Every Friday through Sunday Cairns has an indoor’s farmers market where all kinds of fresh fruit and vegetables are sold. This is Mary Margaret’s dream time since she loves to go from stall to stall checking out all of the goodies. This is really the only type of shopping she enjoys. I am soooo lucky!

While there she bought the fresh fruit and vegetables that we will need to last us through to Darwin. We plan of leaving Cairns tomorrow morning and sailing up to Port Douglas. It will only be about a 35 nm jaunt so it should be an easy sail with winds predicted to be in the 15 to 25 knot range. Once at Port Douglas, we have a rigger coming to our boat on Monday morning to tune our shrouds. One cap shroud was a bit loose during one of our recent legs up to Cairns. I have since tightened it but I wish to make sure it is tuned properly.

As we schlepped all of the fruits and vegetables back to the boat from our foray at the farmers market, we stopped at the marina office to pay our bill. At that time I was given a shock. When I emailed them to make our reservation as a 44 foot long catamaran, they returned an email to me confirming a slip for us and quoted a rate for the week of $49.19 per day. Since we ended up staying 8 days, I was expecting a bill for just under $400. However, they presented me with a bill for almost $600! I said the bill was in error and told them about the written price quote they had given me. The gal at the office basically said: “Opps, we made a mistake and quoted you the monohull rate. Since you are a catamaran, the fee is $73.79 a night for a total of $590.32. And, since you are a catamaran, you MUST pay the catamaran rate!”

I was epileptic! I told her that my email specified that I was a catamaran and that their email that quoted me the lower rate had my email attached to it. I viewed all of that as a contract and if I had known about the higher rate, I would have anchored in the harbor for free. I said they were basically pulling a “bait and switch” on me and that was not ethical. She just grinned and said there was nothing she could do. Since it was a Saturday, the marina manager was not in so I ended up paying the darn bill and stormed out.

However, I have since written the manager an email stating that I am disputing this bill and will be putting a hold on the credit card payment until this can be properly settled. I have been told that the manager is reasonable and a couple of locals have agreed with me that I should not have to pay the higher rate. We shall just have to wait and see…

Techno-Tip Of The Week: Up Date On Saildrive Drive Cone Repair

Last year, when we were in Fiji, we met up with S/V Isabella, another Lagoon 440. Its skipper was Mark Scapens. At that time, he shared with we verbal instructions on how to repair a worn Drive Cone in the Yanmar saildrive without having to move the engine forward. It is a repair that you can do yourself and save the $1500 to $1700 a repairman typically charges for the all day job.

With Mark’s method, the job only take 3 or so hours. Anyway, I wrote up his instructions and added a number of graphics that showed the step by step method.

Last week, I got this great email from Greg and Janie of S/V Skedaddle of Townsville, AU. They have a Lightwave 45 that also uses the Yanmar saildrive. They had followed the written instructions I posted as techno-tips and then improved on them. They were kind enough to write up their improvements and have posted the revised instruction on an “Outbox.com” web site. You can download for free their improved version of the instructions by going to http://sailblogs.com/member/skedaddle/?xjMsgID=227174 and then clicking on “click here for instructions”.

Thank you Greg and Janie!!!!