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It started with a bang and roar during the night and into the early hours of this morning. Thunderstorms with heavy rain.
We have been filling our 6 buckets with rain water coming off the cockpit roof and using that to wash in. This morning it took one and a half minutes to fill two 12ltr buckets.
The rain cleared by lunchtime, allowing tugs and marine rescue to move a barge loaded with a crane down river. This barge/crane had been in danger of collapsing and causing much destruction in the CBD and down river had it not been secured by the marine authorities during the height of the flooding. The rescue/recovery units were obviously taking advantage of the clear weather and lower river levels to remove some of the damaged wharves and jetties. As the tugs towed them down river the debris that had been caught up in them soon followed.
We have just seen the news and the damage this morning’s storm caused. Although we have not come out unscathed, we consider ourselves lucky surviving and still having our home (Imagine) when so many have lost everything.
The forecast is for more storms for the next 7 days, how big and how much is anyone’s guess. The forecasters are struggling to predict as the conditions have been so rapidly changing.
The flooding here and in NSW has been unprecedented and devastating and our thoughts are with everyone that has been impacted.

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Over the last week we have been taking it in turns to get an hour’s sleep a couple of times a day.
We are not tired at all! Last night I made dinner. After putting the two pieces of toast on the bench, I spent at lease a full minute looking at them and the pot of baked beans bubbling on the stove, thinking I’m supposed to do something with the toast. Watching the beans bubble away I finally realised I’m making beans on toast.
I finally managed the beans on toast and went to make a cup of tea. The kettle boiled the tea bags were in the cups so I added a spoon full of coffee to each.
Sue didn’t laugh, just admitted that earlier she found herself adding milk instead of water to her cordial.
I think we should get some sleep!

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Day 5 and the water started receeding yesterday. They are still letting water out of the dam. They are timing it with low tide to minimise the effect.
This morning Andrew made it ashore in the dinghy and a friend from an apartment onshore had gone shopping for bread, milk and baked beans for us. So we are not going to starve.
There is a ban on non rescue/recovery traffic on the Brisbane river currently so Andrew took advantage of this and went up the mast to replace a couple of halyards. Couldn’t spend too long outside today as temperature has been in the early 30’s.
We have not been totally without incident. Yesterday a large piece of submerged debris hit us and caught on our anchor chain. This caused us to move back and forth in the water. We tried motoring forward to take some pressure off the chain, then winched the chain higher to see if we could dislodge whatever it was. The strain on the winch with us moving back and forth was too much for the gearbox. We no longer have an operating winch. We just had to let the object hang around. As the tide went out the current increased, but there was nothing we could do.
Luckily overnight whatever it was had stayed long enough and appears to have detached itself from our chain. The chain still has small debris tangled up around it.
We have just ordered a new winch and anchor. We wont be able to pick it up for about a week. Hopefully when the river gets back to normal we will be able to raise the chain and anchor. If we can’t and have to cut it free at least we will have a good anchor to immediatly reanchor on.
Its not over yet. The weather bureau has forecast 4 more days of rain starting tomorrow hopefully not as bad as the last lot !
Our thoughts are with those in NSW that are now copping it. Some of the towns there have also had some terrible flooding.

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Second day of not much rain (just enough yesterday to make a light rainbow). BUT another 4 days of rain predicted for the end of the week.
We are still safe. The water police have told us we are one of only a handful of relatively undamaged boats in the whole river.
Pete’s boat that was well ahead of us dragged early this morning. He is now just off our starboard bow. He has run a line to a tree and seems to be holding.
Yesterday one of the coastguard boats had problems in the river current as one of its engines water intake got blocked.
Andrew is now repairing the rear hatch which has been leaking onto our bed.
River is still flowing strong but not as much debris coming down today. They are still letting water out of the dams which are full and utilising the flood compartments currently.
The birds are back!

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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.

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There is only one boat in front of us today. Pete has two anchors out and all the chain he has, so we think he is pretty safe. The other boat that was in front and unmanned is now behind us. The owners boarded her and hauled anchor and drifted past us to reanchor behind. We guess they trust our anchor more than theirs.
There has been a continous flow of pontoons sailing past. There must have been 50 over the past few days. Where are they all going? You should be able to walk across the bay to Moreton Island by now. Anyway we are still okay anchored on the inside of a bend in the river. Most of the debris is running down the middle of the river.
They are talking about releasing more water out of the dam, raising the river level another 2m. This will trigger another series of debris to come down. We will just put out some more chain to cope with the higher level and should be fine.
A friend who is anchored futher down river has been hit by one of the pontoons, causing him to drag for several hundred metres before he could reanchor. Shortly after a motor launch hit him and has tangled around his anchor chain. Theo is on his boat on his own and can’t remove the pontoon and launch on his own but they are threatening the safety of his boat. The police and marine rescue are too busy attending life threatening situations to help just now so Theo has to do the best he can.
About 1400 homes will have flooding. It’s an unprecedented event that is surprising everyone.

