Chapter 7

While I spent the next 31 days working on the boat and learning how much I didn’t know ... the girls spent. Every day they came in exhausted ... sore footed and sunburned, having been hiking the shops in the mornings and exploring the beaches in the afternoons. I was expecting an enormous card payment ... but ... no. Zoe was buying deepwater safety gear while Cyn was buying ... dental floss and gun patches and referring to them as bathing attire.

When we finally dipped the hull and reset the mast and new rigging I found I had spent more than Surprise had spent buying her and her first refit. Of course, my poor efforts reduced the working force by one go-fer boy ... but I did learn and had gotten disreputably dirty and stinky daily. I now knew how to replace almost any engine part and do it in the dark by feel. The aft sail locker now shared space with a three foot machinists lathe, a mini mill and a rather complete tool box. I had made ... under instruction ... basic parts. I could patch an underwater hull hole with special ‘glass, resin and hardener. Not our boat ... but a successful rescue effort. I qualified down to 33 meters and I’d had the Sailbait outfitted with a dive compressor and scuba.

Sailbait had three suits of new North Sails and every inch of working rigging had been replaced. Also new was the rudder-post and hydraulics.

“I am surprised you made the crossing,” Ken said, as he instructed me in the forceful destruction of the split rudder post housing. The crack at the hull join bespoke a hard grounding or a collision with either a shipping container or a semi submersed tree.

Back in the water with what was essentially a new boat the task of provisioning now fell to the girls.

That done, Ken recommended a “shake down cruise.”

“Whitsundays,” he said. “There and back.”

“Why back ... it’s on the way.” I said, with Zo nodding over my shoulder.

“Your sisters choice of crew.”

“Ah ... I see.” And I did. He was pretty, wore speedo’s and very much pleased Cyn in the manner she wanted ... but he had the IQ of a gnat. Sooner or later they were going to have to have conversation ... Cyn wasn’t going to like that at all.

The workmen were pleased as punch with their bonus. Ken wrote me a grandiose recommendation in case I needed occupation. I’m sure he lied ... but I accepted it sealed and locked it in the safe with the rest of the important papers.

Our preparations had left us exhausted so ... the first day was to leave our pier and head north to Bongaree where we had our first experience with Burt ... Cyn’s choice. He could not fetch the mooring ball. The weather was no good for departure so we practiced locally for a few days. Just like Auckland we performed all the drills and learned our emergency procedures. We took it easy and settled in before tackling that first passage.

Getting out of Moreton Bay on the ebb tide we sailed to Noosa. Noosa can be tricky because buoys are often not where the channel actually is. Enter on the flood ... leave with the ebb. As far as the river goes, around the bend is good holding and a fine chain grid.

We sailed around the top of Fraser Island on the outside, a long and tiring passage.There are some fabulous anchorages behind Fraser and of course access to the Great Sandy Island National Park. We have cats ... not Cat ... son of Piper ... just cats ... two ... both fixed. They don’t seem to care that Fraser island is a national park. What they DO care about is the dingo population ... cat is a delicacy.