The Seven P’s.

Ok. It’s getting serious now. I got one of those ‘countdown the days’ apps that tell you how long before a ‘significant’ event is to reach it’s predetermined deadline. As of today, we have 89 days till July 1 2018. So what significant event is worth a blog entry then?

Margie and I are casting off the lines and going sailing again. We have had a great time in Darwin but now is the time to resume our cruising lifestyle.

We have entered Moonshadow and ourselves in the Darwin to Dili Rally. The start is at 10am on the 14th July From Fannie Bay. The trip to Dili will be 4 or 5 days (& nights) to cover the distance of 400  odd nautical miles. We have entered the rally division, not racing so it should be a relaxing trip.

We are luck to have Margie’s sons, Shaun And Dylan joining us for this part which will be a big help on the night watch.

Preparations have been progressing well and the todo list is starting to look manageable in the 89 day timeframe. There was a meme on FB somewhere that said about boat maintenance, “A simple 20 minute fix is only one sheared bolt from a major three day drama.”

It seemed a good idea at the time to check the anode in the engine heat exchanger and I became a victim of the meme. Sure enough, the bolt sheared off filling the freshly cleaned bilge with green fluid and requiring the removal of said HE to have it fixed. Trouble is, it’s cupronickel and requires brazing, a skill set noticeably absent in Darwin. Let’s bite the bullet and order a new one, I thought. Google came to the rescue and I was able to locate the parts for a 90 HP 1984 Ford Lehman tractor engine in the USA but the freight is a killer. That’ll teach me!

The season is changing here in Darwin and we are almost in what is called ‘the dry’. As well as the odd Tropical Cyclone ‘the wet’ has been, well, wet. This has delayed my major project of maintaining our teak deck and caulking as the deck has to be dry to fix it up. Real soon now!

When we had Moonshadow slipped in Cullen Bay, there was a blackboard on which some wit had written the 7p’s. “Proper Prior Preparation Prevents Piss Poor Performance. The preparation seems like an never ending list of potential disasters when it comes to me using spanners. But we live and learn.

After a week in Dili we will Sail west along the north cost of East Timor to Oecusse, and then onto Kupang, in Indonesia. (West Timor). This is where our crew will be leaving us to head home to loved ones and Margie and I will continue exploring the delights of the Indonesian Archipelago.

Hopefully we can keep feeding the blog to keep everyone up to date with our adventures. A friend asked the other day how long we were going for to which the only reply is, “...as long as it takes.”  I would like to think that the same applies to the todo list.

We live in hope...