Saturday 26 March.
We couldn’t quite complete the work to go back in on Friday. The last few days have been more of the same, Andrew working on the transducers for the sonar, grinding out a few patches on the keel and we’ve now finished antifouling. The anodes have been attached, the propspeed put on and steering fixed. Late Friday afternoon the Rivergate team put us in the slings on the crane ready for an early morning launch on Monday. Sue was a bit concerned when a thunderstorm came with high winds and heavy rainfall and we stayed swaying slightly in the slings.
So as we haven’t got much new to tell you we thought we’d share a few facts about the recent Brisbane river floods that have been reported on (some of them surprised us):
Local records for rainfall, flood levels and flood rescues were broken.
The “rain bomb” that broke over Brisbane on Friday, 25 Feb deposited 80% of the region’s ANNUAL rainfall within 3 days.
The downpour was greater than the 2010-2011 floods: about 50% more water poured into Brisbane River’s Wivenhoe Dam in half the time. The Brisbane river below Wivenhoe received 1,450 billion litres of water (equivalent to 3 x Sydney harbours).
The Brisbane “rain bomb” dropped more water on the city than typically falls in London over an entire year.
Two weeks after the river flooded, up to about 1100 tonnes of material was cleared from the river surface but they were also finding a lot on the bottom. 160 unknown objects from Hamilton Reach down t the port (about 18km). Sixty navigational aids, buoys and beacons were damaged and are currently being repaired and replaced.
Today we’ve been advised Brisbane river has been reopened to recreational boating during daylight hours only, everyone on board must wear a lifejacket as they continue to monitor unusual currents and debris. Crews last week had managed to clear 2000 tonnes of debris from the river. At one stage more than 150 objects needed to be dragged from the bottom of the river that were impeding shipping channels.

Another layer of fibreglass on the transducer mount and more painting.

Nothing new, just more of the same, painting and sanding.

Another early start. Andrew finished painting above waterline while Sue prime coated the keel. We did some more fibreglassing on the sonar mounts.
Doesn’t sound much but our legs and arms are killing us. Having to climb the stairs every time we need something or stop for a drink.

Another 6am start. There was only two other boats being worked on today. With only a few people around Health and Safety and Boatyard rules dont apply. There was hull sanding without a vacuum attachment (dust going everywhere). Spraying on Antifoul out in the yard amongst other boats (not in the shed where overspray is contained). And some silly bugger climbing on the scaffolding rails so he can paint higher on the boat.
Sue finished off removing all the barnacles, while Andrew painted the above waterline white. Well, the first coat, second coat tomorrow.

We’ve hardly got the energy to write this.
We started at 6am. First job remove the steering pedestal, ready for the engineers to weld on Monday. Then Sue back scraping barnacles, Andrew sanding waterline and all the chips and scratches. Seventeen metres down each side. By lunch time Andrew had got 3/4 of the way down one side. After lunch the sander packed up. The hardware shop is only a 2 hour walk each way. Luckily as Andrew was about to set off, someone working on their neighbouring boat offered Andrew a lift.
An hour later back to the sanding. The waterline is sanded and one side of the boat is barnicle free, so we took an early mark today and finished at 4.30pm.

Friday 18th March Yesterday we thought we had better see if we could haul anchor or would we have to cut it. After holding us throughout the flood, we knew the anchor would have buried itself deep in the mud.
So we followed normal procedure, slowly drive forward while winching in the chain (with our new winch). That didn’t last long. We only pulled up 10m before it came to a grinding halt. Thirty metres to go. Okay, put the chain brake on and increase the revs. Okay, full revs.
I think that did something! Then the bow dipped and we stopped again. Slow the engine take it out of gear and let the river current drag us back while winching up the chain. Mmmm, twenty five metres to go. Lets try full throttle to port. Full throttle to starboard. That gained us another two metres.
We repeated this for 2 hours. We were just about to quit, Imagine lurched forward and we were free.
Ten minutes later we were back on anchor knowing we could haul anchor this morning.
This morning we hauled anchor with no problems and slowly cruised down river dodging all the debris. We saw a few of the boats have returned to the river.
Once at Rivergate we had the usual problem of backing Imagine into crane slings. Imagine does not like backing up.
It took most of the day for the yard crew to get Imagine into position on the yard and secure the cradle. She didnt look as bad as we thought, lots of scratches and a few chips back to the fibreglass, but not too bad. As soon as it was safe Andrew started on the mount for the new transducer and Sue started scraping the barnacles off.
By 5pm we were stuffed.

There is still debris coming downriver. This morning there is lots of trees, large logs, weeds, a mattress and another pontoon liner. Sue has been out on deck with a pole fending off the larger items to keep them away particularly from the anchor.
Yesterday Ben went to the Gold Coast (2 hours each way) and picked up the winch and anchor Andrew had ordered (a huge thank you to Ben). Today Andrew has taken the old winch off, bogged up all the original holes and general preparation so that tomorrow he can hopefully fit the new winch.
Things must be starting to return to normal, one of the party boats has been out today.

A few days ago Andrew slept up top keeping an eye on Imagine’s position as the tides were starting to turn, the wind had picked up and with 50m of chain still out and the direction of the wind, there was a possibility we could have gone into the riverbank.
During the night a couple of times he manually winched up a few metres (no mean task as it only pulls through a couple of links per pull! ) to keep us from going too close to the bank. There is so much silt and the contours/depths of the river have changed.
Pete (on Jambalaya) was not so lucky. Andrew looked out the window early hours of the morning and found Pete had gone in a bit close to the bank. It was nearing low tide and his boat had grounded and was on a lean. Nothing you can do except wait for the tide to come back in and then try moving out further and reset the anchor. We phoned the MSQ guy that had given us his number and asked if he could arrange for a “no wash” zone so that the boat wasn’t being banged up against the rocks. He did and most of the boats going past were fairly good. Sue went out and shouted at the Go Boats drivers that were going flat chat past not caring about the wake they were creating.
A couple of hours later the tide had come in far enough to refloat Jambalaya so Andrew took the dinghy and helped Pete pull the boat forward and reanchor. It could so easily have been us.
They have been doing a hydrographic survey of the river post flooding. Sometimes they came fairly close!