Sur-reality

It's been over 24 hours now and our return to the tropics and Sea Piper is becoming more real than surreal.
We generally experience this feeling of not quite believing where we are as we move back and forward between our southern life and our northern life.
It's actually very enjoyable and exciting, though sometimes I wish we could bring our two worlds of friends and family a little geographically closer .
Sea Piper was as spruce a lady as she's ever been thanks to the ministrations and flair of Peter, our good friend who has his own tiny boat at Breakwater Marina but who keeps an eye on Sea Piper whilst enjoying a bit of air conditioning, fridge space and room to stand up whilst inside a boat; three things denied to him on his own boat. He describes it as his summer office space - he runs his own cleaning business which has him working evenings and doing relevant paperwork in the daytime so he's very happy to spend this time on Sea Piper.

A beautiful welcome home to Sea Piper

We came aboard yesterday morning to spotless decks then opened the cabin door to a scene of frangipanni blooms, both in a vase and scattered on the table, alongside two bottles of beautiful wine. Add to this the cooled air from the air conditioner whose excess moisture was being (cleverly) gravity-fed into the kitchen tidy as the draining pump chose to pack up the day after we had left in December.
As Pete wasn't around for the first couple of months of summer, we owe the lack of mould in the boat to the constant attendance of my brother David and marina friends Carolynne and Ted who tag-teamed to keep our cranky air conditioner going.
It's repair is another job on the list for this month along with a trip to the top of the mast to replace a shackle for the Code Zero. Not something Royden's looking forward to I suspect.
Ex-cyclone Tim hasn't brought strong winds to Townsville this week as first predicted but there were a few showers yesterday then a couple of heavy rain dumps overnight. The clouds are bulking up again as I write but the overcast and cooler conditions are welcomed by locals as it's been pretty humid and hot, but rain-free, up here for the past few months (bit like down south but with more humidity).
It's certainly made for an easy climate adjustment for us and maybe after this Low passes the Dry, and those south-easterly trade winds, will be not too far away.

One last sail for 2012

Looking out for mackerel movement through the coral spore.

Sunday turned out to be the perfect day for a day sail to Magnetic Island's West Beach.
Vikki, David, Carolynne and Ted joined us early that morning so we had plenty of assistance pushing off the dock and heading out.

Not much to do but relax as we head out of Townsville towards Maggie Is.

A light breeze on the nose put paid to any idea of sailing across but we were able to break out the head sail for the trip back, adopting the 2 knot rule, that is, if we dropped below 2 knots we would turn on a motor.

We weren't the only ones trying for a mackerel.

The morning was spent doing a wide loop out west of the island in the hope of getting another mackerel but, alas, no luck.
We dropped anchor off West Beach for lunch, regretting that stinger season put paid to any ideas of a swim, however the beautiful surrounds and great company more than compensated. It was also way cooler out on the water than on the land.
Monday marked the start of seriously packing up Sea Piper for the cyclone season. We dropped the headsail at first light and flaked it beautifully - best we've ever done. Royden had already removed the bbq and wind generator and the Code Zero had been put to bed after its trip to the sailmaker for repairs.
There's still numerous jobs to do before we head off to Victoria but perhaps the biggest challenge, one that we've been working on for the past few weeks, is to eat all the food on board. This final week is like an invention test with some interesting meals emerging from canned, frozen and fresh combinations.

The long and the short(s) of it

Going cheap – in fact, free – three pairs of unhemmed stretchy shorts, sizes 18, 22 and 24.
I could hem them I suppose.
How did I come across such items, and what the heck does it have to do with Sea Piper?
The story begins with an article I read a couple of years ago. For some reason it stayed in my head even though I could not, at that time, see the point of the article’s subject.
The story told of how you could easily make fender covers out of old track suit pants, instead of paying a fortune for them in a chandlery.
For those of you not familiar with a boat fender, they are the inflated, tubular-shaped things put along the side of a boat to cushion it from contact with the wharf/jetty/marina finger/other boats.
They are very useful if not essential.
However I couldn’t figure why people put pretty covers over them. They looked OK to me `au natural’.
That is until the blue rubbery stuff at the top of several of our fenders started to get sticky in the sun and leave hard-to-remove blue marks along the hull.
Ah, fender covers - that cartoon `light' went on in my brain.
Off I went to visit Townsville op shops (with which I am pretty familiar). Do you know how hard it is to find second hand track suit pants (of the large variety, or small for that matter) in the tropics? Four op shops later I had the requisite three pairs (Adidas, Target and Millers' brands) each looking rarely, if ever, worn.
Today I borrowed Carolynne’s sewing machine and created new `leggings’ for our small, medium and large fenders. As that magazine article had suggested, it was dead easy - and cheap. I even used the elastic from the Size 24s around the fender-cover tops! I guess that means that the Size 24 shorts will fall down so they’re off the market.
Our row of matching fenders look stunning in their little black numbers!

