on a plane to Cairns to look at a Roberts 39 sailing boat on behalf of our son.

We arrived in Cairns two weeks earlier than expected. The only bummer about that was that our to do list for Easy Tiger remained. A day spent inspecting the "Alice" and a day spent packing stuff into boxes for our daughter and then back to the Gold Coast.

In the next ten days we installed our Iridium Go, which would give us satellite communications, We cut and polished both hulls, we fitted Nomad matting to our cockpit, serviced our Honda generator, repacked the storage compartments, had our life raft serviced and completed many 5 minute jobs all that took several hours each.

Then we locked Easy Tiger back up, asked the car (the mobile storage unit) and drove to Cairns. 

On arrival in Cairns we helped our daughter and her partner move the last items out of their house, scrubbed their old house from top to bottom and unpacked boxes of stuff at the new place. 

We also attended the survey and inspection plus lift out and hard stand of our son's boat "Alice" and commenced the clean up and odd job list for that. 

While we were doing this Cairns was placed on cyclone alert. So we had to tie Lukes boat on to lugs set int the concrete at the big boat shed, then strip everything off the deck and stow sails etc inside.

Fortunately cyclone Debbie bypassed Cairns and went to the Whitsunday Islands and Mackay instead.

After 20 days in Cairns we then flew back to the Gold Coast, boarding Easy Tiger at 1.00am on the Sunday. At 7.00 am on the Monday morning we were lifted, that afternoon the boat was prepped and Antifouled as I serviced the engines and sail drives, then at 12.30pm on the tuesday Easy Tiger got wet for the first time in 14 Months as it was lifted back into the water.

So now we can catch our breath. We are back in the water anchored at Dux anchorage near Tipplers resort. We have the phones turned off and are enjoying a bit of a midday nap. This is what we paid the dollars for, this is what we had dreamed of, so no more interruptions for a few days.

Lolling about in lovely anchorages on lovely days like these is worth all the rushing, hard work, helping others, spending lots of money and unplanned interruptions for sure.

Sailing around Australia; Rallying for the rally.

Cairns, Queensland.

March 2017

Rallying for the Rally

During the wet and cold August in Bunbury WA, last year  Leanne and I had gone for several weeks, without even mentioning it to each other. Leanne was suffering from dry eyes syndrome and had developed planta-fasciitis in her foot, which made going outside and walking quite a painful experience. I was working from early in the morning to late evenings. Thinking that this was all towards our goal of getting back on the boat, but at the same time getting quite despondent about it ever actually happening.

Out of the blue, Leanne got a face time call from our sailing buddies, Melian and Ian on Indian Summer.  They had left Mandurah (Perth) six months ago to sail north through the Kimberleys to Darwin from where they had joined the Sail Indonesia Rally.

Melian's tales of adventure and fun sailing in the warm climate of Indonesia visiting many small villages the and Orang-utan sanctuary along their journey rekindled Leanne's sailing spirit at exactly the right time. She couldn't wait for me to get home from work. By the time I did trudge through the door, she had done quite a bit of research into Sail Indonesia.

It was inspiring to see Leanne so upbeat about our sailing adventures again. I was a little horrified about the idea of travelling through Indonesia as the last three times I have been to Bali I've suffered from Bali Belly (aka; dysentery)  Also last time we were there Leanne caught a bout of denghy fever. so, no Indonesia didn't hold great memories, but at least it was nice to be discussing the possibilities and destinations and dreaming of sailing adventures again.

Over the next week or so Leanne did more research on yacht rallies in general, which is when she came across the Down Under Go East Rally. This was a rally, or if you like a convoy, that heads out to the South Pacific. The more we discussed the idea the more we like the sound of going in a convoy to the South Pacific and visiting the beautiful islands of New Caledonia and Vanuatu.

The work I was doing at the time was four days on and four days off. As luck would have it, the Down Under Go East Rally was holding an information day in November at the boat works (where Easy Tiger was in storage) and on a day that fell right in the middle of my days off. So tickets were booked and arrangements made. We got to spend a few days on Easy Tiger and got to attend the information day for the Down Under Go East Rally. The best part, though was that we got to see so many of our sailing friends as they were packing up their boats after the cruising season that we had just missed.

Our arrival at the Boatworks coincided with Neville and Amanda lifting Bossa Nova out of the water for six months storage. Also, Brain and Eva from Sofia had come down from Brisbane for a short sharp visit and to attend the information day.

