Few pictures I forgot to post as we came out of water….
Sitting up on land and living on the boat is a pain in the butt thing. Can’t use toilets so forever walking to the toilet block during the day and bucket at night, just for number ones, of course and the boys had to empty their own ones. Charlie thought it was a disgusting job to do, to empty it every morning….
Sanding the bottom of the boat is just hard work. The kids wanted to help but even with full on suited they’re eyes got very sore and I realised as well that my shoulders couldn’t take it, keeping arms up and trying to put pressure to get the old paint off. So poor Chris ended up doing it all by himself. So next time we will definitely pay for help.
A clean Chris in the beginning
Trying to occupy the kids, as they had a week off school was difficult. The bikes came out, rollerblading, send them to supermarket, boys to magic card game shop, Alice and I hopping around charity shops and Kelly’s beach for swim. Beautiful place.
Also birdwatching these little babies
View from the top
Finally we were ready to get back in water. Of course the wind was picking up. I wanted to delay it but every day on land costs money so decided to go for it. What a horrendous palaver that was. I’m at the helm, Chris in the dinghy ready for push us about, another guy to help with ropes and everybody was getting shitty. As we slipped off it was lucky that the marina had they big lancha ready as without it we would have bumped our way along the boats on the pontoon.
I felt sick, dizzy and so stressed I thought I was going to pass out. Never felt anything like it before. My heart was racing, felt like heart attack combined with a stroke. We couldn’t get into the marina berth so was helped and pushed by other dinghies to anchor. Bloody engine! I laid down, still feeling absolutely awful. I just couldn’t get out of it. Very scary. James gave me chocolate, helped a bit but it took me that day to get over it.
Cruising kiwis and the other two kid boats we met in Keppel was also in anchor and very thankful for they help. We all decided to try to get us in to the marina following morning very early before the wind would pick up. Needless to say, I didn’t sleep.
At 05.30 we slowly cruised in. The other dinghies on stand by and what a relief to be tied up.
Got couple of engine guys to come and have a look at it all and after about a day of tinkering around we took her out for a spin. Up and down the river and the engine was fine…..but I had my doubts…..
All the kids had a blast, nice with company and things to do. We took them all to Kelly’s beach one day, took few car journeys to get everybody there but so worth it. Then there was few rainy days and everybody stayed put. We were busy cleaning and packing as we had a housesit coming up for Christmas. And finally we did leaving/ Christmas drinks around the bbq area in the marina and Veda had a sleepover with Alice.
Off we went again, an a road trip to Sunshine Coast to Maroochydore. This sit was for 3 weeks and we were looking after Harley the dog, 9 years and Kira the cat who was 21 years old…
moodyfinn 