We’re up on the beach half an hour later than yesterday, and this time the tide is even higher and we are deposited just a metre or so away from the rocks.
The angle is the worst yet – the sand shelving steeply putting us on an angle backwards from bow to stern. Everything, including me, rolls around. Things stay in place better when we are at sea!
We still don’t know what we are doing in terms of going to Bali or to Cocos Keeling but the first few hundred miles is the same, so we have time to make a decision en route. If it looks like we can make it to Bali before the fleet and rally control leave, we will head there; if not, we’ll veer off and continue to Cocos Keeling.
I check the bus timetable and by e-mail arrange to meet Maggie in town at the Darwin Interchange bus terminal. While I am getting ready I can hear Mike talking to someone. One of the Aborigine women who seem to hang around on the beach (actually I think they live there as there are a few bedrolls hanging on the fence) is chatting him up and trying to get him to take her for a ride in the boat. She is as high as a kite, or drunk, and Mike declines her request politely telling her that the boat needs fixing before she can go anywhere, and she wanders off.
These people seem so sad. I haven’t spent long enough in Australia to really see what’s going on or understand the politics of the situation, but they definitely appear to be second class citizens. As far as I am aware, the only indigenous people I ever see are lolling around aimlessly giving every appearance of being both drunk and homeless. I don’t know if either is true, it’s just how it seems. And they never smile although they probably have nothing to smile about. Yesterday, we were amazed to see signs along the highway prohibiting alcohol, and this is because there is such a problem amongst the Aborigines. You can’t even have alcohol in the car if you are driving through some townships. But I digress.
The first of the day’s jobs is to get Mike up the mast to replace the bulb in the steaming light. It seems to take forever to get it all ready, but all too soon he’s in the large blue nappy and heading for the spreaders, just half way up. He unscrews the fitting and brings it down to examine it more closely and check which bulbs it needs.
I box up the propellers that are going to be sent back to New Zealand – I have to take them with me into town and they weigh a ton (nearly 9 kilos as it turns out). I manage to get the box into a large shopping bag and fashion a shoulder strap out of a safety line (pretty ingenious if I say so myself) and Mike carries it to the bus stop for me then goes back to the boat.
The bus arrives on time and I stagger my way to the post office. It costs $88 to send them to New Zealand where the damage will be inspected and reported on. I’m just glad to be rid of the bloody things. On the way to meet Maggie, I stop off at a couple of art galleries but find nothing I like more than the painting Mike and I saw the other day in the rain. Well, that’s not strictly true. I see lots I like but not for the price. Now, if I wanted to spend a few thousand dollars …..
Maggie is waiting for me at the bus interchange when I arrive and after a hug and kiss we wander to the shop where I saw the painting. It’s still there and the lady still offers me the discount so I buy. She carefully rolls it up, lying tissue paper as she rolls, and pops it in a tube. Even my credit card plays ball (which is more than my AmEx did in the post office – I can see another long phone call coming up when we next get to land). Maggie also buys a small painting, then we head off with our purchases looking for somewhere to eat. We settle on a Turkish restaurant and have a really good kebab and a natter. Maggie always restores my faith in myself and confirms that I am not losing it on this mad adventure of a lifetime. We separate after lunch as we are both on tight schedules.
I go off to the customs office to get our sales tax back and let them know that we didn’t leave last Thursday but are doing so today or tomorrow. But there’s a problem. As we didn’t leave last week we both have to present ourselves to customs in person so that they can check us against the pictures in our passports. No amount of pleading will sway them, although they do eventually agree to meet us at the sailing club rather than dragging Mike all the way back into town. They refund the sales tax then I am off like a rocket doing the last bits of shopping before getting the bus back to Fannie Bay.
I am just struggling with the bags up to the beach when a customs car arrives – an hour earlier than arranged. Given that I have Mike’s passport in my bag, if I hadn’t arrived when I did they would have had a wasted journey and we would have had to go back into town in the morning. The customs officer was the lovely young lady we saw last week, and she and her fellow officer accompany me to the boat which is still on the beach although the tide is coming in rapidly. Mike gets off, the water up to his waist, the formalities are completed, stamps go in his passport and our clearance papers are handed over. He then takes the shopping back to the boat while I stand on the beach, strip out of my shorts, roll up my tee shirt and wade through the water to get back on Jeannius. This is when I am really nervous. The tide rushing in churns up the water so you can’t see through it properly. I wouldn’t know if a saltie was there until it bit me on the leg. I move quickly!
Nafea has been back with the second fuel pump and it is all fitted and working. The last job is to winch Mike back up the mast to put the fixing back on with the new bulb in it. While he is up there the boat starts to bob around as the tide is rushing in, but he just has time to complete screwing it together before he needs to come down.
Looking under the trampolines, I see a little old Aboriginal lady doing her ablutions in the water, literally going to the loo and having a wash, using our hulls for a bit of privacy. She then washes her skirt out and pulls it back on and wanders back up the beach.
Jeannius continues to wobble for half an hour or so. I sit nervously at the bow watching the rocks – we are so close – but then the tide comes and she suddenly lifts. With the two engines now running, we pull away easily and head over to Cullen Bay to re-fuel.
The sea is a bit rough as we head over and I have to tie on two mooring lines and six fenders. Mindful of what happened a week ago, I try to be careful but it’s not easy and I am already aching having carried those bloody propellers around and then she shopping. I get them all on the port side as instructed before Mike realises that there is already a boat on the fuel dock and he will have to turn Jeannius around and moor starboard side to. I am just about to object very loudly when two guys appear from the other boat and offer to take our lines and pull us in port to. Mike gets a reprieve from my bad language. We refuel and leave.
I am exhausted and actually would have preferred to get a good night’s sleep and head out with Crazy Horse and Ocean Jasper in the morning, but Mike wants to press on to give us the optimum chance of getting to Bali, and as I want to see Bali, I go along with it without moaning.
Sitting on the boat, blogging away like mad (four days to catch up on before the internet dies), I start to think I am suffering from heat exhaustion. With the temperature again around 40 degrees, my skin is burning hot, I ache all over and even after drinking two cups of tea and four glasses of water, I still have no need to pee.
I cook dinner and give Mike a huge mound as he didn’t eat much at lunchtime but half way through a TV programme, I just have to go to bed. Not that I sleep for ages of course, but I am so physically exhausted even the lying down is good. I do eventually fall asleep but all too soon it is midnight and Mike is waking me up for my watch.
Our position is: 12 deg 19 min S, 130 deg 07 min E
Distance so far: 12035 nautical miles
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