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| Zofia in a pen at Port Geographe Marina after a big bath to remove 12 days of Bunbury Port dust. |
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| Neil on Annie at Port Geographe Marina. |
Another hectic day! Looking forward to the possibility of drawing breath and settling into a proper boating rhythm or is this some sort of delusional fantasy?
We drove back to Perth on Saturday morning for Poppy's Baptism in Claremont at 10:00 - another stupid o'clock start. So glad we went however. Thanks to everyone for facilitating this!
Lots of lovely family time but we must be on our way or we won't ever get the journey properly started.
En route back to Busselton to get back to Zofia we called into Bunbury to have big bear hugs with the rest of our trio. Urchin have also managed to sever those docking leads and made an overnight run for Bunbury from Mandurah on Friday arriving at 03:00. Lunch on Easy Tiger was very festive despite their latest news that the handle/lever on a through-hull fitting had corroded and snapped off (in the closed position). Since this was the sea water intake for the port motor this was particularly unwelcome news. On the upside, better to make this kind of discovery in the shelter of your own friendly harbour (with access to a car also) than elsewhere more desolate.
We had to change a ball valve once. It was for the holding tank. We had noticed on a trip (coincidentally to Quindalup) that there was a tiny leak! Not good in a crowded summer anchorage! The valve handle had suffered some damage from being used incorrectly while Zofia was a demo, making it difficult to close 100%. We were quite new to Zofia then and had also not long before had her lifted and didn't relish being hauled out to repair the valve. Our solution: externally plug the hole while replacing the valve. Very conveniently, our sink plugs were exactly the right dimension to block the through-hull exit point. For 3 days, the sink plug was the difference between remaining afloat or sinking in our pen!
Anyway, we are here in Quindalup now and will turn in early, happy to be here and happier still that the wind is now where it was predicted instead of from the NW where it was when we motored here. Wait a minute, aren't we a yacht? Well yes, but it was already lunch time when we left and couldn't get excited about going 10nm out to sea to lay a tack into Quindalup. So now we have lots of nice hot water and the engine has made the cabin cosy compared with the by now chilly breeze - perfect!
When we got to Quindalup there were only a few boats here. We have picked up Sally Jane's mooring as we have used it before with the owners permission. The Docking Sticks again came in handy as we had to put our own leads on the mooring buoy.
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| Picture of the Docking Sticks I keep banging on about. It's been lifted from their web page - those clever Canadians! |
The Bloke has been very traumatized today. Pt Geographe Marina was already in the grips of a stiff breeze as we left so we were grateful of the assistance of Neil, the skipper of Annie who held the bow rope firmly before releasing Zofia to wiggle in reverse doing the old prop-walk shuffle out to the turning point. The Bloke was having flash back trauma thinking he might be reenacting the cartwheels of a few years ago. Picking up the mooring buoy was another maneuver to contend with and now that the Bloke considers our status as "Job done"! and having consumed a supper of corned beef sandwiches (thanks Mum) yummy, yummy plus a couple of beers it's time to hit the bunk.
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| True blue. View towards the Dunsborough Bay Yacht Club. Water crystal clear and you can see creatures on the seabed moving about. All being well this will not include the 5m White Pointer that frequents the bay! |
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| Smile and wave...the Bloke at rest. |
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