We are supposed to be leaving on Monday...but this is not now likely to happen.  A few setbacks with improvements and changes to the boat... So I don't yet have an actual life-at-sea story from this year but...here is another bit from 2010....

While we were on the Gold Coast last year, Pete needed things done to the boat.  So on Monday we left early and made our way up a complicated maze of canals and river to the Gold Coast Marina.  Well no not the Gold Coast Marina, actually…we were in the wrong place and had to be directed to ummmm the Son of the Gold Coast Marina about 600 metres further up the river - can’t remember what it was called… but I did spend many hours there. 

A collection of men swarmed over the boat, and one hapless young chap spent most of the very hot day down a hatch doing exhausting things to one of the engines.  $1800 later…it wasn’t fixed… poor Pete was very upset, but brave, about this set-back.  We made our way back in the gathering gloom…this was NOT FUN.  I was in charge of finding the red and green (and sometimes yellow) markers, and had to cross them off my map with a marker pen.  This was all reasonably OK until it got so dark I couldn’t see the map; I also missed many of the markers.  And I kept shining my little flashlight in Pete’s eyes (no NOT on purpose) which made things very difficult for him and which also made him - ahem – quite cross.  At last we found our way back to our area.  Aha!  I was quite confident I could see the big house on the corner; I could recognise the silhouette of the Norfolk pines, and the shape of the house.  Very confident, I was.  “This is the opening to our canal!” I trilled.  Well no…it wasn’t…it was a nasty little dead end and we had to back out.  At last we did find it and we did get back in time to have a shower and go out to Cav’s Steakhouse for dinner.