All dressed up and going nowhere.

 The build-up has finally hit Townsville, as of last Monday.
Swarms of jelly fish came into the marina yesterday. These are not the stinger variety but those won't be far away as the sea is warming up considerably along with the weather.

Jelly fish ranged in size from tiny to about 40cm. Hundreds of them swarmed into the marina.

My facial barometer has been working overtime – slight dripping to full-on water cascades from the face by Tuesday (Donna you will recall this from our Darwin days). Today was much less humid reducing my output to just a thin veil of wetness across the forehead.
Coping mechanisms include such things as lying about in the foreshore rock pool which has stingers and other beasties filtered out; going to the movies (can recommend Argo and The Intouchables) and sitting in air con sewing fender covers.
The evenings remain superb.
Thank goodness Royden decided to set the air conditioner in place last Sunday, never thinking we would be using it the next day as the weather up until then had been delightful – warm to hot, and breezy.

* The rock pool kept us entertained on Monday with a big goanna strolling around the grassed area causing quite a stir among the sunbathers (Yes, people still do that). On the sea-side of the pool a number of turtles were feeding, rising to the surface for several breaths before each dive. Unfortunately I forgot to take my camera to capture either of the above.

If wishes were fishes ...

Looking pretty happy with their catch - and who wouldn't be.

What better way to cap off an overnighter to Magnetic Island than with a hefty mackerel.
David and Vikki joined us on Friday for the trip out to Horseshoe Bay, along the eastern edge of the island past Nelly, Florence and Radical Bay.
With the wind going round to the north, it was a bit rolly in Horseshoe but, arriving just on low tide, we were able to tuck Sea Piper into a protected corner and enjoy the lovely sunset and starry night.
A strengthening wind and an incoming tide made for an interesting dinghy ride into the Horseshoe Bay foreshore the next morning, but the walk along the beach and exploring yet another track off this bay made it worth the soggy clothes, which in this temperature dry in a matter of minutes.
It was also interesting to watch the life savers drag a net through a section of the bay to ascertain stinger activity in the area. I think it must have been too rough for stingers as there were none in the net, but there were fish and crabs which were duly released. The happiest creatures on the foreshore were the seagulls. They must love the easy feed this daily ritual provides - along with the tourists' chips.

Goodbye Horseshoe Bay - till next time.

We decided the sea was too lumpy to eat our lunch of freshly cooked prawns at anchor in the bay so we hoisted the main and head sail and took advantage of the northerly breeze to complete our circumnavigation of the island before returning to Townsville.
Just off West Point, located (as you may have guessed) on the western corner of the island, the mackerel line went off and Royden and David hauled in the beauty shown in the photos.
A nice memento of their trip to take home - in fillets of course.

A few fillets off this one.

NB There were quite a number of big carrier ships off Magnetic Island waiting to go into Townsville Harbour. One of them, a car carrier, looked like it was made of Lego. It was the most un-shiplike shape for a ship. I wonder if it's captain was of a squarish build also - the total Lego picture.

Legoland on the water.

Eclipsed

An eerie light settled over the marina this morning as the moon passed across the sun.
The view of the eclipse from Townsville was at about 95 per cent so we didn't get total blackout but it was enough to take the warmth from the sun and dull the reflections of boats on the water.
Carolynne and Ted had managed to secure two pairs of the dinky cardboard `eclipse' glasses so armed with those and a pinholed-biscuit box and sheet of white paper, the four of us sat on the front deck of Double Vision to share this rare experience.
I was amazed at how well the pin-holed sheet worked when reflected through to the white paper. The glasses were great too.
Interesting also that there was no notable reduction in the light from the sun until the moon was well across it. Shows how much power the sun puts out and how little we need.

Light's fading on Double Vision.

The moon is almost across the sun but the reflection in the water is still round. Curious.

A biscuit box and a sheet of paper for my pinhole camera to view the eclipse.