There were about 40 people in attendance at the information day, where the promoter of the rally, John Hembrow spoke. He showed us the barrier reef of New Caledonia and the lovely small villages and islands of Vanuatu.

New Caledonia certainly seems like a wonderful place to cruise for a few months. This French province has the second biggest barrier reef in the world that forms a huge lagoon full of differing islands.

We also heard from a guy who did the rally last year, which gave us confidence that we could do it.

After "expressing" our interest we started talking about it more. We discussed the possibilities at length with others that we knew. Most seemed quite interested. For me there was a fair bit of trepidation at taken on another long passage, as we had a bit of a rough time crossing the Great Australian Bight. This trio would be couple of hundred nautical miles longer. But the more we talked to each other and to other cruisers we knew each and every problem could be solved. Also we started adding up the costs, looking into things like national registration for the boat, Insurance for overseas passages, searching for crew and a whole host of other items.

While their seemed so much to think about, so much information to be sought and so many decisions to be made it could have been a bit overwhelming. The nice part was though that since that day we have approached our sailing adventures with a new sense of vigour and excitement. A dream was generated. It was just like the year before we left to sail around Australia. A whole new adventure.

We had started to rally for the rally.

At home we had to make do with our inflatable friends while our sailing buddies were cruising without us.

At the Down Under go East Rally information day we caught up with  Brian and Eva off Zofia  among others. Didn't take long for the Champers to come out.

Really hope this guy isn't leading the Rally!

Quite a crew got together for the Down Under Go East Rally

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!

Our new most favourite thing on the boat. Our Portable Airconditioner.

All systems ready for the change

Taped up masked up and temperature up

The start of the floor boards

While I was doing the floor Leanne prepped the bench tops

Now for the tricky bits

Flors done then our new upholstery arrived.

It all came together at last.

The final product.

Sailing Around Australia; Stuff

Stuff

I am sitting here surrounded by stuff. In fact I had to shove it out of the way to be able to sit and type on my mac book. Normally having all this in my personal space would really annoy me.

Today though, the stuff that is strewn about the saloon of Easy Tiger is ok. That’s because it is all our stuff.

For the past 8 months we have lived with other peoples stuff that we were very careful and respectful of. Now that we are back on board Easy Tiger with our own stuff we don’t have to give a “stuff” about it.

Have you noticed how strange stuff is? People have garages, spare rooms and storage units full of stuff. Even after our huge downsizing, going from a family of four to two people living on a boat, we have a sea container full of stuff that we just can’t seem to part with.

This stuff seems to be able to breed, grow and multiply better than rabbits.

When we left for the trip home to WA, we flew out with one bag of luggage each. A month later we moved into a house sit, with those two bags and a couple of boxes of stuff.

Three months later we moved out of that house to another with four bags and three quite big boxes of stuff, to the second house sit job.

Three months later we had two car-loads of stuff.

We needed to cull our stuff before it took over and smothered us. What to do with all this stuff?

There was no other alternative. We would have to go through our sea container load of stuff and do some culling.

We were dreading having to do it, but on the last day we had available, we finally got round to opening up our time capsule. We spent a day unloading, then reloading and restacking our sea container. By the end of it we were well satisfied we had sorted our stuff.  We had a car-load for the rubbish tip and some bags for the charity bins.  We had made a bit more space in the sea container. Unfortunately we had the car half loaded with stuff we wanted to take back to the boat.

We had decided to drive our car back to the Gold Coast, where Easy Tiger has been stored, while we have been back in Western Australia. The advantage of taking our car was we would have wheels to get around in while we were on the East Coast of Australia. We didn’t dream that we would be using it as a storage unit!

The day before our departure, I stacked, packed and squashed the huge pile of stuff we wanted to take with us into the car. Several times I got down to two or three items left and had to start over again, as they just didn’t seem to fit.

After another five days driving, we arrived at Boatworks in Coomera at a bit over 8pm. Exhausted after spending 16 hours driving.

Since then two and a half days have gone by. What have we been doing? Sorting stuff. Every cupboard on Easy Tiger had to be emptied cleaned out and the repacked with new (or just different) stuff. So the stuff brought with us in the car had to fnd a home on Easy Tiger. The stuff on Easy Tiger had to find a place. Where was the best place for that stuff? In the car.

Our 5 seater car is now merely a mobile storage unit.

It does finally feel good that we have our stuff together and sorted.  I am not sure when next the motivation will strike. I hope it’s not soon though, because I am stuffed.

Our mobile storage unit packed and ready

Leanne at the wheel on our road trip