Day 14 On our way again
Seaduced
John & Jane Craven
Wed 8 Jul 2015 02:48
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Darwin was always going to be something of a working
break. In the 11 months that the boat had been in Mackay, we had had a lot
of work carried out, including replacing the rudder bearings, the mast had been
taken down and refitted (the boat wouldn't fit in the paint shed with the mast
up), a number of lines had been replaced etc. The trip to Darwin was
always intended to be a shakedown sail, both to test everything on board, and
also to get the 'new boys' used to how the boat works.
We had a big night out on Saturday, the day that we
arrived in Darwin, then spent the next 3 days working on the boat, doing laundry
and a couple of shopping trips to stock up with provisions. We won't
really be able to do any more provisioning until we reach Reunion Island in
around 5 weeks time.
The list of jobs included: refit new rudder
reference unit and calibrate the autopilot; hoisted the storm jib to see how it
works; repaired 2 chart plotter buttons (both had failed within 24 hours;
upgraded various software on the AIS; repaired genoa furler drive belt; cleaned
out the 3 fuel tanks; installed new engine room fan; unblocked engine room air
intakes- - we found a rag in one of them from the paint shed; changed genoa
button lights to 12V to reduce the glare at night; added external speakers to
both plotters to make any alarms more audible. Who said that sailing was
glamorous?
We finished work at 21.30 on Friday night and after a
pizza and a few drinks, were all up bright and early
to visit customs at 09.00 on Saturday morning. After clearing out of
Australia, and a final provisioning stop, we slipped the lines at 10.30 to go
through the marina lock gates (there is a 5 metre tide in the area so the
marinas all have lock gates. We motored to the fuel dock and refilled the
tanks, and carried on down the river.
The boat was in total disarray after all the work had
been carried out, so around 13.00, we dropped the anchor, had a quick lunch and
then spent a couple of hours getting everything ready to go to sea.
Finally, at 16.00 hours we raised the anchor and motored
out to sea, right into the middle of a US naval exercise!! By 22.00, we
were clear of all traffic and on the second leg of our journey. The
distance to our next stop, Cocos Keeling, is around 2,100 miles which
should take us 12 - 14 days.
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