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What have we been up to?
Not a great deal. We are still in the Brisbane river (easy access to shops). We have been doing bits and pieces to the boat. Touching up the paint, running new sheets on the sails. Nothing too exciting.

We hauled Imagine out of the water at Rivergate boatyard, to get the leaking propshaft seal replaced. While it was out we gave her a couple of coats of antifoul , removed portholes and resealed them, replaced the roller on the bow, painted 10m markings on the anchor chain and painted the hull above the waterline. All that in 6 days, while the seal was being done. We also got a rigger to replace the forestay and inner stay because I found 1 strand of the wire broken.

Back in the water and we discovered some rot in the rub rail while sanding it back to varnish. So we have now cut it out and have to go to the hardware shop to get some timber (this will be essential travel as we need to urgently fix this before it spreads).

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Well it’s stuffed our plans, along with everyone else’s. All the Pacific Islands have closed their borders and we don’t blame them. They would be very vulnerable. Just like you, we are in lock down. Only being able to go shopping or exercise. Yay we just found a shop that currently has plenty of toilet paper.

Australian’s are to stay at home with no non-essential travel, including no boating. If we self isolate and stay at home and our home moves up the coast are we breaking the law? Is it non-essential travel and boating? It’s a $1300 fine each for non-essential travel We have enough food to stay onboard for more than 14days and could make our own water up the coast. We now have to go ashore every few days to fill jerry-cans with water as the river is too dirty to make water. This increases our chances of catching COVID19.

For the moment we are staying put. A shop across the river has advertised for workers so Sue has applied. If she gets it we would then have some income. Like you we will just have to sit tight and see what happens next.

It’s good to hear that in New Zealand the number of cases are reducing due to their total lockdown. Still a ways to go but good to hear some positive news.

Stay safe and be healthy everyone

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Back in Brisbane after taking potential crew to Moreton Island for a few days.
Amelia and Tim, originally from Canada and now living in Brisbane, may look at meeting up with us later in the year. They have had their own boat and did coastal cruising. Esther is from Germany and has taken some time off to travel and would like to do some sailing. She has had no experience crewing but is keen to learn and wants to do a blue water crossing. She is now travelling to NZ – where she may be able to get some more experience and is possibly looking at joining us in Vanuatu.

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The bearing seemed to have collapsed making the steering wheel very loose. To get us back to Brisbane I cut up a nylon chopping board to make a couple of bushes which seemed to hold the steering in place better.

When we got back to Brisbane I started disassembling the helm. With several calls to a friend in Sydney (thanks Gordon) I discovered the only way to fix the problem was to remove the entire helm. With Ben and Greg’s help we disassembled and replaced the bearings.

I remounted the helm on the boat, connected the rudder up and it seems to work.

In removing the helm, had to cut out all of the fibreglass housing which meant now I had to build a new helm station. Instead of using fibreglass I built this one out of timber so the back could be removed if anything ever needed repairing again. All this has taken approx 3 weeks to do.

Everything on the boat takes longer to do in this heat and humidity – a trip to the hardware store for bolts takes all day. This week we hope to take it for a test sail.

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We spent Christmas in Bundaberg with Ben, Amie, Lachlan at Amie’s parents.

We’ve spent a bit of time with Lachlan, taking him to different playgrounds, to the movies, South Bank Beach (a man made sandy beach, series of large swimming pools and water features for kids to play around) and to the interactive reef at QUT where there were other interesting displays and some crafts sessions which included controlling a robot sphere around an obstacle course.

Fixing the steering wasn’t as easy as it could have been.

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We arrived in Bundaberg today after spending a couple of days at Fraser Island. On the way to Fraser Island the helm (steering wheel) started making a funny noise. When we got to Fraser Island, Andrew tried to oil it and discovered a bigger issue. We’ve now cut a “view door” in the helm pedestal so we can now see that the bearing needs replacing.

Being this close to Christmas, it may be an issue as many places have closed already. (There is an emergency tiller if it totally packs up but we don’t plan on going too far until we can get it sorted).

On the way up to Bundaberg we were meet by some dolphins jumping and frolicking across the bow.

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We moved to Moreton Island today, where we can swim and escape the party boats going up the river and cool off as the temperature today hit 41.5 degrees C.

We will head up to Fraser island in the next few days

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Still working on the boat.
Everything take 10 times longer on the boat. If I require a pipe clamp or extra screws or even getting groceries the process goes: lift the dinghy off the deck and into the water, lower the motor onto the dinghy. Lock up Imagine, dinghy 15 minutes to a secure dinghy jetty. then depending on what we want, it’s a 3km walk to the shopping center or a 20 minute ferry ride and 1.5km walk to the hardware shop.

But we do get to watch the sunset while having a wine on the aft deck and have feasted on fresh prawns. We get to meet up with Ben, Amie & Lachlan and see him with Santa. I have even dined on Chickens feet, when Ben took me out for my birthday (thank you for all your good wishes)

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GPS: 27 28.041S 153 01.960E

Run: 4.3nm (7.8km)

We are still anchored in the Brisbane river. Not in the CBD, but closer to the mouth of the river. The cruise liners pass us every couple of days as they go up river to the passenger wharf.

Still busy with maintenance on the boat, we’ve ordered a new mainsail and the mizzen sail is being re-enforced. We bought and loaded new anchor chain onto Imagine (no mean feat) and a few other bits and pieces needed including replacing the blades on the wind generator that some bird thought he’d have a mating dance with! It’s been great to catch up with Ben, Amie & Lachlan a few times and we are looking at spending Christmas with them in Bundaberg if weather permits.

Then maybe sail down to Pittwater just north of Sydney for a few weeks before heading back up to Brisbane to prepare for next season and then around March/April, up the coast through the Whitsundays to Cairns. From there we will head back to Vanuatu to visit the other islands we didn’t get time to see and to take some things to Chief Sofren (Awel Island) and a couple of other villages to help make their lives easier.

We think we will then head north to the Torres islands, Santa Cruz islands, then Solomon islands We like to give you an idea of where we’re going in case anyone wants to come and catch up with us for a week or two as some of you mentioned you’d like to. Let us know if you are interested as we are starting to look at where we are going, approx when we will be there and we are also starting to look for crew for some of the journeys and we’d need to make sure we have room for you! As is the normal for anyone sailing, itinerary is “loose and flexible” as weather plays an important part.

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GPS: 27 26.723S 153 05.906E

Run: 4.3nm (7.8km)

Last night after sending the blog, Brisbane put on a fireworks display (to farewell Cindy).

We all arose early and had our last breakfast with Cindy. Two hours later Cindy was packed and we headed to shore. We walked Cindy to the train station, to make sure she got on.

Returning to Imagine we hauled anchor and headed down river. It was a quiet ride with no-one vacuuming, cleaning up or screaching the words to songs no-one could recognise. Cindy, we miss you already.

By the time we reached the mouth of the river the wind was up to 25 knots and coming straight at us, so it was a slow trip into the bay. Once out we emptied the holding tank and started the watermaker. After an hour we had made enough water and headed back to the river.

1.5 hours up the river we found a place to anchor, but tomorrow we may look for somewhere else We heard on the port radio that P&O Pacific Dawn had a delayed departure due to high wind and that it was now due to leave at 7.00 pm. At about 7.30 she went past us, a tugboat in front and one behind. She went under the Gateway Bridge which we are anchored close to so we had a great view of her coming through, in fact at one point Sue thought they were coming over to grab a cuppa they looked so close. Several passengers were taking photos as were took ours. Picture from Botanical Gardens walk, there were several of these little bearded dragon lizards running around as we walked through the gardens.