7 to 17 December 2014

Brisbane

Job search

The job search continues. We have bought a couple of new agencies on side. One, on focusing on Defence, looks promising, but there are the usual security questions; or perhaps unusual, as one has to be an Australian Citizen! Paul has held UK and NZ security clearances and has even visited Richmond RAAF Base; we are negotiating! Unfortunately Christmas means that nothing is likely until the middle of Jan 15.

Shops

Helen has ‘found’ shops. We have local shops at Manly, a supermarket (Coles) at Wynnum, and Wynnum Plaza for a small shopping Mall. The centre of Brisbane also has Queen Street with 3 or 4 malls and several street shops. Not enough for Helen; that is until we ‘found’ Westfield Carindale. It is a large, well very large, air-conditioned mall with two floors and dozens and dozens of shops. OK, no Post Office, but lots and lots of fashion and department stores. The only consolation for Paul was the areas of comfortable chairs spread around where the men-folk can curl up with their iPads. (the free WiFi is pretty lousy, but we always have books loaded onto the iPad!)

Aussie Wildlife

Helen had not seen a Koala Bear (OK, they are not really bears, but what does everyone call them?!). So we went off to the Lone Pine Koala Sanctuary just to the West of Brisbane. This was a well set out Zoo Park with plenty of animals. Of course, they have Koalas of all ages. These creatures live in Eucalyptus trees and have a low sugar (energy) diet of leaves. The result is that they spend most of their time sleeping. That is great for people, like us, wanting to look at them as we could get close and the exhibits are pretty static almost all the time! Still it is amazing to see how the animal can lodge itself in the branches. There were plenty of other animals. Kangaroos and Wallabies are on an open section, and visitors can feed them. The result is tame animals where, again, visitors can get close. There were also Tasmanian Devils (not pretty animals!), Wombats (furry pigs!), Dingos (big dogs) turtles and Platypuses (defy description other than sort of beavers) to name a few. The latter were in darkened water tanks with glass sides giving a good view of them swimming under water. In addition the zoo had a good collection of Australian birds, as well as the ever present free Mynahs! We found it well worth the A$32 entry price.

Social

We had a BBQ at Matt and Debs house at Mango Hill, just North of Brisbane. They have a new house in a new sub division. It is cool, spacious and well laid out, ideal for their 3 boys to run around in. We had bought overnight bags just in case the wine flowed freely. It did, and led to a very pleasant evening.
And we had another afternoon BBQ at Helen’s cousin’s house Wendy & Lee at Bracken Ridge (just North of Brisbane). This was a good chance to chat, meet people and eat. The idea was to bring your own meat, a salad or similar and either starter or desert. The result was plenty of food; indeed we ate pretty much constantly for the afternoon! This time Paul was on soft drinks so we could drive home. Still, another pleasant afternoon.
And we can recommend The Deck in Manly. The do mid-week cheap meals Tuesday was Chicken in Pyjamas, perhaps not it’s real name but easier to pronounce, and not bad at A$12. We can see why several of the live-aboards at the marina frequent the place.

Boat Bits

Well, work on the boat continues. Helen has cleaned most of the mould out of the cupboards. One of the disadvantages of the Pacific Islands is that they are hot and humid. Cupboards with limited air flow do tend to suffer from mould, which then has to be cleaned out; not the best of jobs, but it has to be done.
Paul has fiddled with the freezer and improved an electrical connection. The multitude of jellyfish means some do get sucked into the cooling system, blocking the water flow. Still we sorted a system of using the foot pump and a length of tubing to first blow out any debris in the inlet, and then prime the pump by sucking the water through. We have got it to a fine art taking less than 10 minutes. Having said that nature could well solve the problem for us as the numbers of the Blue Jelly fish seem to be decreasing; perhaps the poisonous, spiny, biting normal fish are taking out the stinging jellyfish!
An advantage of being in the marina is the availability of a dock to lay out our anchor chain. Paul did so. 80m of heavy chain laid out, checked, and our marks at every 5m renewed. All ready to go out and anchor in Moreton Bay!
And the Watermaker … well we used the Alkaline cleaner, but that had only a limited effect. So Paul stripped it down, cleaned, and reassembled it. After some coaxing it worked, producing 4 litres an hour pure fresh water from distinctly cloudy (and not pure!) marina water. So, it is now re-inhibited and ready for the next hot dry spell in the islands.
And we have fixed a few minor leaks on the cabin top. One of the secrets of boating is the use of copious quantities of marine sealant. The stuff is white (so blends in with the deck), sticks like the proverbial to a blanket which allows for good adhesion (unfortunately it also sticks to fingers and everything they touch!), is flexible enough to be pushed into cracks and remains flexible when it dries. How did the old sailors cope?!

Sailing

We have got out for a day’s sail around Moreton Bay. The winds were pretty light, so it really was a gentle float around. Still at least we got the flavour of the bay. And that is, well, a few low islands, in a large, pretty shallow lagoon. Indeed, much of the time we had less than 5 m under the keel. Still at least the bottom is mostly mud, and is flat; there are no reefs waiting to leap up and catch you here. Even better, the bay is well charted with many navigational marks and almost all the shoals and hazards well marked. The islands near Manly do constrict the sailing a bit, but the gaps between the islands are wide and well marked. St Helena Island is only a few miles away and offers a good anchorage to its South West. The Island is a historical site as it was a penal colony, and so offers an easy day picnic outing. We sailed on to Peel Island towards the Southern end of the Bay. This also has what looks like a very nice anchorage to the South side. The Island itself is low and covered in scrubby bush. We suspect it is full of wildlife, so worth a visit, even if long trousers and boots are necessary to avoid the biting/stinging/poisonous inhabitants! It is noticeable that the bay gets more cluttered with shoals south of here. Further South is the Gold Coast and there are tight but are navigable routes down there between the shoals and islands. It is very much river sailing, so we are undecided it we will explore further South. Anyway we finished the day sail with a push around the marked Hope Banks and then, as the sea breeze increased to 20 knots, a downwind run between St Helen and Green Island back to the Marina.

And we thought we had not really done much!

Photo: A cuddly Helen next to Koalas.