We chose to stay at the Marlin Marina in Cairns, as it was central to everything and, once again, we needed to get a heap of work done. Cairns is our last stop in a large town until we get to Darwin so we needed to do our final chores to become self-sufficient .i.e. get the water-maker installed.



We stayed for 9 nights and our first job was to find someone to patch the dinghy and fix the outboard motor. We found very helpful people at NQEA. Bill and Rob were fantastic. After it was decided that Bill would come and pick up the dinghy from the marina in the morning (so we didn’t have to hire a car) he gave us a lift home (Thorfinn). We then found Matt the marine mechanic who picked up our outboards (the spare also wasn’t working) fixed them and dropped them back to the boat for us.

The majority of our stay was spent working on Thorfinn. While Dwayne installed the water-maker, fixed the diesel leak in the generator, fixed the engine mounts of our main engine and did general maintenance and clean up of other things. I did a spring clean and pull everything out of shelves and dusted, cleaned, rearranged and repacked.



However, it wasn’t all work. We went for walks along the esplanade which is a vibrant happening place. Early morning and in the evening you can participate in group exercise with “Free Fitness on the Esplanade” or checkout the “Esplanart”.



There were bands playing, buskers and markets. People barbequing, playing, sleeping or swimming at the lagoon.





On one of our walks we say the bats in the trees near the library and got some cute photos.





We also got the chance to catch up with old friends Ian and Noe. It was a great pleasure seeing them again, their daughter Mia and new addition Ella. Generous, as always, they lent us Ian’s car for a day to fill up our jerry cans, buy a new battery and pick up our dinghy. We also took that opportunity to visit the Cairns Cruising Yacht Club for a quick drink.





The last night in Cairns we got to catch up with Sarah again, as she and her daughter Tara were flying out to Japan the next day from Cairns. We also met up with Nat, an old friend from Uni that was up from Adelaide on holiday. We met them all at the ‘Salt House’ and had a drink, then Nat came back to the boat and stayed too long drinking red wine! lol



The morning we departed we did an early run to Rusty’s market to stock up on fruit and vegetables. We took a time picking out produce that looked the freshest and would last the longest, as we will have little chance of purchasing fresh fruit and veg for the next four weeks.





A final shipshape of the boat and we were on our way north once again with thoughts of islands, cays and reefs to snorkel.