Going Off the Reservation.

Unable to encourage The Bloke to traverse ‘The Narrows’ between Curtis Island and the mainland  on previous trips up and down the coast, this route emerged as s handy way to ‘steal a base’ while the wind blew from the wrong direction relative to our desired direction of travel. Perfect. No need to nag or plead.

Dramatic sky to accompany our departure

Islands being left behind

Our night anchorage at Sea Hill Point ahead of our cross-country run the next morning.

Having spent almost 3 months at Great Keppel Island and beginning to wonder just when we should head south, the decision to leave was made swiftly by an urgent recall to Brisbane. Three days of northerlies were presenting and the timing couldn’t be better. They were coinciding with spring tides.

In case you're wondering about the significance of tides from the comfort of an armchair, for the route between the mainland and Curtis Island you actually travel over a cattle crossing. Yes, you read that correctly. A cattle crossing. At low tide cattle can amble across where we will float our boat with a 1.6m keel depth!

Joining a conga line of boats also intending to traverse The Narrows.

Muddy water.

   

The yellow boat track is hard to see because it's cross country

   

The cattle crossing gates on either side

Low depth alert!!!

And right at the very narrowest part we encountered a power boat.

Weirdly, we knew this boat too. Is was Mark Goodall on XS!

You don't want to miss a single marker.

 

The Bloke concentrating deeply. The gesture is just a reflex he says.

We completed the passage and popped out just north of the industrial port of Gladstone where we anchored for the night in Graham Creek just out of sight of the gas hub, noise and illumination. Note to self for any future visits: the mozzies there fly with a co-pilot!

Bucket Lists

From the outset, 2020 was looking to be a busy year. It looked like this: Complete an extended stay with family in Perth, return to the boat in Queensland and give Zofia a major service in preparation for another off-shore trip to New Caledonia in May (which we’d already twice deferred). Return to Australia in August so we could fly to Oxford for a God-daughter’s wedding in September. Then sail again to Tasmania for another summer. Almost a bucket list of journeys. 

 

By April it was evident that off-shore sailing to New Caledonia was off the cards, indeed going anywhere beyond a 50km radius was initially prohibited. We settled therefore on sailing as far as Great Keppel Island via the Bunker Group in the Southern Barrier Reef. Going further north would make sailing south to Tasmania a longish trip.

Subsequently, it’s turned out that Tasmania has closed it’s borders to the rest of Australia due to COVID19. Even the 2021 Tasmanian Wooden Boat Festival has been cancelled. Even the Sydney to Hobart yacht race is unlikely to happen this year, although not yet officially called off. It looks therefore that this year’s cruising will be confined to Queensland waters. Our cruising list is no longer a Bucket List of events but a list in a bucket. 

It would be churlish to complain. We are captive in paradise in warm weather and in the company of some of our favourite cruising companions. We’ve changed our plans so many times this year we can barely see beyond a fortnight or month. We revert to the cruisers classic - ‘our plans are written in the sand at low tide’!

Where is That Water Coming From?

We are only 12 years into our ownership of Zofia and we continue to learn as we go. On the whole we’ve done a good job of maintenance, with The Bloke taking great pride in his ‘Mr Fussy’ title. Our recent boat survey confirmed what an excellent job he’s been doing. For one thing, we are a dry boat. Put aside the fact that there might be several cases of wine stored in the bilge, what we mean is there are generally no leaks. Sea water lives outside the hull but not inside the hull!

Our sense of equilibrium was upset recently while trying to trace the source of seawater in the bilge. Yikes. Our hot water heater generally puts some fresh water into the bilge by way of overflow if we’ve been motoring hard but this wasn’t the usual freshwater we were accustomed to. We do a taste test. It can eliminate 50% of possibilities. The bilge sump was full of brown looking salty water. Yuck. 

Initially, we questioned the saltwater tap/deckwash system. We checked all the forward bilge compartments and confirmed 50% of the boat was not involved. On checking the saltwater tap fittings under the galley sink however, we found a rusty connection and wondered if this could be the culprit. 

