2018- February to June

Now I'm back at home I seem to have countless other things to do, so K'Gari has only had a few runs.

One in February to Garrys anchorage and return.
Then a couple of marina visits only in March, one for a night on board when a low pressure system  was looking a tad ominous.
Another when I had noticed another battery appeared to be warmer than the rest-.....'.hmmmm'! Took the battery into Gympie for a load test, I was told it was within the parameters , and probably just need a good charge,' hmmm' I say again. Peter the wonder leccy came up and battery was reinstalled with a change in the circuit ,so that the warmer battery was not first in line and taking all the load. Not much changed, it just held a steady 10 degrees hotter than the other two.

April, great few days with Jo up through the Great Sandy Straits and into the southern end of Hervey Bay. The battery didn't misbehave.

May: Sailed the boat to Coomera to see the wonderful Craig and his team at Signature Yachts , to finally put paid to an issue that had been plaguing me for some considerable time.
We left the marina at 0900 and crossed the Wide Bay Bar- a crossing undoubtedly well known to many yachties in Australia as it the entrance to take one through the protected waters of the Great Sandy Straits (GSS) into Hervey Bay and thence northwards. Or of course, you can just sail up outside Fraser Is rounding Breaksea spit and thence northwards, but that way is passage with nowhere to stop, hence most yachts take the inside route, unless they can't get through the very shallow Sheridan Flats in the GSS.
I have only once before crossed the bar and that was many years ago on the South Passage - I was not the skipper on that occasion.
Easy crossing in benign conditions, and hence we were motor sailing.

Positively balmy

At 1300hrs that rotten egg gas smell  reappeared and this time quick as a flash, the now second troublesome battery was disconnected and we continued on our way. Another job to be added to the list in Coomera was dump all of these batteries and replace them with another brand.
All I can say is that having had two go and knowing that I wouldn't be able to mix n match brands, the new one replaced in Gladstone was now an expensive misjudgement.On the upside, thankfully none of these battery issues had surfaced in Indonesia on the way home.At least the failures had occurred where the fix was relatively easy, albeit bloody expensive.
We tootled to Coomera over 4 days ,stopping for at night in Laguna Bay, about halfway down Bribie Island,Raby Bay and finally off Boatworks. We did get some good sailing in , mixed with motor sailing. This is as far south as K'Gari has been and at the end of May , as you can see by the photo it wasn't warm!

Almost forgot- finally got my HF radio back. The keen reader may recall that I parted company with it way back in October '17 when in Darwin. From that time until the end of April '18, its whereabouts seemed a mystery to the agent who had  taken it. I eventually gave up even trying to contact him as he rarely returned my calls after the first couple of months.The last time I conversed with him he said my HF was in Dili- yes that's correct Dili East Timor. It was at that point that I started dealing directly with ICOM in Melbourne, initially to enquire if this guy was in fact really an ICOM approved agent! Eventually the HF did make its way to Melbourne , where the entire motherboard was replaced. As the thing had never worked properly since I picked up the boat, I was not entirely surprised.I was miffed that the warranty had expired, but I had not wanted to part with it for an extended period of time in SE Asia , in case it got lost/mislaid- which ironically is exactly what ended up happening in good old Oz!! However its back , it is reinstalled  in place and it bloodywell works- hooray!

Anchored off Boatworks 

June : The required work, which I wont bore you with as it was warranty stuff , was carried out incredibly efficiently and apart from all the facilities available at the Boatworks yard, (my only comparison being SE Asia to date), my lasting impression of Craig and his team,(who are just one of the businesses in the yard) is that no question I asked was too stupid, an explanation was always cheerfully forthcoming. The 'how do I do  things',that I need demonstrating were demonstrated, and then with things like applying the prop speed to the props, they were happy to keep a watchful eye on me whilst I tried it myself  after watching the first one being done. I can't recommend them highly enough. I will return!
Whilst there I also had the seacocks replaced on the engines.Why on earth Yanmar supply the ones they do, which after 12months (of use , ie opening and shutting) are so clogged up with verdigris internally they can no longer  be opened or shut fully, is beyond me. I now have far more simple to operate ball valve variety.
A dodgy stay was spotted and replaced.
Three new batteries installed,and the alternator checked, hopefully these will give me closer to the expected 7 years of life than the gazillion dollar ones did!
All in all , definitely well worth the trip.

