June 2021
With the recent purchase of our apartment in Noosa Heads, we spent some time there sorting maintenance and upgrading the apartment. Although it was cold and wet there as well, it had a lovely beach just down the road and it was still warm enough for the occasional swim. Meanwhile, back at the marina, all the little outstanding jobs were finally getting finished on the boat and we were getting ready for heading off North again.
We now have our shiny new lettering on the back and sides and a new stainless-steel bracket on the swim platform for the fish board. The new bracket makes it a lot safer for us when getting out of the dinghy and onto the boat, keeps the rear of the boat clean and tidy and is a really good place for brushing Neon.
After all the excitement with the boat works, we popped down to Burleigh Heads for a coffee. We sat out on the pavement of one of the many bakeries having a lovely cup of coffee and a very yummy pastry, watching all kinds of people pass by. Burleigh Heads has managed to maintain its laid back surfie feel, while accommodating an awful lot of people so it feels a lot less touristy than Surfers Paradise. Neon stayed home to rub himself on every inch of the boat, reclaiming his territory after being deserted at the cat home for 2 weeks while the boat works were being done.
Neon helping to check inventory and ensuring every part of the boat has some proof-of-ownership fur.
I took Peter to do a top up shop at Ferry Road Markets – OMG we nearly didn’t get out of there. I kept telling him that the only way that cheese would fit on the boat was if a fishing rod goes (he doesn’t need 12) – we didn’t end up getting the cheese.
One of the last big jobs this month was having a crack in the wrinkle belly of the stainless-steel exhaust stack repaired (the last, hopefully, of the fallout from the ‘broken muffler’ incident). Unfortunately, just after we had the exhaust pipe taken away, the marina told us that we needed to move so they could complete some work on our finger. How inconvenient! But along came John (Mad Mac’s) in his tender to lasso us and tugboat us over to the other side of the marina. We moved very early in the morning before any other boats were out and about and the wind picked up; it was a very relaxing and quiet way to get across the marina (maybe not for John, but Pugwash looks relaxed). It was quite amazing the way John in his small tender moved our 34 tonne Lady around.
We got the chance to repay the favour at 6am one morning a few weeks later. John has been overseeing the fitting of a marlin tower onto a friend’s boat and needed some extra hands. The top deck needed to be moved from where it had been manufactured, across to where it was to be fitted to the boat. You don’t realize the size of these things when they are on the boat, but they are big and really awkward to handle when on the ground.
The crane missed the shed roof by a gnats ‘you-know-what’.
One of the last jobs we had to do was the reinstallation of a new queen-sized mattress to the main bedroom on the boat. This became a ridiculous exercise and much hilarity for anyone watching. I fear we may have voided the warranty as we had to use straps to give the mattress a banana bend so it would fit around the circular stairs down to the main cabin. At one point I had to drop into the front room through the forward ceiling hatch so as to be able to guide the mattress around. Finally, we got there and we now enjoy fully sprung, pillow topped gloriousness.
Funny Boat names:
Gintastic – Their bar sounds promising.
Soggy Paws – As I’ve mentioned previously, catamarans do have fun with their feline-based names (confusingly there are also a few monhulls with the same name – I can only assume they have an actual cat on board). This cat is well travelled and definitely gets its paws wet.
Au – Being ex-gold miners, we think this is a really clever name. It is both a very Australian radio name and a clever way to show where the money for this very large pleasure boat came from. I just had a giggle at the thought of coming across a boat named Cocaine Cruiser.
Boat Works
Reweld wrinkle belly on exhaust stack
Replace main mattress
Install bait table support (and grab bar) to exterior of marlin-board
Replace peeling name lettering
Install bookshelf in Salon for Suz’ cup of tea (possibly the most expensive book shelf on the planet, but it is a work of art AND it holds a cup of tea)