If we had a more powerful outboard motor we could have picked up a jteskii

Below is why you should not let your water intake get blocked

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Daybreak. Its still raining and the river is still rising. You can no longer see the riverbank or the 10m nor the 2m wide walkway, but you can see the park bench past the walkway.
The rest of the night was relatively uneventful. More log, trees and pontoons. Sue saw one launch float down our port side along with a pontoon following. Maybe it was too dark to see anything else because we have now seen two more boats float down river, a boat on a pontoon and several other pontoons with jetskis and seats on them. Luckily they are going down the middle of the river. We dont have to play dodgems.
We have another problem caused by the swollen river. The debris in the water is clogging up the toilet pump. Also with now 5 days of rain the solar panels can not make enough power to charge the batteries. We have to run the motor to charge the batteries. With the silt and leaves in the water the impeller pumping river water to cool the engine is not going to last long. After 15 minute of running the motor Andrew has to clean out the intake filters.
Something is happening up river as two tugs and a police boat have struggled to head against the current to head to the CBD. We have heard on the radio that some people have just rescued a man that was in the water. People have been out walking this morning and coming down to the river to have a look. Some of the residents are fairly close to the river so may be concerned about the water levels.
We have just heard that there are more people in the water. Coastguard and 2 marine rescue boats have just headed up river.

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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.

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Its been raining heavy for 4 days and nights now and the river has been slowly rising. This morning we awoke to flood warnings. The Brisbane CBD waterfront under water and many roads closed due to flooding. There was a flotilla of ferry boats heading down river looking for a safe place to moor. The ferry services have been cancelled so far today.
Not long after a submerged boat went past followed by several kayaks, trees, logs and fence posts, pontoons and a complete jetty.
After talking with the water police, we have decided to stay anchored where we are. We just have to watch out for large objects and boats dragging anchors and keep an eye on Wivenhoe Dam levels. There is about 6knots (about 12km/hr) current coming past at the moment. There is also high winds (gusting 40 knots) out in the bay with 2-3 metre swells.
We have heard on the radio of jetty pontoons sailing down the river and a range of boats breaking moorings and dragging anchor. The river police and tugs are very busy.
There is major flooding across SE Queensland in general, there is a lot of flood damage and flash flooding and unfortunately a couple of deaths. We are keeping vigilant listening to the radio and keeping a visual watch.
While writing this a boat anchored up river from us dragged anchor headed straight for us. We only had time to start the motor and as Andrew spooled more chain out Sue drove Imagine hard to port (left) as the boat dragging anchor passed only meters off our starboard side. No time to take photos, just lucky it didn’t hook our anchor as it went past.
Debris coming down the river had lodged around his anchor chain and the anchor couldn’t hold it all. We can see debris building up around other unmanned boats upstream of us. We are cleaning debris off our chain every 15 minutes.

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Its been a while since we updated the website.
What have we been up to? Sitting out high winds and rainy days. Changed a few halyards (ropes) and more painting. Sue had been doing some babysitting (getting to have some great times with Lachlan and Robbie). Andrew removed the old sink and bench top in the head (bathroom) and replaced with new along with some general boat maintenance.
The other exiting news is that we have a couple from New Zealand going to join us in May. Toni and Jack join Liz as our crew for this coming season of sailing.
Where are we going? Good question. If borders open by May we head off overseas to where ever. If not we will head back up the east coast of Australia and wait for borders to open. Some borders in the islands have opened but only for air travellers at this stage. (At the moment we have to be out of OZ by October or we have to import the boat which costs an arm and a leg and with the expenses we only have a leg left!).
It’s not only the borders opening, it’s also the stringent conditions required due to Covid. Some of the countries got hit with stranded travellers during this pandemic so it’s more difficult in some cases. Although tourism is a major part of their income, they also can’t afford to let Covid in (in most cases their vaccination levels are not as high as in OZ and NZ) as we saw recently with Tonga. Although they are desperate for aid, on order to receive that aid they also opened themselves up to Covid coming in.
It’s very much a waiting game and having to be flexible not only due to weather but also when it comes to Covid.