Emerging from the shed

Great antifoul job.

On the way home, a stop over off Scarborough, so that  Peter could help me with installing a new bilge pump, as the port side one seemed to have a mind of its own of late.It would pump only occasionally when activating  the remotely located switch. Not much use really! I had purchased a new replacement  bilge pump , which of course was a slightly newer shaped model and I needed help to install it, because equally 'of course'  it wasn't exactly the same dimensions - nothing ever is I have found! What seemed like umpteen hours later, and with needles having been stuck in every wire  connected to the bilge and tested for current , the search moved to the fuse. Yes I had checked the fuse - days ago and yes it was in tact. As it turns out the fuse was in tact ,but the fuse holder was no longer making contact with whatever it is  a fuse holder need to contact! Well that would be an easy fix, just replace that part of the panel instead....
The nearest chandlery, which I tactfully wont name, seemed to think, that asking for the "equivalent of an average down payment on a house" , would have us interested in purchasing- instead Peter elected to drive 45 mins to Brisbane and return, to pick up exactly the same fitting for an economical and realistic price.
Guess what - it wasn't an exact fit either- surprise surprise , but a few drill holes later, and the new bilge switch panel was installed. Thanks again Peter.

Overnight stop (both directions) off Noosa in  Laguna Bay

Next day an early start to catch the tide out of the bay , an overnight stop off  Noosa in Laguna Bay again, followed by an early start to ride the morning offshore breeze north. About 5nm south of Double Island Point , we saw our first pod of whales, which were also making their way north for calving . the presence of these magnificent creatures making their way north was why i was only doing day hops up the coast as I didn't want to have to worry about them at night.

Back in the marina  K'Gari was put through her shut down for a couple of months routine , as my next voyage of excitement was going to a spot of sailing around the Turkish coast, with Steve and Jo, on Steve's catamaran..

The perils of international shopping when you don't speak the language.

As this blog is detailing both the victories and the less than stunning moments and other screw ups, I must reveal that it came to light  between Cairns and Gladstone ,when Jo asked for some moisturiser, that my "moisturiser", bought in Vietnam , is in fact not!

Needed some moisturiser before we departed Vietnam. Not being fluent in Vietnamese it was obviously a simple  matter of perusing the supermarket shelf until we found the toiletries and then by deduction, ( a picture tells a thousand words -they say) figuring the obvious shampoo from other bottles and “systematically” eliminating the obvious non starters.

Mission accomplished by finding an internationally branded anti dandruff shampoo and working our way down the row until we came to other things that looked like skin care products.

My selection, made by looking at the picture of the lovely looking coconut, seemed ok.

Back on the boat, I gave it a test run and was not so certain, seemed a tad greasy to me for moisturiser, but hey, foreign country, who knows!

Still I thought I would check with the Vietnamese boys where assisting us with things. Using what  I thought was unambiguous international sign language, I asked if the bottle was for hair,  motioning with hands an action akin to hair washing , or for hands, signing with the obvious rubbing of hands together.
They took the bottle and read the label and indicated the latter- it was for hands, not hair. Excellent, my powers of deduction had been correct....or not!

Slow forward two and half years and Jo asked me if I had any moisturiser. Of course I did , but I did warn her it seemed a bit greasier than what she would normally  be used to.

Instantly suspicious , like most of my friends,who have apparent misgivings  about my eyesight and familiarity with the concept of  best  by dates, she closely perused the proffered 'moisturiser'.

As we were cruising in the Whitsundays at that moment, we had some internet connection. I thought she was looking up a translation site, but no, she merely googled the brand name.

Turns out that the product I had bought, was in fact shower gel- with an outside chance that it may contain some vague hint of hydration substance..... no wonder it felt greasy. I had barely used it in the two and half years, as it really didn't seem that effective.

I leave it to your  imagination,  the sight of two women the other side of 'half way', one definitely menopausal and the other having given birth to a child, creased double with mirth at the ineptitude of the deductions, that a 20 second google search had revealed. Barely able to speak for laughter, it just had all the makings of a blog post.

