System of a Downer

Wednesday April 23

Up early. Systems on. All Good. Engine running and ready to haul anchor.

Aqua Vitae ready to go pulls up the hook and makes ready. Just then a call from Nick on Divided Sky informs us that their engine won't start.
Bummer.
Sounds serious and not a quick fix. Mike hops in the dinghy and goes to help sort it!

Shut systems down and turn off engine.
Wait.
Wait a bit more.

Finally the call comes through that the engine is fixed but its just too late for a daytime arrival at the Abrolhos so we decide to lay over. And Mike isn't feeling too good. Let's all have a day off!

Mike gets worse and goes to bed. Hmmm.

We relaunch Toby and head off to console ourselves with a coffee at the Dome.

Mike gets worse and is taken to hospital for tests. Feeling dizzy, collapses. Not good.
We all are worried and decide that a few days more here would probably be a good idea to allow Mike time to recover and any way, the winds are unfriendly.

Mike discharged from hospital feeling better and nothing found.

A few days of relaxing and waiting for good weather.


Saturday 26th April

Strange day. The weather I mean. Watched the dawn rise over Geraldton as we were rudely woken by a strange banging sound from the aft end of Moonshadow. Crawling out of the nice warm and cosy bed to investigate, I found a buoy in the harbour was knocking on the hull. The wind had changed to a northerly and as we had a long rode hanging of the anchor we had drifted around to the buoy. Easy fix... shorten the rode. Not so fast Jeremy; the dinghy (aka Toby) which was attached to the stern had decided to wrap its painter around the buoy and took some persuasion to let go! Finally shortened the anchor and all was well.

Getting down to the jobs for the day, I remembered that there was a rolled up hose in one of the cockpit lockers. You know the sort. The flat ones that roll away to almost nothing and can be stored in a small space.

Well, the deck needed a wash as it was covered in detritus from the Port Denison mooring ropes and sand from our constant travels to the beach. What a good idea! So I got out the hose and carefully unrolled it along the deck. After searching around for an adaptor for the deck salt pump outlet all was connected and ready to turn on the pump. Easy peasey. The sea water gushed through the pump and I could see it plumping up the flat hose then all at once we had the Moonshadow equivalent of the Trevi fountains. Arcs of water squirting from a thousand places along the hose. The hose came with the boat and this was the first time I had tried it! (Note to self: Ditch the hose! There is no place for hose sentimentality on this boat!) Fortunately we have a 'common or garden' hose hanging from the rail so a quick swap was in order and I was able to complete the task I had set meself. Clean decks at last.

Margie decided that as it was our last day in Geraldton, it would be a good opportunity to get those 'last minute' essentials before we sailed at the crack of dawn tomorrow for the Abrolhos Islands. It was a shock to come out of the shopping centre to be greeted by torrential rain. Needless to say we were not wearing any rain gear so got soaked on the walk back to the dinghy. There was a two dollar shop on the way and we thought it might be good to buy a two dollar umbrella that was prominently displayed at the entrance. We were surprised to find that the umbrellas were priced somewhat richly above 'two dollars', and as we were already dripping wet we gave it a miss. Leaving the 'two dollar' shop we noticed that the sign had 'and more' in small print below the prominent 'two dollar shop' sign! Lesson learnt.

Returning to Toby, waiting patiently on the beach we found that she had filled up with rain water and the first job was to bail her out before we could launch her. We had to go as we had an invitation to sample Robyn's famous and much heralded 'pavlova surprise', a special treat that she had made to celebrate Karen's birthday. We called it a 'pavlova surprise' as the first attempt was apparently burnt on the bottom and Robyn thought it was inedible!

Margie is getting to be an expert on Driving Miss Toby and power planed us back to Moonshadow for dry duds before we joined Nick, Robyn, Karen and Mike on Aqua Vitae. The pavlova was superb.

So it's off to the Abrolhos tomorrow which requires some preparation and getting back on board to hoist Toby on Deck and deal with the 'anchoring chaos', tidying and getting ship shape for an early start.

The adventure starts again tomorrow...