2018 Travels
Date: 8/5/18
Location: St Helena Island
27 23'.23 S
151 13'.40 E
Weather: Grey and wet
Author: Peter
My last day of work was 3 days ago and I'm now officially on leave. Since arriving on the boat I have been doing a lot of set up work, still trying to get the boat as 'ship shape' as possible. What I'm discovering is that everything surrounding this boat seems to have a ten year life span. That seems to include me. I seem to take time off from school kids to recharge the batteries every ten years. The break made a huge difference to my patience levels last time and I hope it does so again this time.
So I arrived back to the boat at lunch time and spent the rest of the day refitting the completely rebuilt anchor winch (10 years old), then completely pulling apart and rebuilt the wind generator (10 years old). Both now appear to be working really well, in fact the anchor winch hasn't worked so smoothly or quickly since new.
Sunday was a beautiful Queensland day (sunny one day, perfect the next), so we all set off together to Southbank for a swim. Well the kids made it in anyway, the wind chill factor was too much for Kylie and myself. This free pool complex is fantastic and the kids absolutely love it. I was in shock to hear after discussions with a life guard that during summer it can be common to have up to 7 rescues in one shift. I'm now wondering if Coffs life guards need to do this many in a shift?? After the swim we made our way over to the museum. The kids wanted to show me the whale walk and Joel wanted to see the dinosaurs. Mia is currently working on the past, present, and future as part of her schooling, so it was not only great for her to see the dinosaurs exhibit but the exhibits showing life in the past in Brisbane. In particular she was surprised at how large old music playing devices were and how strange it was to do the washing with your hands and a wash board. Our day finished off with some shopping for supplies.
On Monday, a public holiday in Queensland, we started setting up to depart the city centre. While waiting for the tide to turn we made our way back into the botanical gardens where Mia and Joel hid their first set of rocks – we have joined the rock painting craze where you paint rocks, hide them for other kids to find and then they can choose to keep or hide the rocks again. We hope the kids will receive a photo back via instagram from one of the 'lucky' discoverers. #svjurarocks
Shortly after lunch we untied ourselves from the pile berth and started making our way back out to the bay. As the day progressed the weather got cooler and greyer, finally starting to rain as we sat down for dinner.
So here we are anchored of St Helena Island, doing boat jobs and Mia's schooling as it is raining on and off all day. It's a pity because St Helena Island looks quite inviting with simple beach access. Apparently it is a National Park and houses the old ruins of a gaol. We will have to come back and visit again in nicer weather.
One of those boat jobs was to try and fix the plotter screen (10 years old) which just started to muck up, looking a great deal like the night sky...black with a few white dots here and there. Well thanks to Kylie looking up doctor google, we have found a possible answer. We have pulled the machine apart, reconnected everything and so far so good it all seems to be working fine. Anyone who knows about me and technology is probably laughing right now but lucky for me the inside of the machine is mostly plug and play, and it looks like it was just a loose connection into the screen (fingers crossed anyway).
Well I know this hasn't been the most exiting blog (10 years since the last one) but after a quick test of the batteries, hopefully tomorrow we should be making our way further north into more exiting and warmer times.