There had been a leak over time, that was for sure. Exhibit ‘A’ being the rock salt crust that had formed around the nut at the top of the saltwater hose. A replacement hose was sourced from a plumbing supply with the help of fellow cruiser, Warren from Phase 2. Cleveland/Raby Bay is his home port and with Wuhan Flu restrictions on boating and social gathering restrictions easing, Warren was keen to get involved in some ‘bloke stuff’, especially if it involved a boat.

This time we were not going to use plumbers tape since this clearly failed in the initial installation back in 2014. Instead, a liquid Locktite Sealant was used in the hope of an improved outcome. 

We decided that we had nailed it. Water pressure seemed to have improved at the deckwash and saltwater in the bilge sump seemed to be gone. But not for long.

The Vetus anti-syphon valve

 

This time we were finding about 1/2L of salt water in the sump below the engine. Was it the gasket on the Vetus muffler box leaking? Nope. Anything to do with the raw water intake or heat exchanger? Nope. The Bloke was quite out of ideas and immersed himself in Dr Google. The more you know, the more you know you don’t know! 

 

Of course there’s nothing that hasn’t happened to somebody before and the detective work pointed to the Vetus Anti-Syphon loop valve. Apparently they need to be cleaned from time to time - usually during an engine service. To our knowledge, it had never ever been inspected nor cleaned - by anyone. Luckily it was a simple job to service it and The Bloke was even happier to have resolved this 2nd saltwater leak without the need for special tools, spare parts or colourful language.

Top of housing removed revealing the valve AND salt encrustation

The Oven Saga

Food on a boat is really important- not just the provisioning but the cooking and preparation too. The Bloke cares very much where his next Sausage Roll is coming from!

A year ago we had a gas plumber inspect our oven. I’d been cooking on a single gas ring because the larger ring had a lot of blue flame, coated the base of pots with carbon and also tended to give off a gassy smell. The operation was improved, and certainly the replacement of the regulator improved overall gas flow but it still wasn’t 100%. I’d become accustomed and adept at juggling pots and setting meal elements aside. 3 curries plus rice for dinner? No problem. 

After our 3 month layover and 6 weeks at the boat yard it was time to start baking again. To my horror, the oven would no longer stay alight! Had something gone wrong with the thermocouple? My work-around was to jam the Saxa Salt shaker in between the stove guard rail and the knob to keep it depressed. It was a work-around of sorts but it troubled The Bloke. In fact it troubled him a lot. Tasty treats were at stake here. 

We decided not to throw more money after bad. The gas ring repair wasn’t a total success and we felt that we might spend yet more sums with an unknown outcome only to still have a 12 year old oven one the verge of further failures. When we eventually sell the boat, purchasers would quite reasonably expect to be able to use 2 burners and not continue with my ‘Heath Robinson’ solution. A new oven it would need to be. Sheesh what an expensive year!

We tried to buy one on-line. It ended in failure and the need to cancel our credit card. What reputable trader sends you this?!!

We eventually sourced one through a known dealer for $500 extra which was delivered to the Keppel Bay Marina. 

From here on our patience was really tested. We were replacing the Eno oven with the most recent version of the same. It should have been a matter of uncoupling the gas hose (the same as for a gas barbecue). Lifting the oven out off it’s gimbal and replacing with the new. But wait - the original oven was fitted in France and commissioned in Australia. Degrees of difficulty introduced right there!

Progressive Dinghy Lunch

We’re not the only cruisers who’ve chosen an extended stay at Great Keppel Island. There is much to enjoy. Little did the 1970’s marketing  slogan inventors know that people would continue to ‘Get Wrecked at GKI’ long after the resort became insolvent and itself wrecked. The weather dictates where one can anchor and the ‘GKI shuffle’ can even mean re-location in the middle of the night as dictated by wind and swell conditions. The scenery is thus constantly changing and what activities are possible too.

