Monday 25^th August – Mackay Marina   All the best laid plans…..we hoped we would be underway today but we have had a real set-back. When we left for Sydney we asked the Marina mechanic to order a new water pump for our Perkins engine; what we hadn’t realised is that Volvo took over the company 10 years ago and old engines are now obsolete with no spare parts available in Australia.  So we asked him to rebuild it last Thursday when we returned from Sydney but when we went to collect it today he apologised but admitted he had cracked the impeller when trying to disengage the shaft!  Oh dear!  It is actually more serious than it sounds at first – we are trying to urgently order another new one from America but we have very tight time constraints now – with 24^th September being the last day we can arrive in Darwin to participate in the application for group visas for Indonesia, being organised by Richard Bolt (Blue Water Rally).  Of course we could independently apply for our extended visas which is a very complicated process but our sons and friend arrive in Darwin on the 24th to join us on this leg of the trip…... what to do? 

On a more positive note, the sun is shining and the autopilot arrived promptly this morning  – hoorah – and Paul is busy fitting it.  We have installed a brilliant sound system with quadraphonic speakers, woofer and amplifier we bought in Airlie Beach, Whitsunday Islands, when we went to collect our sails (beautifully repaired).  It was a delightful trip up the coast in a hire car – wonderful scenery, trees, mountains in the distance and rolling landscape – marred only by the macabre site of dozens of kangaroo dead by the wayside, blown up with gastric gases, resembling horrendous stretched plastic toys. It seemed a long way to go to get the sails mended but the local company was either too busy or just disinterested…..it’s a funny place here: a huge amount of money rolling around largely due to the mining industry but while some of the locals have been extremely helpful they don’t all have the ‘can do’ attitude we were led to expect.

Tomorrow is another day and hopefully we will have news from America as to how soon we can expect the arrival of new water pump (which will probably get impounded in Brisbane!!)