April – May 2022
April was a month of much maintenance. We decided to tackle those little jobbies that collect on the list, but aren’t critical – we certainly have time free now, while we wait for our international plans to be sorted.
A loose hinge on the hatch to the lazarette became a bigger than Ben Hur jobbie. The hole (must have been incorrectly sealed originally or from a repair) had leaked water into the wooden core around the latch. Peter spent yesterday using a crochet hook to dig out rotten wood. Today was the ‘fun’ part – making dam walls and filling the space with boat epoxy. He’ll sand it back in two days and refit the hatch. By the time we finish our boating life, I swear we’ll be able to actually build one from scratch.
Peter has started the big job of cutting and polishing the entire boat. Hopefully you can tell where he has started. Now I’m going to have to sand and oil the teak capping to match. Just another 43’ x 2 to go.
An example of very bad parking? No, we’d just managed a near perfect pirouette for polishing the other side. You’ll notice Peter way up the front polishing the pointy bit of the hull. We are hoping that the boat that usually berths next to us doesn’t come back early (it didn’t).
Last year while diving we came across little clips nailed into dead coral, holding a wee piece of living coral. At the time we figured it was a restoration project of some sort – now we know. It’s part of a joint project between UTS (University of Sydney) and Wavelength Cruises of Port Douglas (one of the tourist cats that go out to the reef daily). The clip just has to keep the fragment still for 6 weeks, by which time it will have glued itself onto the dead coral, and start to happily spread it’s tentacles to repopulate the reef. What a great example of responsible tourism; the operators use spare diving capacity to plant and care for coral nurseries. According to the newspaper article the project started back in 2018 and is very successful.
ANZAC Day in Port Douglas this year was a rather wet affair. It was a lovely ceremony until they rather surprisingly decided to close with God Save the Queen (most of the crowd headed off before the end of the first verse).
No disrespect intended to Your Mag. but that’s just not on.
We took advantage of a wee lull in the Easterlies and popped out to Low Isles for the day. It is very popular with the tourist operators as an easy day trip (only 1 ½ hours for us). We came out to test Peter’s newly made mooring harness – it worked a treat. The thick dyneema line has a loop at each end. It is threaded through the loop on the mooring line and then hooked over the cleats behind the windlass, so that the load is taken by the cleats and not the windlass. We have a length of plastic hose over the middle section to stop crunchy mooring lines damaging the dyneema. Peter is getting quite handy with his splicing skills.
May in Port Douglas is all about Carnival.
The sand castle building is hotly contested and filled almost the entire front beach. This was my fave.
The sky above Four Mile Beach was also very busy. I do love a kite, although I think these huge guys (the Monster Kite Display) are more balloon than kite. But it looked spectacular and Peter wasn’t the only ‘kiddie’ walking around looking up.
I managed to get tickets to the Burlesque Show in the Spiegel Tent. We weren’t sure what to expect and were blown away with how strong and talented the performers were. This lassy was singing rather good opera, while spinning up and down the rope. The rouge show is very entertaining, but definitely an adult affair. There is a more family friendly version during the day.
Best of all I scored some tickets to the Joe Camilleri concert. What a great Australian showman. It is soo good to be able to go to live shows again.
He’s at it again; cutting up my boat and replacing the entire exhaust pipe. It has developed a bit of rust about it, which seems to run all the way up the length of the join. Peter had heard that there is a good stainless-steel guy in Port Douglas.
We are doing a lot of travelling to Cairns. The road is very windy but the views are superb. This photo was taken driving down to Cairns for a part for the exhaust stack repair. Those fickle gods again; we have no exhaust and can’t move, so the ‘constant’ SE winds suddenly disappear and the seas are perfectly flat. Just a tad frustrating.
As we knew we were here for a while, Peter booked us in to the rather spiffy Nautilus for a classy meal – he is an old romantic. He had to book 6 months in advance! Unfortunately, he flew out to Africa for a consulting job the night before our booking. So, I am still waiting for our romantic meal. We had a consolation meal at La Cucina and left full and laughing about the waiter’s tee shirt.
There are many good eateries in Port Douglas, La Cucina is a bit on the expensive side, but really worth it. The pizzas at Rattle N Hum are fast and yummy and the locally produced gelato is really creamy. You can’t beat ChooChoos at the marina for breakfast.
ChooChoos is fronted by a converted train carriage; the seats are comfy and the glass work is beautiful.
Peter will be away for 10 days, so I took advantage of his absence to inventory and re-arrange the storage lockers – so much easier with just me on board. Neon would usually be helping, but he was not feeling very well.
BOAT WORKS
Replaced the wobbly lazarette hatch hinge
Cut and Polish entire boat
Cleaned the engine room
Repaired the hose fitting for the hot water in the lazarette
Replaced the steering bolt
Replaced the gas struts on the lazarette hatch
Replaced the solenoid to the main toilet
Wash carpets
Fit a bait table next to the bbq on the cap rail
Fit a new BBQ cover (and matching covers to keep the locker boxes, on the boat deck, dry)
Fit baskets to the doors of the deep cupboard under the microwave, to make the space more useable. Peter HAD to buy another toy for this job; a drill bit that drills around corners (sooo cool).
