Welcoming 2016 - Quack a Duck

 

The Bloke keen to welcome 2016 with a toast.

Scorpion Bowls are ready! 

Expect the unexpected. That might be the beacon for the coming year. Our 2015 outlook was to have sailed as far north as Brisbane, take a berth in a Marina and to then spend the Christmas school holidays looking after grandchildren; spending the weekdays in town and retreating back to the marina and Zofia for the week-ends -maybe even take the family out for the occasional spin around Moreton Bay. That was Plan A and it was a fine plan but speedily replaced by Plan B when sailing as far a Brisbane by Christmas wasn't an option. Plan B looked like this: Park Zofia in Sydney, fly to Brisbane and stay with our younger son and family before Christmas to help with some babysitting and stay through the Christmas/ New Year period then return to Sydney for medical check-up and commence a slow northward progress. Brisbane by Easter perhaps, then further north as far as Whitsundays for winter. A golden reconnection to Plan A.

It's lucky that the alphabet is long. We have commenced on Plan C, returning to Sydney with intentions of a more rapid transit to the Brisbane area by the end of February. This more recent transition to Plan C is informed by the need to pop home to Perth for a few weeks to help with some post-op care. The Bloke will spend his lonely time usefully by dragging out his smurf outfit and once again taking care of the annual boat lift and maintenance on his own.

Arriving back to Sydney, it is apparent that Plan C might not be easy in the execution. Think East Coast Lows. We left Brisbane in pouring rain and flew along a turbulent weather ridge to arrive in even heavier rain in Sydney and predictions of an East Coast Low forming and centering in the Port Stephens area north of Sydney. What this means for Sydney is prolonged drenching rain.

Here is a perfect example of how rain alone can slow you down. Our luggage was left for a long time on the tarmac at the airport and to the point that the luggage tags were disintegrating. By the time we'd returned to Zofia via a detour to a Pathology lab, our luggage was wetter still and weighing quite a lot more than the check-in weight. The contents....all our clean and dry clothes (including the dirty washing we'd taken to Brisbane and since washed) were now sodden. Plan C didn't begin with 'spend a day re-washing and drying contents of two suitcases' but now it does!

Rain is predicted for a few more days yet. Re-provisioning will be a bit slower too and we can't leave anyway due to gales out to sea.

Oh, and just to complete the damp outlook, we'll spend time sleuthing the source of water in the bilge. We are suspecting the air exhaust muffler box thingy but this time with some variation since we can't easily see where the water is coming from. Normally this problem is very evident. The taste test is inconclusive too as the water is only slightly briney. With the volume of recent rain the sea water in Middle Harbour is not as salty making the early elimination of the source of the leak (from outside or from internal irrigation) less simple.

  Weather for ducks outside and it's a bit wet inside too!

Happy 2016

Quack, quack, quack!