It is now 10 days since we docked, and with this time comes an increasing appreciation for all that we have to be grateful for in life.
In my last post I said good night after a beautiful evening on deck with the sunset and the warmth of the shiraz as our companion, our bodies weary from the days work and happy for what we had achieved.
Permit me to take you back to the rest of our voyage to our new berth and base.
We were anchored in a very sheltered spot south of Lamb Island that was perfect for the weather conditions.
We had let out about 10 meters of anchor chain. It is an imprecise science. I measure a meter by counting, one second, two seconds, three seconds, you get the idea. And then we paused (with the engine idling in reverse) for the anchor to take. It did not, so I let out another 5 meters, 1 second, 2 seconds, 3 seconds… We waited… The anchor takes and we checked to ensure that the current was pulling us back and the anchor held. We were happy. We set the anchor alarm for 30 meters. This alarm would go off if the boat moved outside of a 30-meter circumference. Bearing in mind that tidal movement would result in the boat turning 180 degrees twice during the night. I have full appreciation of modern technology such as “anchor apps”. We went to bed and crashed. We both slept well.
And then the anchor alarm dragged us from our deep sleep.
I blinked, listened and jumped out of bed all at the same time, while Martin’s extended arm went in search for his phone (the anchor alarm is a phone app). Our minds were rapidly waking from our sleep. I had put my left foot down first and as I transferred my weight to my right foot my leg collapsed; clearly my right leg was numb. ha, ha… now is not the time I told myself. My left arm lunged clinging to the bed as my body rose, supported by my left leg. I slapped my right leg and tried again, it collapsed again. This was to occur twice more before I had normal use of my right leg.
I was cautious going up the companionway (stairs). By this stage Martin had found the phone and checked the alarm. We had gone approximately a meter outside of the 30 meter circumference we had set. We checked the landmarks and our position against other anchored boats. I was certain we had not moved. As beautiful as it was in the stillness of the night our pillows called us back to bed…
We both feel back into a deep sleep, and then…
The anchor alarm went off again, albeit 6 hours later (tide change again). This time we both just sat and listened. We were convinced we were not moving. Martin checked the alarm and again we were just on a meter outside of the 30-meter circumference. We really should have set the alarm for 35 meters. Not to worry. Martin stayed in bed and I went up on deck and checked to ensure we had not moved and – we had not.
I had about 10 hours sleep and Martin 11 hours. I was full of appreciation for a brilliant night’s sleep. The birds were calling me to watch the sunrise. My spirits soared. I paused, embracing being in the moment with the crispness of the morning, the birds singing and in time the ferries transiting past us commuting people from Straddie (Stradbroke Island) and Lamb Island. Martin joined me in the cockpit. I think the wake of the ferry may have raised him.
It was a magical morning.
Martin cooked up a protein feast, of fried egg served on a massive Swiss brown mushroom (one of my gluten free alternatives to bread) and some gorgeous air cured bacon. My Marty appreciation bubble is soaring. We cleaned up and checked our route. It was simple, head straight out of the channel turn left and we would be in the main channel to the Gold Coast. What could go wrong? Let’s face it, it would not be a TandM (Tessa and Marty) adventure without a hiccup or two.
My appreciation bubble was about to disappear for a couple of hours.
We hoisted our anchor right on low tide. We were chasing the low tide between sand banks and islands for the next two hours.
We exited the channel, turned left and then had to decide which channel markers to follow. Meanwhile we had almost no clearance under our kneel. We argued, as we tried to make sense of the markers. We headed off on what we thought was right channel, and I became more and more convinced we were heading to a dead end. And then we ran out of water. We argued and turned around. It was our first U-Turn for the day.
We headed out to some slightly deeper water while we tried to make sense of the channels shown on the chart and the sea of buoys. It was so shallow and I was seeing sand banks everywhere. We turned around and headed back, only to run out of water again. We were using Martins phone for navigation (our navigation instruments were on their way still). Martins phone was fine, it was just small. The path it was showing looked like we were heading for a dead-end and sand. We turned around a third time. One of the nearby fishing dinghy’s picked up anchor and moved. Perhaps our arguing was scaring the fish away.
