27 June 2016
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| Sheer Tenacity being moved to the Sin Bin......for bio-hazards! |
Our last blog covered our passage from New Caledonia to
Bundaberg, and our rush to sort out breakages, repairs, and preparing Sheer for her long stay on the hard, before
flying home to Cape Town for a good long home visit in time for Christmas…our
first back home for 7 years!
Well, time since then has flown, and life has been hectic!
This first blog is a feeble attempt to justify my blog blockage and fill in the
gaps! Cape Town proved to be a social whirlwind of catching up with friends and
family. I must have added 1kg per week to my already too large midriff! It
really came to my attention when I had to squeeze into my black tie and dress
suit for a Bishops 50 year matric reunion!
A second mission was to go through our medical audit and
overhaul, before returning for our last cruising session. Mary had her other
eye’s cataract done while in Cape Town, and it has proved to have been better,
less invasive, and half the price of the NZ one!
A 3rd mission was to start looking ahead at life
in RSA once we had swallowed the hook. Retirement Villages were an obvious
solution, but after the independence, freedom and space, of our cruising life,
we found looking at this option both expensive , and a bit depressing! Buying a
smaller home as a stop gap before going the RV way also did not make financial
sense…. 2 transfer costs, commissions, etc, in a short time period.
One other option existed. We had as a family, often talked
about the family compound concept, where a larger home would offer both the
independence, plus the security, proximity, and there for each other options!
Kate had always been keen on this lifestyle, and liked the Sunset Links estate
in Milnerton. We had never heard of it, let alone been there, so we arranged a
visit to be shown the estate, and the type of homes that were on the market. We
were very impressed, and one particular unit had exactly the type of
configuration which lent itself to the concept.
Now Kate is not one to let the grass grow under her feet! In
less than one week, her offer on the new place was accepted, and she had sold
her lovely townhouse in Tamboerskloof!
Mary and I packed up her old house till we dropped (Kate
working herself to a standstill earning the bucks), and then we negotiated
access to the new house before the move date, so that we could drop off and
store all the packed cartons in the flat. Then we moved in together, and
unpacked our butts off! Within 3 or 4 days, everything was more or less sorted….
pictures were up, TV’s working and music was playing! (a pictorial blog will
follow!)
With our post sailing future sorted with Kate, it was time
to fly back to Australia to prepare Sheer for re-launching, and to start
considering how and when to quit.
Our first surprise was to see the state of her antifouling.
It had all cracked in the dry heat, and looked like crazy paving! This was no
wet sand and anti-foul job! After considering all options, we elected to have
the hull sand blasted back to the gel coat, and to re do all the epoxy barriers
before spraying on the new antifoul.
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| All wrapped up |
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| Sandblasted right down to gelshield |
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| See how we have raised the waterline since launching |
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| Resprayed bootstrap |
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| Epoxy subcoats go on |
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| Altex 5 antifoul .......3 coats |
Being in Australia, this is a bio-hazard job, and requires a
special isolation pen….. with commensurate costs! To give Marine Services
credit, they did an absolutely superb job, including re-spraying the red
bootstrap, which they knew would get damaged with the sand blasting. The
sandblasting itself only took 4 hours, but due to the mess it makes, the boat
has to be totally wrapped up beforehand…. which took 2 days! The new coatings, and anti-fouling ,prop speed etc meant the whole job took a
week in the expensive pen. The bill came to AUS $14 000! ( x 11.5 for Rands!)
We also couldn’t stay on the boat during
this procedure, so we moved into a teensy chalet in the caravan park and kept
the hired car that we drove up from Brisbane to Bundaberg for another week.
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| Sunset roos |
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| Honeyeater in the bushes outside our hut |
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| Lorakeets in the bottlebrushes |
One of our options was sail back to New Cal, and to spend a
few months there, during which we could consider the boat market there ito
selling, and if it did not look good, we could then sail back down to
Newcastle, where we could put it on the market, in the hands of a broker. That
way we would be able to pay the import duty and tax out of the sale proceeds.
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Walking along the beach, we came across these crab "balls"......
we thought must be the inspiration of the dotty aboriginal art |
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| "Big Foot"......the human dynamo who almost singlehandedly did the job! |
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| Job done and looking good |
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| Ready to splash....such a pity to put her back in dirty water! |
Another thing we considered, given the market conditions
here, was to join the Arc Rally for the leg from Darwin to Richards Bay. The
combination of the entry costs which were insane plus the routing and time of
year (October/November), put paid to that idea! We are also smaller than they
like to have on the rally!
The one we finally settled on was to enjoy the Whitsundays,
rush up to Cairns, and join the Indonesian rally, which would allow us to visit
Singapore, and Malaysia, before heading home via Chagos, bottom of Seychelles,
Mayotte, through the Moz Channel to Richards Bay , in March April next year….
That’s the gentle time and route!
So, we sent our passports off to the Indonesian Consulate in
Sydney, for them then to be posted to Cairns. We joined the rally, paid the
fees, online purchased the cruising guide book (in Adelaide!!!), had it sent to
Cairns , and ordered our Navionics electronic charts also to be available in
Cairns!
All set to go, then the weather goes bananas, and an east
coast low makes sailing impossible for a week, and smashes up Coffs habour en route!
Thankfully Scott Free who were in the marina at the time were unharmed,
but their blog describing conditions, and pictures, is terrifying!
Finally, the weather improves and we head for Cairns!
