My OperaPirates still active.
Thursday, February 24, 2011 12:40:39 AM
While we relax in Sydney we spare a thought for Quest and her crew that were killed by pirates in the vicinity of Oman. We met Quest in Vanuatu in 2009 when we attended a very enjoyable cruisers pot luck dinner. The cruising community is small and although we do not get to know everyone personally there is a bond that links us all together.
Political upheavals, floods, cyclones and earthquakes rock the world at the start of 2011. All this turmoil reinforces our conviction that we are doing the right thing with our lives while we can – rather than chasing the dollar we are exploring and experiencing places and meeting interesting people from all over the world.
The Queen calls at Sydney
We are having a lazy day. The boat is a mess, we are out of biscuits but we are not expecting any visitors and who arrives? The Queen, I kid you not. Why is it that you wait and wait and wait then along comes another? Why do they all have to arrive at once? It is like the London busses. Unbelievable but true. Queen Elizabeth sailed majestically into the best natural harbour in the world, dwarfing everything around her. Then along comes Queen Mary 2 as well. The family stick together it seems. From their top decks they look down on the Sydney heads and I am not referring to their subjects. What would Captain Cook have made of these gigantic ships from his helm station and what would his crew have made of the luxurious accommodation and sumptuous meals.
They Queens left a day or two later with a great fanfare, the tugboat escorts spraying huge bows of solid water leading the great ladies out to sea. Hundreds of yachts were out racing but there was room for all. This place is wonderful and we are so privileged to be here to experience all this.
Low High, High Enough?
Well our lives are still occupied with boat stuff, fixing and maintaining. We needed to replace the sacrificial anodes. This bit of metal zinc protects all important metal bits that are below the water line i.e. Propellers, sail drives, rudder posts. As part of this process the props have to be removed. It can be done with the boat in the water but it is more than awkward. The risk of losing parts such as the small locking bolts would be inconvenient to say the least. I am also not sure than I could hold my breath long enough to do this job underwater. It would be better with breathing apparatus but even then it is not ideal. You could not for instance paint the sail drive legs after cleaning them.
The hulls should not need any work as the paint used last year (Altex no 10) is meant to be good for 3 years. It is really more suitable for faster power boats but it seems to be doing ok on ours. They should however be inspected.
As hauling out here in Australia is really expensive and the work to be done minimal, we decided to careen the boat for the first time since we have owned it. We could then also clean up the sail drive legs and props and paint them and if there was time give the hulls a wipe.
Intentionally putting our boat on the hard for the first time with no support from other people, cranes, travel lifts or hydraulic trailers is a tense experience - for us anyway., To minimise the pressure on the stub keels as all the weight would be on them with the boat was out of the water, we made sure that the boat was as light as possible Our fuel and water tanks were nearly empty, just enough for emergency supplies. We chose Port Hacking – yet another natural harbour - to undertake this exercise. It is about 20 miles sailing south of Sydney, down the coast. It is beautiful out there - lovely bays, secure anchoring and the people we met were friendly and interested in our adventure. It is just past Botany Bay (Captain Cook’s old stamping grounds)
We would drive the boat, manoeuvring the stub keels carefully onto the sand at 2 hours after high tide. The low tide would then give us plenty of time to do the things we need to do. There being 12 hours between high tides and allowing 4 hours where no work would be possible as the water would be too deep. The new high tide would just float us off near its peak. We would have 8 hours to work and for 4 of them we should be high and dry! That’s the theory.
We carefully checked the tides and times. The first thing we discovered was that the tidal variance between high and low was not big enough to get completely dry. We would still be working in ankle deep water at the lowest point of the low tide. The tide variations further up the coast is much greater than here. The second thing was that the time of the month was not ideal as the biggest tide variance would be at the midnight low tide. We were not going to work at night in torch light. We would want to float off at the peak but the peaks at sundown were lower than those at the start of the normal working day. So we could have done better by choosing a different time of the month and location but as we were here in Port Hacking now this would do. We decided to spend an extra day aground if we did not finish the work in one session.
We dropped the anchor while we were still in 3 meters of water, reversing over towards our selected spot. The tide had already been running out for more than an hour and we were now in the shallows with the water only an inch or so under the stub keels. I jumped off the boat and walked in waist deep water to put out a stern anchor to hold the boat steady in position. As the water got shallower and shallower the boat kept bumping gently on the bottom, washing the sand away from under the front of the stub keel. As the boat became hard aground it settled nose down at an alarming angle as if was getting ready to surf down a wave. It had an unanticipated advantage however in that the props got out of the water sooner and higher than it otherwise would have done if the boat was level.
We eagerly started on the hulls but it was too soon as the water was still too deep and resulted too much effort wasted in fighting the current.
We did not finish all the work when we floated on the high tide but it gave us time to paint the props and get them dry before putting them back the next day. We stayed on the same spot, nose down at the midnight low tide and me also nose down but asleep
Next morning we jammed a plank under the front of each stub keel and managed to get the boat level on the next low tide. We completed the work and expected to easily float off on the next high tide despite having to get the boat over a small rise of sand.
We were right at the top of the evening high tide and the boat’s stub keels were still stuck in the sand. We had go 3 meters forward for deeper water but the boat would not budge even under engines – it needed another inch in depth. Every little bit of swell the boat would bump and thump on the sand and the whole boat would shudder. We were determined to give it our best shot to get the boat off with this tide. The wind was due to turn and increase and we did not want to be on the hard under those conditions during the night. Putting tension on the anchor chain, with engines going and Lorna sweeping a furrow in the sand ahead of the stub keels with a broom we gained a few inches at a time. It was with some relief that we finally got the boat into deeper water just after the tide turned.
