Our Maori Crew
28 September 2011 | Exmouth
Heidi
Our Maori crew: Sunday I madly tried to tidy Bella and rearrange storage to move some weight forward and help get her nose down in the windward work. At midday we gladly greeted Bryan (also known as Uncle FOS) who had flown in to join us and who we are extremely grateful that he has chosen to help us for the windward leg home rather than any of the previous easier legs. Bryan also happened to know Stuart the Harbour Master who kindly loaned us his Landcruiser and put us in touch with the engineer who was able to fix our bent anchor and later reinforced Illusions davits. Monday and Tuesday we used the vehicle to undertake the usual duties of being at Port including laundry, restocking in town and later enjoyed a quick snorkel at the famous Turquoise Bay for some drift snorkelling over the Ningaloo Reef. Nothing too dramatic except Monday afternoon we had a rushed call from the harbour master announcing that the 52ft Dufour and 49ft Martyn that we had previously met up with in Broome and Dampier were on their way in and we had to move! Poor Dianne was right in the middle of patching the genoa on the deck with the industrial machine out when we had to quickly tie the sail down and use Scarlett's rib with 25hp to as we pushed and pulled Illusion into her new pen. Phew! Within 40min we had completed four boat manuvors all in 25+ knots of onshore breeze and had everyone rafted up on the collector jetty and Illusion stern into her pen ready for the repair works to be made on her davits. Much indulgence of food and wine consumed our time while at Exmouth and while making ready to head to sea again. On the last night the kids celebrated the end of Kieran's school term with a small party onboard Scarlett and followed by a movie night. Both Kieran and Drina have really enjoyed being able to play with the boys from Scarlett and spent most of their time together at Exmouth flying their new kites, fishing, lego or playing and games.