Its now midnight. This afternoon we saw another two unmanned boats go past us along with more pontoons, a garden shed, then a green channel marker, a red channel marker and two yellow markers.
After dark another of the boats in front of us let go. Sue saw it coming and again turned us to port allowing Diva to pass on our starboard side. Unfortunately Diva’s anchor latched on to something and came to a stop 10m off our side. This meant holding Imagine steering to port to keep us apart.
We watched more pontoons, jettys and logs head down river along with the flashing lights of more channel markers. Sue kept watch while Andrew got an hour’s sleep.
At 11pm it was on again. Enough debris was around Diva’s chain for it to drag again. As it floated off into the dark, we could return the steering to centre. A few minutes later a ketch as large as Imagine went sailing backwards past us.
Then looming out of the dark Sue thought she saw a crane on a pontoon coming straight for us. As it got closer we could see it was two yachts tangled together. Luckily they were moving slow (must be dragging anchors) The width of them meant we couldn’t move out of the way without them catching our anchor. Andrew ran to the bow to haul anchor. As we started to haul anchor the two boats parted. One came to a stop the other carried on towards us. Sue immediately turned us starboard pulling us close into the riverbank. This allowed the yacht to pass metres away from our port side.
The yacht that passed us we recognised, it had come all the way from the CBD. It looks like the other boat is secure for now. A few moments later another boat came down the river sideways then another.
We now have one unmanned and one liveaboard boat left at anchor around us that we can see. Not sure how many more are left in the CBD. The liveaboard (Pete) is a 70+ year old on his own and his boat has no motor, so if his anchor lets go he is in big trouble.
The water police have been extremely busy trying to help the boats and keep the river clear, but it has come to a point that they can only deal with life threatening emergencies only first and then try to sort out the other boats as they can. Tomorrow (well today now!) they expect more of the same weather with it not easing until Monday. We expect there will be more debris coming down the river for probably a week but hopefully it won’t be more pontoons and boats! The suburb on one side of the river has a power blackout now so we’ve lost the illumination from that making it even more interesting!
Thank you to our friends in Brisbane also for checking in on us. There’s not much anyone can do but we appreciate your messages.
