After our Christmas and New Year break it was a case of back to normal. We were in the ‘work’ phase of the year, so continued to work at Bombardier, and Helen kept the social side going. And at weekends we would continue to sail and cruise the Morton Bay area. Paul would continue with the guitar jamming at the weekly Nundah meetings and occasionally with other boaties at the marina.

Well, that was until the COVID19 outbreak and restrictions! We had inklings through January with the news reporting the outbreak in China. Then in February there were some infections in Australia, involving people who had returned from abroad. Still nothing really much, even to 12th March when gatherings of 500 people were banned. Then things started to tighten; the Australian borders closed on the 19th, then theme parks closed, then all indoor venues, then pubs and clubs. Midnight 25th March saw Queensland close it borders, and the 26th saw schools become ’student free’ (the politicians\’s way of closing schools without closing schools!). And the end of March saw the two person only rule limiting gatherings to 2 people, with people being told to stay at home unless on essential journeys or exercising. Paul’s work stated that people could work at home. However, the QNGR AVP project needed to keep its deadlines to keep staged payments coming in, and so keep the company afloat. It was more efficient to work in the office, so, if possible, engineers please come in. We had contingency plans to work from the boat by remote access but it was easier and, given mobile internet, better to work from the office so Paul continued to go to work. Indeed, given most people stayed at home, not least to look after their children, the daily commute was much easier with perhaps only 50 to 60% traffic. Even better, the mayor of Brisbane turned off all parking meters making parking much easier as well. Every dark cloud has a silver lining!

The restrictions continued throughout April. These included recreational sailing, although one could go out fishing for food. We regularly saw flotillas of small boats going out during the good weather with rods proudly sprouting from rod holders. Many of these actually had hooks on the end of the lines! Technically we could have sailed, after all the boat was our home and we had fishing rods and crab pots on board. However, it would not have been right given how so many people were staying at home, and so Tai Mo Shan remained secure in her berth. As the month progressed it gradually become clear that the outbreak would not be as bad a first thought; either the measures were working or the virus was not as infectious or deadly as advertised. We had decided that we could only cruise when we would be welcomed by everyone in the locations we visited. This would really be when not only travel was allowed but also overnight stops. Put simply this would be when accommodation such as hotels could again take tourist guests. We started off estimating that this would not be until late September at the earliest, and then as the month progressed our estimate advanced until, by the end of the month, we were feeling confident that we would be able to cruise the end of July.

The 26th April saw some easing of restrictions with people being allowed to go out and drive up to 50km for any reason, have picnics, and do non-essential shopping. We had booked Tai Mo Shan to be lifted out of the water and remain on the hardstand at East Coast Marina for a week. During this time Bayside Boat builders, based at the marina, would antifoul and polish the hull as well as apply ‘propspeed’. Given the economic hit several businesses had taken during the outbreak, and the easing of the restrictions we decided to go ahead with the work. So, early morning we motored gently down the marina to the dock by the travel lift. The lift has sufficient lifting capacity (35 tonne) but is quite small. To fit we had to remove both of Tai Mo Shan’s front stays (the fore stay and the inner stay). This was not difficult, just a little time consuming. Still at about 0930 the marina crew warped Tai Mo Shan into the slings and out she was lifted out of the water. We had expected the hull to be heavily fouled with almost all of the red antifoul worn away to reveal the black antifoul underneath. However, there was only moderate fouling with several patches of barnacles and some weed. The hull was still mostly red, although it was clear that the remaining coat was thin, and there were many patches of black.

Tai Mo Shan went back into the water on the 5th May. Her hull had a couple of coats of bright red antifoul, and the topsides were nicely polished (to sustain the gelcoat). The prop shaft had a new coat of propspeed, and the propeller new black antifoul. We had also serviced the feathering propeller by giving it a good clean and grease, as well as checked the zinc anode (which was in surprisingly good condition) and cleaned the copper earthing plate. With the stays reattached we motored back to the berth.

May saw a reduction in new cases of the virus, and a continuation of the easing of restrictions. Early May and the schools started to reopen with students from limited year groups. 16th May saw cafes and restaurants allowed to reopen for dining with up to 10 customers. 25th May saw all students return to school.

At the start of April Paul had put together a proposal to extend his work at Bombardier until the end of July. Indeed, he had also discussed another package of work that would extend to September. However, come the start of May no purchase orders to authorise the work had been issued. Therefore, Paul effectively stopped work on 11th May, with only a couple of days of follow up work. From a cruising point of view this was fortuitous. The Queensland borders remained closed but we had originally planned on cruising up the Queensland coast. So our original plan could still be on, just delayed a little. This was reinforced by the constant pressure from the business sector to reduce the restrictions on business. Tourism was at the forefront. Sure enough, on 31 May the announcement came that people could travel in Queensland and stay overnight in hotels. We were cleared to cruise!

Paul still had some work to complete, which held us in Brisbane until 10 June. However the intervening time was well spent preparing Tai Mo Shan. There were the usual host of small tasks, such as repairing some internal water damage by removing the delaminated wood and painting the solid surface underneath, servicing the main engine and the outboard motor, replacing the freezer strainer and getting the broken zips on the clears repaired. One annoying fault was due to the regular GPS ‘epochs’ or date change overs. Our stand-by chartplotter was an old Navman Tracker 1250 and it simply could not handle the new update. Navman marine had been bought out by Navstar some decades ago, and Navstar had ceased to exist about a decade ago. Even the Tracker 5000 and 6000 series were obsolete. There was no repair available so one thousand dollars or so later and we had a new Raymarine Element 9S chartplotter and up to date charts fitted. Annoyingly the Navman and associated chart data cards were only fit for the skip. Another victim of age was our microwave. We had not used it for many years, and the LCD display (novel when the microwave came out!) had failed. Sadly, this was a skip job too. Still the space freed up was most welcome.

Finally we could get to passage planning! Usually this is quite simply a case of get to the ocean, point in the right direction and a week or so later, head into the port of entry. However, we were staying by the coast so the plan was a bit more complex. Our early stage only went to Townsville, with the wonderful Whitsunday Islands being a simple ‘spend a week here’! Still we could book into Bundaberg and Gladstone Marinas, who were really keen to see us. Perhaps most importantly we could consider the Wide Bay Bar leading to the south end of the Great Sandy Straits. The bar is notorious and has claimed many boats and lives. Fortunately Tin Can Bay Coastguard was more than happy to provide waypoints for a (relatively) safe bar crossing. In addition, the Maritime Safety Queensland Gladstone office issue Notices to Mariners with the latest bar soundings. We plotted the waypoints onto our charts and wow! The safest route through the bar had moved north by at least a nautical mile! A perfect example of Crossing Bars rule number one; get local knowledge

So, a few social gatherings to go, and we are ready for the off!

Photos: Tai Mo Shan before and after her spruce up.