100 days to go!

Time is zapping past and there are now less than 100 days to go til we cast off the lines! Yay, only 100 days to go til full-time adventuring! Arggghhh, only 100 days to get everything organised!

Top of the list is to fix our (still) broken motor. Back in August during our Brisbane River trip our port motor overheated and it turned out the heat exchanger had poo’d itself. We got that replaced during our haul-out but the problem persisted. We bled the lines/injectors/etc and when it eventually started, we thought our motor troubles might have been over. We even managed to get away on a trip to Tangalooma for October long weekend. But while we were running the motor to charge the batteries, it sputtered and died. We’ve been really cautious with it ever since, but it appears likely to be a blown injector pump seal. Boat project no 1: fix port-side motor.

Next is to finish up and sort out our land lives. I’ve moved out of my apartment and (temporarily) back in with my mum. I sold a heap of stuff on gumtree and eBay; had a garage sale; gave a stack to my siblings; and donated the rest to charity. And I’m now down to some clothes and valuables in the spare room at mum’s, plus a fridge and some trunks in her garage. I’m a closet hoarder, so the process of thinning out all my stuff was pretty emotional. Andy is renting out his Canberra apartment furnished, so he’s off the hook for all of that. We are both in the last few weeks of work and busily handing over to our replacements.

We plan to rename the boat, and for any superstitious people out there, we will ensure we pay homage to the wind-gods, or King Nautilus, or whoever when we do so. Boat project no 2: rename the boat. Once that is done, we’ll get a bit of boat merch: a boat stamp, crew shirts, etc.

Then we need to get serious and make some decisions about kitting out the boat. At the moment we are planning to buy/instal/upgrade/etc:

• tender. Currently we have a 3.4metre tinny but it’s too heavy (for me) to pull up on the davits, so we are keen to replace it with a 3metre semi-rigid inflatable dinghy. We’ve narrowed it down to a preferred option, so now we just need to get on with it. Boat project no 3: trade-in old tender and get new one.
• power-generation. We currently have a couple of solar-panels and a house-bank of batteries, but with the other gadgets we plan to instal, we probably need to increase our ability to generate power. We are looking at wind generators + a little mobile 2-3kVA gen-set.
• water maker. yep, we want one.
• air compressor. same same. We plan to do a lot of diving so we are keen to have our own ability to fill tanks.
• spinnaker or equivalent. Because they look cool. And also help you go places in light winds.
• sat-phone/iridium Go. For comms when we are out of normal mobile phone range.
• AIS. I think it is mandatory to have AIS when sailing in Indonesia or Malaysia.

[Anyone with tips or advice on any of the above, pls leave a comment!]

Before we leave, we also need to replace the rigging, which is still original from when the boat was built. We had it checked during the sale survey, and the guy said it was in really good nick for its age, but it’s time to replace it prior to setting off. Boat project no 4: replace rigging. 

This list + all the other little pesky boat jobs that are never complete will definitely keep us busy for a good proportion of the remaining 100 days and in between we’ll hopefully get lots of local sailing in!