I would love to be putting up a chill time video. Unfortunately, not. life is an adventure. The weather conditions are making it prohibitive. Instead, you are about to get an update on our overnight adventure.

On our wedding anniversary and all. In my sleep-deprived state, I smile once again at the words that my brother-in-law wrote in the wedding card that he and Barbie gave us. He said, ‘To Tess: You have taste and a taste for adventure.’
So here we are, on another adventure. Martin came home from work soaking wet. He rode his bike from Capalaba to Coomera in horrendous rain. He parked the bike, walked about 30 meters to the dinghy and had to bail the water out before heading to the boat.
Mental note. A small built in hand pump required for the dinghy.
He arrived on the boat, soaking! He peeled of his leather jacket which was super heavy, soddened with rainwater. His waterproof trousers (the ones that you wear over your trousers (sexy – not)) were clinging. Yes, they are truly waterproof, however they appear to have suction capped themselves to his jeans. They peeled off inside out. We laughed. Happy anniversary baby.
During the day I had sent him a message to pick up some bubbles as we are out. The message went via a work colleague as Martin’s phone had taken a swim in the salt water in the bottom of the dinghy when we were riding the wake of a passing cruiser. The message to pick up the bubbles did not make it to him. No problems. He had a hot shower while I prepared a ‘Saboteur Sling’ in lieu of champagne. A ‘Saboteur Sling’ is based on the Raffles Hotel ‘Singapore Sling’, using whichever ingredients we have from the Singapore Sling. This time we had no Gin. No problems.
I made us a special dinner, peeled green bay prawns (for what felt like forever) while Martin familiarised himself with the unfolding local weather situation. Prawns peeled, capsicum and carrot finely sliced, three cloves of garlic chopped up. Rice noodles soaking. I pan fried the garlic and the prawns in Sesame Oil and tossed in some chili flakes followed by the noodles, soy sauce, and fish sauce. Added bean sprouts, capsicum and carrot a few more quick tosses in the wok and I served up with a dash of lemon and alpha sprouts on top.
We sat down to our wedding anniversary dinner and our Saboteur Sling, served in our gorgeous crystal champagne flutes and started talking about the strategy for the evening. Not your typical wedding anniversary conversation. We were going to have to do watches. With the plan in place, we settle in to watch an episode of ‘Star Trek’. Navionics beside me to keep an eye on our position and bopping up into the cockpit like ‘Dicky Knee’ (A puppet from the TV show Hey, Hey, It’s Saturday’).
Martin was on watch, while I try to catch some zzz’s only to be woken soon after by Martin, informing me that we were rapidly drifting. I get up, wet weather jacket on and I headed up to cockpit. The buoy that was normally behind us was now in front of us. In sheeting rain, I headed to the bow to raise the anchor. We were drifting backwards towards a small, wooded island.
The visibility was next to nothing.
I raised the anchor. It clears the water line. I heard a grind; the anchor winch jammed. It is jammed by fishing line wrapped around tree branches. Yes, lucky us. I took over the helm and Martin grabbed my fishing knife. Meanwhile, with poor visibility I steered Saboteur between a small sailboat and our neighbouring catamaran named, ‘By Crickey’. Well, it was certainly a By Crickey moment. We were doing approximately 1 knot into the current and the Southerly winds. Meanwhile Martin was cutting away at the fishing line that was firmly caught up in our anchor winch. He cleared the winch. I turned the yacht to travel with the running water and the wind behind us.
We went from travelling 1 knot to 8.5 knots.
That was serious fast for our yacht. Don’t forget she weighs in around 20 tonnes. I lowered the motor speed. Our speed over ground (well, speed over water) did not change. We were moving at the speed of the current. Not ideal as this meant we had limited steering control over our yacht. While we were in the centre of a relatively straight passage it was fine. Corners would be a different story as our twenty tonnes will heavily influence how fast we would take a corner, or not. We don’t have to worry about that now.
We needed to drop anchor. But where?
Martin took the helm. He dropped the anchor from the cockpit midway in the passage. We swung swiftly and pulled up hard. Brilliant, we were confident the anchor had taken. We were midstream. Smack bang in the middle of the channel. We were also midships to a row of navigation lights at one of the boat ramps. This is really useful as it gives us a reference point to check if the lights don’t line up we have moved. Our strategy is to check the lights line up every 15 mins or so (Dicky Knee style popping up into the cockpit) and watching Navionics.
We both stayed up for a while. We played a game of Bananagrams and then watched an episode of ‘Cowboy Bebop’.
Martin was getting tired and went to bed for about 2 hours. I watched the remaining episodes of Cowboy Bebop keeping an eye on our position on Navionics and popping my head up into the cockpit every 15 mins or so.
Martin woke about 1pm, and we talked for a bit. It is a bit of sleep deprived haze. I think we had a cup of tea before I headed to bed close to two pm, waking around 4ish. I rose and asked Martin if he wanted to go to bed. He offered me an extra couple of hours sleep. I went back to bed and woke up around 6ish.
Kettle on, Martin updated me on the weather conditions, and I learnt Marty had already bailed the dinghy out. The water level was up to the dinghy seats. That is a lot of bailing. When he is up next, we will need to bail it again and hoist it back on the boat. He headed to bed and I took over the watch. I was going to sew, however I grabbed my laptop and decided to pen this update for you. I am constantly checking our position.
At around 8am this morning it was high tide. This means the current was meant to slow and turn. However, with so much water coming down and running out of the river the current is not turning anytime soon. The shores have mild flooding. The ducks are out and about and loving it.
Marty and I will tag team this morning, while we both catch up on sleep. I will probably finish my cushions today. This afternoon we will probably be awake together until about 10pm. If the weather continues we will do another night of split shifts.
Loving our adventure baby. Happy anniversary.
Originally published on Facebook on March 29, ’22.

