Finally I said to Martin; “You’re the skipper, go wherever you want”!
Martin cautiously headed down the transit lane marked on his phone… It turned out he was right (and I was wrong) Sorry baby.
When we finally passed this narrow passage, the rest of our journey was fine. We laughed because we recalled having the same argument, at the same point the last time we went down this passage on our previous yacht.
A little further on we gently weaved our way through some crowded anchorages off Horizon Shores and Jacobs Well. Eventually we found ourselves motoring down The Broadwater and then we hung a right at the entrance to the Coomera River and we were almost home. The tide was fast and the wind was now about 8knots and blowing in the wrong direction, which would make docking in our new berth at Gold Coast City Marina tough. It was kind of tight. I phoned ahead hoping to be able to book a pilot. Many marinas offer a pilotage service, where an experienced pilot will come out and take your boat in for you. Unfortunately, our marina does not. Bugger, we are on our own. Our boat is big (47 ft) and heavy (18 Tonnes) and with a full knell she is hard to turn in tight spots.
We entered the marina… fair to say, nervously…
We phoned the couple we rent the berth off. They said that they would be happy to grab a line for us. We had phoned our new neighbour Dan and asked him to put extra fenders on the outside of his boat in case we needed to “lean” against it… as we approached our berth we needed to stay as far left in the channel as we could before turning right. Unfortunately, there was a houseboat at the end of the finger (in his usual spot) which limited how far left we could go. We turned, Martin did a good job of it. I was up the front ready to throw the line out to our ready catchers. I threw, the tide and wind was pushing us back and my line fell short. Clearly, more practice required.
Time was precious, letting the line trail in the water I turned and grabbed the pole and started to push off our neighbours boat.
We were starting to shout instructions at each other. And what happened next could only be describe as a comedy of errors. We managed somehow to get out of our pen without damaging our new neighbour’s boat and were attempting to reverse down the channel. We needed to turn our boat which steers in reverse poorly. By this stage, what is a normally a sleepy marina seemed like everybody had come out of hiding to welcome the inexperience newbies and, or more likely, to push us off their boats if required.
We heard a voice say, “If you can get over here, I will jump on board and help”.
There was no problems getting over there, the problem was stopping and before Gus could jump on board, he had taken on the task of pushing our boat off his and his neighbours. Meanwhile, Martin was trying to steer and I had been fending off boats. With the help of Gus we managed to turn the boat around and headed to the fuelling dock.
We were able to pause and consider the next move. I wondered how many people in the restaurant above us were watching and laughing – best not to think about it.
Our new friend Gus phoned a friend who could give us a hand. Despite the stress of the moment I can feel my appreciation bubble returning. Before we knew it, a young French couple joined us. Mona is a shipwright (boat builder) and Noah is a landscape gardener. They have been living on their boat for many years and are very experience sailors. By this time, my appreciation bubble has definately reappeared. I was grateful we had not damaged anyone else’s boat and full of appreciation for the assistance we had been offered.
After we had caught our breath, we readied ourselves to depart from the fuel dock and head out into the channel and turn around ready to try again.
We had hoped Mona would skipper, however she insisted Martin should take us in. Perhaps it was a voodoo thing. You know get back on the bike after falling off. While at this stage I was nervous about this, looking back I am full of appreciation for the wisdom of this decision. And so, with expertise we were guided into our pen. We were prepared to fend off our neighbours boat (just in case). We had awesome line handlers who made light work of securing us to the dock. Pretty much at the same time some friends arrived. They missed the entertainment. Probably just as well.
With Saboteur secured our friends and handlers settled into the cockpit. We cracked some beers and opened a couple of bottles of wine (19 Crimes Shiraz to be precise). Gus told me, I was pretty good with the fender, I knew where to put my feet, how to balance and when to let insurance take care of it… My years of martial arts helped.
And so we shared stories with our friends old and new, stories about life and doing what we love… despite the dramas of the day, and knowing we need to learn how to turn the 18 tonnes of boat better, we are thrilled to be on our journey. I am full of appreciation for old friends and new…
What are you waiting for? What’s your next adventure… even if you don’t know how?
#Whatareyouwaitingfor #Liveyourlife #Appreciation #Ilovesailing