Songlines, Sans Souci and Supa Trooper were new arrivals who were later leaving the Gold Coast than us. AFRiCA (Another F&&cking Regatta I Can’t Afford) was already here and we'd already spent a couple of weeks here. 35 vessels were regularly in any anchorage we happened to be in. Songlines suggested a Progressive Dinghy Lunch. The Bloke and I were to organise it.

In essence, participating crews would each provide a course and everyone would remain in their dinghy. Crews provided their own refreshments, plates etc... We set the timer for 30 minutes at each boat and gave the crew of the next host boat a10 minute start to prepare. We made ‘plate of origin’ a theme in case anyone was stuck for inspiration. In any instance, dishes would largely be determined by what was still in ‘ship’s stores’. Some of us had not re-provisioned for a month!

The weather cooperated. There was excitement in the preparation of festivities. Supa Trooper were raising decorative flags. Nothing provokes The Bloke more than a flag showdown. He rapidly extracted our ‘Flag tub’ from the boot (the space behind our cabin and under the helm station). It’s a tight wriggle to get in there so it was a measure of the provocation. Up went the bunting etc... to settle the matter as to who would be the best dressed boat. 

We began at the stern of AFRiCA. David informed us he only had cheese, dip and crackers left aboard and besides, he was without his partner and claimed poor culinary skills. Not withstanding, he too felt festive pumping out great music over our corner of the anchorage in anticipation of arrivals and dressed himself in a Superman outfit. 

20 minutes later Carpe Ventum were sent off to prepare. Two vessels that had been invited to participate but elected instead to head north, missed out on a fun day.

Originally from South Africa, team Carpe Ventum great us with South African music and served savoury and sweet Pannekoek.

Hardstand 2020 - Week 4 Blast it!

Another new experience - sandblasting the underside to remove all existing anti-fouling paint. There are other ways of doing it like soda blasting and using a chemical peel/paint stripper. It would be a heinous job using any method and way beyond our time-frame and capabilities. We were already over our estimated 3 weeks on the hardstand and we were still working towards a May departure date for New Caledonia with the GoEast Rally, even if that was coming into serious doubt. We entrusted Zofia to the professionals. Once the boat was transported to the shed, taped and wrapped everything was scheduled to commence at 7am the next morning. We spent the night aboard a catamaran belonging to friends and by lunch time the shed screens were lifted to reveal a very raw underside.

Close up of the bow.

The bow-thruster 'tunnel with the blades removed

 

Keel

 

 

 

 

Rudder

Having been taped and wrapped on Monday afternoon she was ready for her sandblasting to commence first thing on Tuesday. By lunchtime it was done and by mid afternoon Zofia was back in position.

Wednesday saw workmen crawling all over and under the boat. It was chaotic as they all converged to do their bit.  Our rigger was there to reinstate the mast and rig, the turnbuckles having finally arrived from Germany. The steel fabricator arrived to commence work on the bowsprit while at the same time the underside was being attended by yet another team; being draped, raw gelcoat fared then inter-protected before being spray painted. Talk about "all systems go'!

 

 

We could barely watch the mast and rig being replaced.

 

Lots of faring to smooth the surface

 

The inter-protect 'paint' forms a hard layer over the gelcoat and must still be tacky when the first anti-fouling layer is applied so that there is a chemical bond between the two. If the delay between application of the layers is too long, all the anti-foul paint will wash off when pressure sprayed at the next lift. The Bloke decided that the risk of not getting the timing right and getting a good result was too great so we opted to have the painting done professionally. Having seen it done, he believes that it was doable really, but the professionals had it all done in less than a day and doing it ourselves would have added yet more days to our time in the works area....oh, and more anxiety too.

More faring after the first layer of inter-protect.

Finally, 3 layers of Micron Extra 2.

The first layer used was red followed by 2 black coats, the idea being the red shows through when it's time to anti-foul again.

Blushing red

And in no time, 2 coats of black to finish off.

All of a sudden, Zofia was transformed and looking like a yacht again. Perhaps we'd be returned to the water ahead of a Covid forced shutdown after all.