So thinking back , and as Jo indicated, perhaps the plan went astray  with the way I rubbed my hands together. Merely rubbing my hands obviously indicated washing , when I should have used the slower and obviously more  luxuriant hand rubbing motion, indicating the difference between shower gel and moisturiser . I however,  having actually been in Vietnam , don't think it would have made much difference.

Can't remember the last time my ineptitude cause so much mirth for both of us. Sure it won't be the last time either
 You have to laugh, it releases all those good endorphins.

FADs, (BADs and CADs)

Before leaving the SE Asia section of the blog, two more posts.

The first being a photographic exposé of  FADs : Fish Attracting(or Aggregation) Devices, which I have further  christened  as,  BADs (Boat Attracting Devices)  and CADs (Catamaran Attracting Devices).

These little,  (or not so little actually) darlings float free range (generally) on the ocean currents, their location obviously known to the local fishermen but a complete mystery to a transiting yachtie.
Mysteriously and annoyingly, they seem to regularly appear around dusk, then of course you have no idea all night, where they are, as of course they are totally unlit.
Using our best David Attenborough skills, we did manage to sneak up on a few during daylight hours , displayed here.
Not shown is the "St George cross" of bamboo which I failed to photograph in the middle of the night after we found it across the bows.

basic polystrene blocks,netted, lashed and clad with tyres

Beautifully wrapped in green -guaranteed to stand out on the ocean-not!

Bamboo raft with palm leaf sail

Scale:local fisherman vs FAD

Visible in daylight, if one is keeping an excellent lookout, as we did -invisible at night 

Spears 6-10m of bamboo pole weighted with concrete below the water

solid little number that would tend to stop you dead.

For the record, I never noticed any of these when I was at work, ploughing along at 10+ knots on 30000 tonnes of steel!

Departure Gladstone -Take two

I returned to Gladstone on the fourth January and the new battery was fitted. All was in order.The new battery was duly marked with the installation date. None of the originals had been dated in any way, so the new one was differentiated, as they weigh 60kgs each and it would have been a shame to confuse them in the future, as fitting them into place is not easy.

The 5th January , marked my official retirement from the paid workforce after 40 years in the Australian Maritime industry. A career that gave me much and I hope I have been able to, in various different ways give back a little to it. It was a career and definitely not a job, however  I knew about 18 months earlier ,when anchored on K'Gari one morning off  Port Klang in Malaysia , watching the ships arriving and departing, that I wasn't actually suffering withdrawal symptoms from work and it was time to go.

My trusty crew for the final leg ,my personal  long range electrician and friend  Peter, arrived on the 6th and we departed for Tin Can Bay on the morning of the 7th.

Flying along off Bundaberg

An easy and pleasant sail had us in the marina at Tin Can Bay at 1746/9th January.
Having logged 10618nm, via Borneo,Singapore,Peninsula Malaysia,Thailand and Indonesia, (also don't forget the 4 fish, from my sustainable fishing regime) after taking delivery of  her in Vietnam, K'Gari was in her new home berth, having sailed the final leg down the  Great Sandy Straits, past her namesake landmark.

The first sunrise over the island K'Gari to be  taken from the deck of K'Gari
and yes, I think it is Paradise.

Yes, its been a steep learning curve  at times, which I strongly suspect will be an ongoing theme. Yes I've made some mistakes.Yes there have been some issues. Yes, there was some vile weather, but only a tiny bit , probably no more than two weeks in total, yes, K'Gari has withstood it easily, and yes ,yes,yes  it's been such an adventure ,with some great friends and with the bonus of  making  some more friends along the way.

We are "at home"

Regrets- absolutely none,its been so much fun, and now there is all of Australia to play in and around.

Trust your nose, it may reveal .......a bubbling battery.......

We departed at 0730 on a flood tide, not the best idea but  as time and tide wait for no man, the alternative was to  sit around for 6 hours.

