Pray for Northerlies - Maryborough delivery
Fri 15 Jan 2010
These past 5 days have been spent on the Queensland coast, taking Dot.Com to Maryborough (up river from Hervey Bay / Fraser Island. Mary is a quietish town, but full of friendly folk. Old world charm and old world prices.
The attraction for getting the boat there was multi. Barry that built here is willing to do some fix up on it, and what better bloke then the guy who conceived her? Mary is also has a few options for pulling the boat out of the water.... and mine is set to be about $300 for the month.... its also cyclone season and one is hovering up there already. It also forces me to take a break from couch surfing.
I joked in 2009 that I should be put in jail for a couple of months to repay all the good times that I have... and so I have done this in a virtual sense, deciding to lock myself in the office here at the marina (the view is pretty good for a jail cell) and sentencing myself to at least one months hard labour.
Mark M and Moura (Italian CS) joined me for the delivery and were fantastic. Mark is a hobart veteran don't mind sailing through the night. While even I had reservations about that and the boat having to do it, she came through with flying colours. We were both surprised at the comfort as we punched to windward in 20 knots SE around the rocks at Bustard Head, a seas state running and Mark knocking out dinner!
Highlight of the trip was probably the first day. We left Airlie at 8am and dropped anchor at Middle Percy Island at 12.30am! That's 120 nautical miles made good – that's an average of 7.5 Knots, which means going much faster at times to make the average. Previous cruising efforts meant 6 days to get to the same place!
Other low lights included, getting a South East front at Cape townsend, so we went to the beach, being greeted with a SE winds in the morning at Keppel (but we tucked through the curtis island narrows which was interesting in itself), running out of cooking gas at Gladstone (had to hove two while I went in the dinghy to get more), SE winds as we came out of Gladstone, Wind dropping out on the afternoon in Hervey Bay, and the wind coming back from the SE in the last hour of arriving at Hervey Bay.
Still was great though, and the adventure was real and the overnights surprising easy to deal with. Macca was great at this and busted me for sleeping on watch :) Moura was great too – even though was under the weather from the sea, she was great company and turned up with home made pasta!
The other big mention goes to new CS friends Kieth and Beth. They drove the Tigra down to Maryborough and parked it at the marina we left the boat at. So all packed up and boat delivered.... .walked to the car park and there she was, washed and everything. Rock star stuff.
Now there is work to be done, a couple of big things in the air and go get the boat about April time. Can I squeeze in a holiday in this time – gonna try!
