Thursday 19^th January

We have left our Tipplers Passage anchorage.  (And thank you Elsa for your very appropriate comment re Tipplers Passage...)  No wonder we stuck so fast…the anchored and chain was completely coated with thick gooey mud.  We had stuck, as Pete so elegantly says, like shit to a blanket.

The old codger on the boat next to us, also anchored in the mud, he said, until Australia Day, came out to wave goodbye.  As far as we could tell he hadn’t moved from his cabin, not for a swim, not for a walk.  We had caught glimpse of him occasionally emptying a bucket over the back, and he was at those times happy to chat with Pete across the water.  We tried to imagine what he was doing inside, all alone.  But…he wasn’t alone!  When he came out to say goodbye, there, standing shyly behind him, was a dear little wifey person.  So funny, the people we have come across, who just anchor their boats in a beautiful bay, and then…they sit inside, gently pootling.  Maybe reading?  Watching DVDs?  Snoozing?  Certainly not paying any attention to the water, the scenery, the birds!  Not sure why they can’t do this at home…

We had a lovely few hours slowly making our way up the Couran River to Gold Coast City Marina (Flagship Marine Services – they deserve a plug,), to get the oil changed and the engines checked.  We had been here last year, and had caused a nice young mechanic, Steve, to spend a whole hot sweaty day down the engine hatch, trying, a bit unsuccessfully, to fix a mysterious knocking sound.  Imagine his joy to have the manager, Charlie, say, “Drop everything, Steve, and come and change the oil on 2XS!”  To his credit he smiled brightly and chatted to me about the South Pacific as we walked back down to the boat.

It is lovely, going up the river.  On one side it is typical Gold Coast, with new-age palazzos, enormous doll’s houses, huge expanses of glass, floating pontoons replete with large boats.  And on the other side…primeval swamp.  Mangroves, eucalypts, and possibly hundreds of snakes, mud crabs, prawns hatching.  At one stage we passed close by a large eagle preening itself in a tree overhanging the river.  Above it swooped a small sea hawk, and right behind the boat, a large flock of ibis swooped towards the mangroves.

The weather is beautiful.  They have withdrawn the gale warning and it is hot and sunny, with nary a puff of wind.  2XS needs a few urgent bits of work – the engine service, a new anchor chain and gypsy (a sort of anchor winch…) – so it will be a few days before we can head south.  Not sure where we will stay tonight.  Pete is keenly looking for anchorages along the river; I am more attracted to going back to the marina at Sanctuary Cove so I can get my bike onto shore and stretch those unfit sea-legs…