Morning. It’s stopped raining for now (could be further rain later but the huge weather bomb that has been hanging over us has started moving south).
The river is still rising, everything still coming down the river, boats, pontoons, boats on pontoons, drums, trees, fields of polystyrene and half of everyone’s gardens! The current is still very strong and there will be debris coming down for at least a few days to come.
The locals have been coming down to see how high the river is. The seat on the bank opposite us is almost under water and the footpaths are nowhere to be seen.
A boat behind us tied up on poles has now run out of pole. The owner is now onboard working out how to save his boat. The couple that had moved their boat yesterday to behind ours, came down this morning to find the boat was gone. Last night the wind got up. Blowing up to 30knots (60km) blowing down river, so the current and wind pressure was too much for their anchor and it let go.
We’ve just had another houseboat come past that was damaged but mostly intact until it crashed into one of the river house’s pontoons and it is now severely damaged (fortunately no one on board). It’s freed itself and now heading down river creating more chaos.
We just phoned our mate Theo to check up on him and make him aware the houseboat, a large metal platform and a launch were coming his way. Devastating news that his boat has been holed. Yesterday a pontoon and a motor launch hit him and got tangled up. It dragged him for a while but he got control and reanchored. He couldnt detach the boat, but was secure. During the night another pontoon got tangled with him. This morning a catamaran hit him and punched a hole the size of a basketball in his side. His anchor got dislodged and so did the motor boat and cat part with him. Unfortunatly he could not gain control of his ketch before it hit a multi million dollar super yacht. Theo’s boat is taking on water, but he has got it listing enough to raise the hole above water level. He is now tangled in a group of other boats but their anchors are holding, for now.
There are many boats that have broken anchor or sustained other damage, some are liveaboards so it is their home that has been damaged. We have been very fortunate so far so won’t complain about lack of sleep!
We have had water police and marine rescue call by checking we and Pete in front of us are okay. We are three of the few boats still safe on this part of the river. A special callout to the police, marine rescue, the coastguard and other volunteers who have been working tirelessly to keep people safe and trying to stop dangerous situations before they get out of control.
Being so few boats around, this means that the hundreds of small birds are now arguing over space on our rails. They seem to use the boats as their morning toilet and gossip session.
But we are glad we still have a boat for them to shit on!
We have heard on the radio that there could be over 21,600 homes affected by flooding as well. Many homes are on flood alert. A lot of the apartment buildings around the river have underground parking so many residents moved their vehicles to roadside.
