Day 244: Darwin to Bali – 07/09/10

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. 

Photo:  Jeannius on the rocks (almost) and not an ice cube in sight

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. 

Photo:  All that way just to change a lightbulb

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

Day 243: Darwin, Australia – 06/09/10

Mike sets the alarm for 6 am as we have to get Jeannius on the beach to coincide with the high tide at 6.30 am.  Again, we glide in and settle on the bottom in our usual position.  This time it is a bit more comfortable as we settle just right to keep us completely horizontal.  A couple of times we have been at an angle and you practically run down the companionway to the stairs as we tilt backwards.  Once Jeannius is in position, Mike takes the car back into town and comes back on the bus.

Photo:  Just not what you expect the scenery to be in front of your boat!

Unfortunately, mindful of what has happened to the fuel pump on the port engine, Mike rings Nafea to come and look at the other one and he confirms that although the leak is not as serious – yet - it will get worse and needs fixing before we leave.  He takes it away with him.  We now have no fuel pumps but he assures us that the first one will be back this afternoon!

Mike decides to tidy one of his cockpit compartments.  As with every tidying job, it get worse before it gets better, as evidenced below.

Photo:  Tidy?  Not yet!

A little later, Darren arrives with our new propeller.  Looking at this shiny new thing, I realise my work is not finished on the first one and get attacking it again to remove every last trace of barnacles.  A woman’s work is just never done!!

Photo:  Blistering barnacles (for Tintin fans!)

In the late afternoon, Nafea returns with the first fuel pump and installs it.  He has to wait for the tide to start coming in until he confirms that it will work because the sea water inlet needs to be, obviously, under water when he turns the engine over.  While he is doing this, Mike swaps our old propeller from the starboard side to the port side.  This is now our only working engine but at least this one provides hot water.  He also fixes a fan behind the freezer compressor to help keep it cool and stop the bloody thing from conking out again especially now that it is filled to the brim with food (and every crevice that doesn’t have food is stuffed with a towel!)

Having successfully scraped all the barnacles off, I then use pretty pink nail polish to cover up all the areas where the paintwork has lifted.  At some point we will get some special anti fouling paint for metalwork, but in the meantime it just looks like it has a bad case of teenage acne.  Good job the varnish wasn’t yellow!

Getting Jeannius off the seabed is not quite as easy today, and after quite some time of warbling around, Mike gets in the dinghy and gives her a nudge.  After that, it’s easy.

Neither of us is very hungry in the evening, and we just snack on some very smelly Tasmanian brie and crackers.  One more beaching tomorrow and hopefully we will be done and free to go.

Day 242: Darwin, Australia – 05/09/10

We get up early and get a taxi into the Avis office for 9 am.  We must have the only taxi driver who doesn’t know his way around but at least he gives us a discount on the meter price to make up for the roundabout way we arrive there.

We get an upgraded car and set off along the Stuart Highway, bound for the Litchfield National Park.  The weather forecast isn’t promising for the day but it’s good to be off the boat regardless.  We pass some of the famous ‘road trains’ – these are lorries which pull up to three trailers (they used to take ten but aren’t allowed to any more).  You get stuck behind one of those babies on a one lane highway and you know all about road rage.  Luckily the ones we see are at traffic lights and we can get past them easily.

Once we are out of town, the highway goes through a strange landscape, one that has obviously been burned relatively recently, but there is new growth everywhere.  Every tree trunk looks black up to about 8 feet from the ground which looks really weird, like someone’s been at them with a paint brush.

Photo:  New growth out of scorched earth

The other thing is, there’s just no traffic.  Anywhere.  I have never seen so much empty road.  Main highways (motorways if you like) are one lane each way with passing places.  Do Australians never go anywhere?

We take a turn off to see the reservoir behind the Manton Dam and it’s like being transported to another country – England – think Constable and lily ponds.  If it weren’t for the ferocious ants milling around and the most determined flies (why do they always want to be in your face?), I would completely forget where I was, although the noise of the jet skis and the smell of barbies helps give out clues.

Photo:  The lily pond

We pass through the town of Batchelor, a ‘one-horse town’ if ever I saw one.  It’s meant to the the gateway to the national park but appears to only have one shop and a take away.  As we have been told that there are no restaurants in the park, we try to buy something to eat for lunch and end up with the nutritional feast of chocolate, crisps and ice cream.  Honestly, that is the best they have!  The take away looks even less wholesome.