We motored down the harbour for the first 6 miles, taking in all the familiar sights  and smells  of  Gladstone Harbour. At Boyne Smelter wharf  enough wind had arrived to set sail and make our way down the South Channel. The nagging feeling in my head was that the usual  smells around there, which are usually bauxite, or perhaps a waft of caustic, were apparently intermittently continuing. Odd! We were now upwind of all the industry , and with the light breeze on the nose, we had all the forward windows open , well and truely blowing through the cabin- thankfully.

The smell was only intermittent , and I just couldn't place it.
We had a pleasant if not speedy voyage down the harbour and cleared the channel ,called my departure into Gladstone VTS and got yet another strange waft of that something vaguely familiar smell. Just as I was asking Jo if it was my imagination, or had she been getting the odd waft of - and verbalising the words, rotten egg gas, suddenly had me diving for the battery locker, which is in the saloon.

Oh dear, yet another missed photo opportunity- a fizzing battery- and boy was it was fizzing!

When in doubt and its electrical, my motto is, call Peter, he will guide me through it, and he did. Another long distance telephone consultation, although Gladstone is much closer  to Brisbane than Borneo or mainland Malaysia, where other electrical issues have been solved via the medium of skype and talking me through things.

This lesson  was how to disconnect the offending failure from the battery bank and then reconnect the remaining two batteries to the system.

We turned and headed back to Gladstone- just for the record, the tide had just turned as well, so we were pushing back into again , but at least with the breeze astern.

Whilst I disconnected the battery , Jo hand steered us back towards Gladstone. Everything was off and isolated, the chart plotter, depth sounder, auto pilot . We  did have the hand held VHF  switched on. I loathe electricity when it doesn't work and I have to "do" something- I can't see it and it scares me, so everything was isolated so I could not possibly give myself even a 12 volt zap.

Having disconnected the fizzing battery and allowing the maximum time for any evil gases to dissipate, I eventually restarted the engines and we berthed again at 1600, in prime position- nobody else had had time to get the berth!

With 5 days until Christmas, I decided that it was unlikely that a replacement battery would be sourced in time to get us to Tin Can Bay, (TCB) so booked in to the marina until the New Year. Organised  lift for Jo back to TCB, where we had left a car, and I stayed in Gladstone to try to source the battery.

Gladstone Batteries were great, they sourced an exact replacement and put me in touch with the Australian Technical manager for the brand , because of course, these weren't just any old battery- theses were apparently, judging  from the price, made of "solid gold" . It shouldn't have failed it wasn't even 30 months old and they had been meticulously looked after , never allowing them to get below 12.4v. I did ask the question - "do I need to replace them all, now that one has failed". I was assured it was so odd that wouldn't be necessary (thankfully, looking at the price...) but dear reader, do keep that sentence in mind as the blog continues.

 Ethan from Gladstone Batteries organised to get it shipped up from Sydney, for the first working day after the Christmas /New Year break .

I left K'Gari there and went home too, my plan to be in TCB for Christmas foiled.

Removing the mainsail- another learning experience

A small hiatus of about 12 months seems to have occurred, life thankfully has continued apace, it's just the blog that stopped, so  I shall take to  the keyboard and continue.


 Having berthed a the Gladstone  Marina- in prime position, Jo returned home, as we had, courtesy of the weather forecast, at least  a five day interlude coming.

Prime position- Gladstone Marina.

In the end it was an 8 day break, during which time , thankfully assisted by one of my colleagues from work , who actually knew how to, the mainsail was removed.

The keen reader may remember It needed to be removed to be repaired in Brisbane (warranty reasons) and I didn't have a clue how this actually occurred. I do now! Thanks Jordi!

So with the mainsail off, I transported it down to Brisbane, where it was as promised repaired  , in fact faster than promised, as both the warranty job and  a  repair to 3rd reef point, which had just developed as a potential issue, were done and the sail was ready for pick up 24 hours after I dropped it off. Thank you to Northsail Brisbane, especially at the time of year, two weeks before the festive season!

Eight days after she left , Jo and I returned to Gladstone, and went through the exercise of bending the mainsail back on. Just for fun (hmmm) we did it at dawn, which was the most windless part of the day.Good for bending on the mainsail, but not so good for any exposed skin, as the sandflies were vicious.

Job done, marina fees paid, and we were off at 0730, ironically as it eventuated I had said to the marina staff that I would return....