The wind has been blowing like crazy this week  (30 knots in the marina yesterday morning!) but all was calm and still this morning, a welcome addition to the experience.
With the forecast of much improved conditions over the next week, we're planning a trip with David and Vikki out to Magnetic Island on the weekend. Another of our favourite spots.

A fast finish follows pre-dawn start

Probably about 4.45am, anchor's up, nav lights are on and we're underway. Pelorus Island, at the north end of the Palm group of islands, is the one on the horizon.

What a great sail we had yesterday.
With the forecast of an east/nor-easter, similar to the beginning of our trip south, we decided to leave the lovely Hinchinbrook channel and head towards Townsville, with the alternative of ducking over to Orpheus or Fantome Islands (part of the Palm Islands) if the said wind didn't eventuate.
We made the decision on Wednesday and moved Sea Piper a little further along the Hinchinbrook channel towards Lucinda, anchoring in Sunday Creek. It was a little more exposed here but again gave us the opportunity to soak up a different set of craggy peaks - and to listen to the croc barking that night, which seemed to come from the mangroves adjacent our boat.
The bonus of having more exposure to the wind was a massive reduction in the number of midgies trying to join us for dinner! I don't think I have ever used so many mossie coils as over the past few days - but they worked and that's the main thing.
We hauled up the anchor just before high tide around 4.30am yesterday and headed off.
It's a beautiful time of the day to be on the water. The dawn colours were just seeping over the horizon and there was half a moon up lending a welcome splash of illumination to our navigation. Actually it was much easier to see the lit channel navigational markers at this time than in daylight.

The Lucinda end of the Hinchinbrook Channel has a huge wide bay but it is notoriously shallow. The passage out takes boats and ships very close to the jetty then along it for a couple of kilometres.

We negotiated our way around the ever-so-long Lucinda jetty, waving to the early morning fisher-man and woman before hoisting the main sail and making the turn southwards. The wind came up exactly as forecast so out went the Code Zero and off we went.
A quick call to the Townsville coastguard confirmed no military activity in the area we wished to sail through (there's a military zone in Halifax Bay north of Townsville that is no-go during operations) but National Parks were shooting feral animals on Orpheus and Fantome Islands so they were out of bounds.
The wind picked up a little once we had cleared the influence of the Palms but was still in the right direction so we swapped the Code Zero for half a head sail and continued to hold a steady six to seven knots.

Our sailing buddies from yesterday. We've no idea who they are and couldn't make out the name of the boat but we kept apace of each other from the Palms to Townsville.

During the sail swap the wind dropped and fluked around causing the edge of the Code Zero to bang into one of the cross bars from the mast, putting a neat little hole in the sail. Bugger.
However we agreed that a patch each side across the hole would give the sail added strength to resist puncturing against a cross bar any time in the future.

Rattlesnake Island - the name itself would deter visitors but it's also in the middle of the military training area. The island has warning signs everywhere about the dangers of landing there, citing:`unexploded ordnance'. Ewww!

We made excellent time to Townsville, passing to the west of Rattlesnake Island and hitting eight knots as we shot into the lee of Magnetic Island where we dropped the sails and motored across the bay into Breakwater Marina, tying up just on 12 hours after we pulled anchor.
As usual a marina staffer was there to help us tie up making the job easy.
Within minutes our friend Carolynne was also alongside ready to share a welcoming champagne. There was no resistance our end!

Cardwell post-Yasi

Cardwell is recovering from Yasi but is in desperate need of more residents and tourists.
We sailed up to the town yesterday, anchoring off the northern beach as the marina precinct is out-of-bounds unless a) you live there or b) you make a booking to get fuel and pay the $50 opening fee for the bowser.
The shop keepers are as friendly as ever - and once again we were offered a lift back to the dinghy by a complete stranger. Maybe yachties stand out because of the odd clothes we wear, the browness of our skin and our daypacks. Who knows!
The shops are all freshly painted as are many of the non-brick houses. The only thing missing is the foreshore bushland and trees - and people.
Evidently over 500 people left the town during or following Yasi and they haven't come back to live. Couple that with the loss of jobs in industries like the marina, boatyard, chandlery and the barramundi farm which was also wiped out. It's such a shame as this is a beaut little town - a bit like Dromana of 50 years ago.
We returned to anchor in Gayundah Creek in the afternoon as it blew up a bit in the more exposed area off Cardwell. It was an interesting trip in the dinghy from the shore to Sea Piper. We both got soaked in the short, sharp waves that rose up with the wind.

Catching up on the knitting during the peaceful sail up to Cardwell.

Fishing in the evening.