It’s not long before we start to see termite mounds along the roadside and I stare in awe at these huge monsters.  But these are nothing, just a taste of what’s to come.

Photo:  Huge termite mound and two little ones in the making

There are different types of termites and they all build different types of nests.  Some are relatively small and rounded, and you find the hugging the sides of trees.  Some are huge brutes, with towering columns all joining in the centre, and some are really weird, built by magnetic termites.  These creatures build flat mounds, like slabs of granite raised towards the sky.  These tall, thin mounds are usually oriented north-south.  This is thought to help the termites regulate temperature more efficiently under an intense tropical sun.  These termites are apparently able to sense the earth's magnetic field. Amazing, and soon we come across a whole field of them, all in lines, hundreds and hundreds of them.  What a sight, in fact, put them all together and these slabs resemble memorial stones in a graveyard.

Photos:  Magnetic termite field, Litchfield National Park

Photo:  How many termites built this?

Photo:  A broken piece of the mound on the floor

Next stop is one of the many waterfalls, Florence Falls.  Being the dry season, we don’t expect the falls to be as spectacular as they can be, although the torrents of yesterday, if they fell here too, would have helped.  It’s a mercifully short walk to the viewing platform.  The temperature outside the car is almost 40 degrees and there are signs everywhere about heat exhaustion.  I can understand why.

Photo:  Florence Falls

At the base of the falls is a beautiful swimming hole but it’s nearly 150 steps down (and therefore back up) so we give it a miss.  Next stop is another waterfall whose name escapes me  and is far less spectacular.  (I think it might be Tolmer Falls but I am not sure.)

The walk from the car park is sweltering.  Evidence of bush fires is all around and the smell is strong so it must have been relatively recent.  You can’t get down to the waterfall as the area is preserved for two kinds of bats.  No problem to me – I’ll stay at the viewing platform thank you!

Photos:  Worth the walk?  Probably not although the surrounding scenery is beautiful

Photos:  More evidence of bush fires

We pass incredible rock formations, huge slabs of rock which look like they have been strategically placed, but as there are no signs anywhere, we presume that they are natural.

Photos:  Strange rock formations

And that’s it for the National Park.  With so little time and without a 4-wheel drive, most of the natural spectacles are unavailable to us.  I wish we had more time but we have other chores to do before returning the car.  On the way back we stop at Mindal Sunset market so I can buy the lovely knitted clothes that I saw on Thursday, but disappointingly, that is one of the only stalls that is not there.  Still, we have some nice food then head to the supermarket and do some more provisioning while we have the transport.

The fun part is getting it all in the dinghy, me in the dinghy, and the dinghy in the water without any catastrophes.  I’m still amazed we manage it especially as the dinghy needs blowing up again and is deflating rapidly as the sun goes down and the air cools a little.

Day 241: Darwin, Australia – 04/09/10

Mike orders a hire car for tomorrow – we are determined to see a little bit of the Northern Territory while we are stuck here.

We take the dinghy to the beach then have the usual fight to lift the outboard motor up before it hits the sea bed.  Mike can only manage this by getting in the water and lifting it from behind – it is so badly corroded.  I hang onto the dinghy to stop it floating away, looking all around me for salties while Mike goes to get a trolley to pull it up the beach.

We get the bus into town just as it starts to rain, and boy, does it rain.  It’s absolutely torrential and as we wander around town looking in art galleries and shops for Aboriginal art, we run from bit of shelter to bit of shelter.  We see a painting which we both like but there’s a few galleries which are shut and I would like to see those before we definitely choose one.

Although it’s a Saturday, we are amazed to see that most things shut early and there’s hardly anyone around, just the mad ones like us braving the elements.

We run into Bob and tell him that we’ve hired a car tomorrow and invite him and Maggie to come with us.  Hopefully they will but they have a lot of work to do on Ocean Jasper before they leave next week.

We have a great meal at an Indonesian snack bar.  Nearly all the food has gone so the owner loads up our plates with a huge pile and then sits down and chats to us for a while.  What a sweet man.

Eventually the rain starts to clear and we catch the bus back to Fannie Bay.  We go through the hard slog of getting the dinghy back onto a trolley then pushing the trolley down to the water and getting the dinghy off again, then returning the trolley up the ramp.  Why is everything to do with boats so bloody difficult?!

When Mike puts the generator on all is well and the air conditioning works, but then he switches on the water maker and it hardly produces any water.  Bloody hell.  Now what?

