Wednesday 29th May

Wednesday 29th May

Getting closer to the very tippytop end of Australia…

We have made it into the Escape River, which is full of rafts of black buoys, from the big pearl farm at the mouth of the river. Our trip up here was very speedy, with both wind and waves in our favour. WHEEE!!!

Yacht Forty-Two is here as well, such a brave little boat, bouncing its way across the sea. When we came into the river we received a radio call from a genial man at the pearl farm, who directed us through the buoys, past a sand bank, away from the shallow bits, and into a nice anchorage where, he said, we could rest peacefully. We thanked him and told him that a smaller monohull yacht would be following within the hour. He said, laconically, “And I bet you are thankful every single day that you bought a cat.” Yes indeed! Karsten, from Forty-Two, says, for example, of his anchorage at Portland Roads, “It was OK at first but then…we started dancing.” And that is what monohulls do, they dance, they rock and they roll, whereas catamarans sit stolidly, rising and falling with the waves but not actually dancing.

A small contemplation of some of the things which have been successful on the boat so far:

Our bikes have been beautifully cleaned, serviced and fixed at Ken Self’s in Hobart. My gear lever had broken off completely and it has all been macguyvered to good-as-new. Mind you a bike is NOT really necessary in the mangroves, jungles and sandbanks of this very remote part of the world but when we get to Darwin, watch out! We will be happily mobile again.

Our satellite connection WORKS! This is very good; I am thrilled to bits. We can only do a few limited things, eg send brief emails, no pictures or attachments, but this is a vast improvement on NOTHING. We can’t access the internet, or our gmail/hotmail accounts, but we are very thankful for our little bit of connection to the world. Katy is very kindly transferring these blogbits from my emails onto the sailing2xs site, so I don’t feel as isolated as I did last time we went away when I often couldn’t send or receive anything at all.

Pete has a new computer navigation system, OpenCPN, which seems to be working, as a backup to the Raymarine charts. 

The SodaStream is providing us with tonic water, very nicely thank you.

Pete’s sourdough breadmaking efforts are continuing; his loaves are gradually getting higher and less, ummm, dense, and this is making him HAPPY. 

The tarpaulin shade screen Pete has devised is wonderful. It provides us with a cool breezeway, and stops us getting cooked to death when we are at the helm. (But…not when it is windy…)

And what is not working??

Well…our fridge situation is still very dicey. We turn the Engel on and off at random times, to make sure it is cold enough, and not freezing too much. And the other spare fridge also gets turned on and off, for much the same sort of reason, while the kitchen fridge, newly scrubbed and disinfected, sits empty and happy, with a small packet of sultanas gaffertaped inside the door to stop it from closing and letting the interior get festy, as fridges so easily do.

And I am very sad to report that my food drying efforts have been less than successful. Every now and then I open yet another bag of slimy something or another and feed it to the happy fish and crocs swimming underneath 2XS. The drying probably worked reasonably well, what didn’t work was my fabulous (NOT) new vacuum sealing air sucker thingy, with the special (expensive!) specially designed bags. They do not remain sealed for very long and very soon air has seeped it, and moisture from the air, and my carefully dried mushrooms etc are reduced to ghastly slime.

Tomorrow – another 40 nautical miles and we will be at Thursday Island! Right at the tippytop…