Political upheavals, floods, cyclones and earthquakes rock the world at the start of 2011. All this turmoil reinforces our conviction that we are doing the right thing with our lives while we can – rather than chasing the dollar we are exploring and experiencing places and meeting interesting people from all over the world.
The Queen calls at Sydney
We are having a lazy day. The boat is a mess, we are out of biscuits but we are not expecting any visitors and who arrives? The Queen, I kid you not. Why is it that you wait and wait and wait then along comes another? Why do they all have to arrive at once? It is like the London busses. Unbelievable but true. Queen Elizabeth sailed majestically into the best natural harbour in the world, dwarfing everything around her. Then along comes Queen Mary 2 as well. The family stick together it seems. From their top decks they look down on the Sydney heads and I am not referring to their subjects. What would Captain Cook have made of these gigantic ships from his helm station and what would his crew have made of the luxurious accommodation and sumptuous meals.
They Queens left a day or two later with a great fanfare, the tugboat escorts spraying huge bows of solid water leading the great ladies out to sea. Hundreds of yachts were out racing but there was room for all. This place is wonderful and we are so privileged to be here to experience all this.
Low High, High Enough?
Well our lives are still occupied with boat stuff, fixing and maintaining. We needed to replace the sacrificial anodes. This bit of metal zinc protects all important metal bits that are below the water line i.e. Propellers, sail drives, rudder posts. As part of this process the props have to be removed. It can be done with the boat in the water but it is more than awkward. The risk of losing parts such as the small locking bolts would be inconvenient to say the least. I am also not sure than I could hold my breath long enough to do this job underwater. It would be better with breathing apparatus but even then it is not ideal. You could not for instance paint the sail drive legs after cleaning them.
The hulls should not need any work as the paint used last year (Altex no 10) is meant to be good for 3 years. It is really more suitable for faster power boats but it seems to be doing ok on ours. They should however be inspected.
As hauling out here in Australia is really expensive and the work to be done minimal, we decided to careen the boat for the first time since we have owned it. We could then also clean up the sail drive legs and props and paint them and if there was time give the hulls a wipe.
Intentionally putting our boat on the hard for the first time with no support from other people, cranes, travel lifts or hydraulic trailers is a tense experience - for us anyway., To minimise the pressure on the stub keels as all the weight would be on them with the boat was out of the water, we made sure that the boat was as light as possible Our fuel and water tanks were nearly empty, just enough for emergency supplies. We chose Port Hacking – yet another natural harbour - to undertake this exercise. It is about 20 miles sailing south of Sydney, down the coast. It is beautiful out there - lovely bays, secure anchoring and the people we met were friendly and interested in our adventure. It is just past Botany Bay (Captain Cook’s old stamping grounds)
We would drive the boat, manoeuvring the stub keels carefully onto the sand at 2 hours after high tide. The low tide would then give us plenty of time to do the things we need to do. There being 12 hours between high tides and allowing 4 hours where no work would be possible as the water would be too deep. The new high tide would just float us off near its peak. We would have 8 hours to work and for 4 of them we should be high and dry! That’s the theory.
We carefully checked the tides and times. The first thing we discovered was that the tidal variance between high and low was not big enough to get completely dry. We would still be working in ankle deep water at the lowest point of the low tide. The tide variations further up the coast is much greater than here. The second thing was that the time of the month was not ideal as the biggest tide variance would be at the midnight low tide. We were not going to work at night in torch light. We would want to float off at the peak but the peaks at sundown were lower than those at the start of the normal working day. So we could have done better by choosing a different time of the month and location but as we were here in Port Hacking now this would do. We decided to spend an extra day aground if we did not finish the work in one session.
We dropped the anchor while we were still in 3 meters of water, reversing over towards our selected spot. The tide had already been running out for more than an hour and we were now in the shallows with the water only an inch or so under the stub keels. I jumped off the boat and walked in waist deep water to put out a stern anchor to hold the boat steady in position. As the water got shallower and shallower the boat kept bumping gently on the bottom, washing the sand away from under the front of the stub keel. As the boat became hard aground it settled nose down at an alarming angle as if was getting ready to surf down a wave. It had an unanticipated advantage however in that the props got out of the water sooner and higher than it otherwise would have done if the boat was level.
We eagerly started on the hulls but it was too soon as the water was still too deep and resulted too much effort wasted in fighting the current.
We did not finish all the work when we floated on the high tide but it gave us time to paint the props and get them dry before putting them back the next day. We stayed on the same spot, nose down at the midnight low tide and me also nose down but asleep
Next morning we jammed a plank under the front of each stub keel and managed to get the boat level on the next low tide. We completed the work and expected to easily float off on the next high tide despite having to get the boat over a small rise of sand.
We were right at the top of the evening high tide and the boat’s stub keels were still stuck in the sand. We had go 3 meters forward for deeper water but the boat would not budge even under engines – it needed another inch in depth. Every little bit of swell the boat would bump and thump on the sand and the whole boat would shudder. We were determined to give it our best shot to get the boat off with this tide. The wind was due to turn and increase and we did not want to be on the hard under those conditions during the night. Putting tension on the anchor chain, with engines going and Lorna sweeping a furrow in the sand ahead of the stub keels with a broom we gained a few inches at a time. It was with some relief that we finally got the boat into deeper water just after the tide turned.