Pissed off because he really didn’t want to do any boat maintenance today at all, He goes down into the engine room to investigate and discovers that all the filters are filthy and one of the filters was allowing air in creating an air block.  We change some filters and clean others out.  An hour later when he switches it on again, it produces water.  Hurray.  He dumps the old filters over the side, tied on with bit of rope – this gives them a really good clean when we sail.

As I sit at the back of the boat filling water bottles, I watch the beautiful evening sky over the peaceful anchorage.  In the distance the smoke from the controlled fires and the lights of Darwin look pretty as it gets darker.

Photo:  Smoke filled skies make for beautiful colours

Photo:  Sunset over Fannie Bay – again!

Day 240: Darwin, Australia – 03/09/10

I wake up as usual with my back as stiff as a board, and after my cup of tea, get out of bed in my new found toddler fashion.  Mike services new generator for the first time and it goes smoothly.  He phones Darren, the Volvo dealer and orders a fixing kit for his old propeller.  He is going to fit the old propellers back on as he now has no faith in the feathering ones that we had fitted in Grenada last year.  We chat about it for a while and decide, bugger it, we’ll have a new propeller as well – in for a penny, in for a pound as they say – at least we’ll have a matching pair.  He rings and changes the order.  I can’t bear to think of the money we are spending of Jeannius but it’s just going on and on.

After lunch we prepare to beach Jeannius again, half an hour later than yesterday due to the tide.  She goes in with a more sudden stop and harder bump than before and rocks around for a while before settling down.

We have to wait longer for tide to go out which unfortunately  gives Mike has less time to change the sail drive oil seal, something which he hasn’t done before.  He’s concerned about doing it because he knows that if he gets the old one out and can’t get the new one in before the tide returns, he will be left with a 4-inch hole in the boat leading to a very expensive piece of equipment which sea water would wreck.

While we are waiting, I scrape off barnacles from one of the old propellers that we are going to re-use.  They are tough little buggers and I have to attack them with a screwdriver.  Being dead and having been attached and dried out for some time, this is a tedious and long winded process and after an hour my back is sore from bending over.  Already in a bad mood because of the money we are spending and the fact that we now might not make it to Bali, Mike happens to say the wrong thing to me and I explode in a hissy fit and go to bed, where I stay for the rest of the afternoon, once again leaving Mike to the crocodiles.

Sensibly he leaves me to it and deals with the sail drive.  From my bed I can hear banging and crashing as he attempts to knock the old one out without damaging anything and I drift in and out of sleep.  Eventually after about two hours he comes down to offer me tea and describe his success.  I am out of my strop by now and quite happy to hear all about it.  It was very difficult to remove at first until he found he had a wooden bung of exactly the right size to place against the oil seals and hit with a hammer.

Sitting with our cups of tea, we watch the skies darken as the sun sets.

Photo:  Evening sky over Fannie Bay

We have a light dinner and watch some TV while we wait for the tide to come in.  Again, is half an hour later than yesterday, nearly 10 pm before we start to feel Jeannius rocking gently, but she’s not prepared to move just yet.

For over half an hour, we wait, rocking backwards and forwards and then wobbling from side to side.  Of course, we are not helped by still only having one engine.  Then we start to turn in circles, pivoting on one keel, the other one stuck in the sand.  Mike is just beginning to think that he will have to get in the dinghy and push us off when Jeannius suddenly lurches and we are away.  We motor back out to the bay and put the anchor down.  Mike then allows himself a dark and stormy (and I take drugs for my back), we both have cold showers (of course the engine that doesn’t work at the moment is the one which heats the water) and head for bed, agreeing that we will do NO work on the boat tomorrow.

Day 239: Darwin, Australia – 02/09/10

Mike returns the car early and we prepare for getting Jeannius out through the lock.  I am somewhat apprehensive as my back is delicate to put it mildly and I can remember how difficult it was coming in.  At least we have two engines this time.

Wild Tigris is booked to go through the lock before us but we let go of our lines to get ready to go straight out after them.  The line around the piles worries me a little as I have to lean right over the side of the boat and lift it off with the boat hook.  The guys on the huge motor yacht are watching and I don’t want to screw it up in front of an audience, bad back or not.  I manage it first time though, and as they clap, I take a little bow, too frightened to take a big sweeping one in case I can’t get back up!

The tide is quite high when we leave which means that the progress through the lock is quite quick for Wild Tigris and very soon it’s our turn.  Once in the lock, we tie one line to the top of the lock (aided by the huge hook lowered down to me) and one line to the huge rope on the wall of the lock.

Photo:  The lock gates close behind us

Photo:  Erica, the lock keeper, lets us through.  Mmm, nice graffiti!

Photo:  Out we go, Wild Tigris ahead of us in the distance

We start to head back to Fannie Bay, passing Wild Tigris and Brown Eyed Girl at the fuel dock.  We are amazed to see so much activity in the bay by the Australian Navy, although on closer inspection, we find that what we thought was an Australian warship, turns out to be a Japanese one.  Maybe they are playing war games!

Photo:  Australian tugs push a Japanese warship towards the dock

I am lying down again when I suddenly hear Mike talking to someone and it’s not on the VHF.  Listening in to the conversation, I realise that it is Bill and Rosemary from Crazy Horse.  I pull on a tee shirt and go to say hello.  They and Ocean Jasper arrived during the night and are waiting for their 14 hours of quarantine to pass.

We have lunch at anchor, and I look around the boat.  She is in such a mess, inside and out.  Stuff is everywhere.

Photos:  Messy, messy, messy

We prepare to beach Jeannius.  Mike has never done this before and is just a little nervous.  He has checked the tide information and knows that we have to take her in at exactly the time of the highest tide, 12.30 pm.  We hover around for a bit waiting for the right time then motor in.  I count down the depth;  5.4 feet, 5, 4.2, 3.6, 2.5, 2.4 … and suddenly we glide to a gentle halt, bobbing backwards and forwards on the twin keels.  Then we sit and wait for the tide to go out, watching as the water levels get lower and lower underneath us.  It is really weird.  It takes nearly two hours for the tide to go right out and in the meantime Mike gets busy scraping the green muck off of the hull where the anti fouling is missing.

Photo:  Mike being a scrubber for a change

As I watch, the rudders start to appear and after a while I can see sand.

Photo:  The rudders start to appear

Photo:  Well and truly beached!

Eventually Jeannius is completely clear of the water and Mike and inspect the sail drive which needs to have its seal changed.  He checks around the rest of the boat and is surprised to find that one of the propellers which we had fitted in Grenada less than a year ago is badly damaged.  Then as if that wasn’t bad enough, when he is in the port engine room, he sees a steady stream of diesel leaking from the engine.  Not wanting to mess around with it, and not really having the time to anyway, he calls an engineer that has been recommended by Joe.  Nafea arrives within the hour and delivers more bad news.  The fuel pump can be fixed it but needs to go to a workshop and it is doubtful that it will be back before Monday.  How much more can go wrong?

We hear shouts and looking out see Maggie, Matt and Bob walking along the beach to the boat.  I tell them our sorry saga of boat problems and Matt says he’ll take me to the Mindal Sunset Market later if my back is OK.  When they leave, I take to my bed for a while, leaving Mike to fend for himself in a sea potentially full of crocodiles and unexploded floating buoys.  Ah yes, the Australian Air Force announced over the VHF that an exercise which involved dropping these exploding things over the sea had gone wrong as they had failed to explode and were now drifting around the place.  So now, in the vicinity, we have an outbreak of e-coli, salties, unexploded floating things, ‘controlled’ forest fires and the potential of box jelly fish coming into the bay because they think the season has started early (they normally arrive in October).  It’s no wonder I head for bed!

Just as I go, I see one of the tourist amphibious buses.  This is a normal bus (or seems to be) but then it drives straight into the sea and sails away.  When you don’t realise what it is, it looks like a kamikaze bus driver having a bad day.

Photo:  Tour bus with a difference

I am still lying miserably in bed when Matt arrives to take me to the market.  He had been calling me for ages on the VHF but Mike had helpfully turned it off.  I get up as quickly as my back will allow (this involves crawling backwards down the bed like a toddler and letting my legs drop over the edge, gradually sinking down until my feet hit the bottom – the bed is nearly 5 foot high) and have a quick freshen up while he waits.  As I leave the boat, the sun is setting and Jeannius looks amazing just sitting there on the beach with Mike watching from the bow.  While I am gone, the tide will come in and hopefully float Jeannius again.

Photos:  Master and commander on his beached baby

We meet up with Rosemary, Bill and Jim for a drink then attempt to find our way to the market.  Of course, by the time we leave, it is dark and none of us knows the way except that it is down the road.  It’s a long walk through unlit areas and patches of grass.  Rosemary is convinced that every rustle in the grass is a crocodile but I am more worried about getting bitten my mosquitoes.  In the event, we see neither and after asking for directions a couple of times, we find the market.

Basically it’s a bit of a let down – lots of tourist tat and a bit on the hippy side – but there are a few nice stalls too and lots of good food shacks.  We arrive there so late that we only have an hour to browse before it’s time to take the long walk back.  My back is aching and some of it is uphill.  Matt valiantly offers me a piggy back ride but I would cripple the poor boy so I turn him down.

When we get back to the beach, Bob is waiting for us in the dinghy to give us a lift back to our respective boats.  He had turned up to help Mike by giving Jeannius a nudge with the dinghy if she didn’t get off the bottom easily as the tide came in.  In the end, his help wasn’t needed.  Jeannius is no longer on beach, but anchored further out in the bay once more.  Tomorrow she gets beached again.

Day 238: Darwin, Australia – 01/09/10

In preparation for leaving on Thursday, we decide to hire a car to do our provisioning and the other run about jobs that we have, one of which is to get me to an osteopath to check whether I really have done something nasty or not.  It’s really difficult knowing whether to work my back or rest it.

We eventually find the osteopath but as we enter his practice I become a little unsure.  It is somewhat grungy around the edges and there’s a mouldy smell about it.  I ask to go to the loo but don’t even want to sit on the seat when I go there.  I hope he washes his hands between patients!

After an examination he declares that there is nothing basically wrong apart from very strained muscles and that one side of my back is very much tighter than the other.  So instead of bone crunching he does some stretching and I come out $90 the poorer and aching more than ever.

We find a garden centre and buy a hose pipe and lots of connections.  We want to be able to wash down the cockpit more frequently with salt water then be able to rinse it down with just a bit of fresh water.  This should do the trick.

Next stop is customs.  We need to tell them that we are not leaving today with the rest of the fleet and to get the sales tax back on some of our purchases.  They are very nice and helpful and tell us that as long as we leave tomorrow we don’t need to have any paperwork altered.  We have visitors’ visas for another couple of months anyway, it’s just tying up the leaving date documentation for Bali that’s important.

Then it’s the chandlery at Fannie Bay.  In the distance we watch the fleet leave in the distance, bound for Bali.  Most of their sails are flapping as there’s not much wind.  I wish I was going with them.

We have a good look around the beach at Fannie Bay as Mike discovered yesterday that we can’t beach Jeannius at Dinah Beach as there wouldn’t be enough water depth to get in.  We ask a local guy about the crocodiles in the bay as there are signs all over the place.  He tells us that the authorities moved about 230 crocs out of the bay at the beginning of the season but you still have to be careful as they are like homing pigeons – very territorial – and eventually they find their way back!

We head over to the other marina where most of the fleet were based (before they left) for lunch and to get some washing done in the laundrette.  We see both Suzanna and Paul who are now heading out to Bali then Judith and Joe from Brown Eyed Girl.

Photo:  Tipperary Waters Marina

We have a couple of mezzes from the Greek restaurant and a glass of wine (for my back, you understand!).  The marina is completely different to where we are – very pretty but a tight squeeze.  As we watch, the customs officials and deliver firearms back to one of the boats in locked cases.  They take them off you when you arrive in Australia and deliver them back to you at your port of departure.  Darren, the Volvo dealer arrives with our engine seals.  They cost an arm and a leg so it’s worth going back to customs to get the sales tax back on them.

Mike drops me off in town after and goes back to the boat to do a couple of jobs while I look around for a didgeridoo for a friend.  I hunt around and find a really good shop where the sales girl is very knowledgeable.  She plays some of them to demonstrate what they sound like but what do I know.  In the end, after nearly an hour of indecision (I intersperse this with looking at the Aboriginal art as I would quite like to get a painting) I choose one.  As usual, I have fun and games with my plastic money but eventually find a card which works.

Last stop is the provisioning, and it’s a visit to Coles.  I’m not particularly methodical when provisioning for a long time and I know we will end up having some very strange meals that I would only serve up to Mike, myself and Victoria.  It’s so difficult trying to estimate how much of everything we will need.  We manage to literally fill the boot of the car.  We have no idea what provisioning will be like in Bali or Cocos Keeling so we buy enough to last us practically to South Africa, although I know we will run out of something really important that I haven’t thought of!!

By the time we have unloaded the car I am absolutely shattered and my back feels bruised and very uncomfortable.  I take a shedload of pain killers and have an earlyish night.  Tomorrow we have to get Jeannius through the lock again and round to Fannie Bay to beach her.  I can’t wait!