Tin Can Inlet
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Position: 25 55.74 S 153 01.53
E As we get further south the sun is rising earlier each morning, which, seeing as Queensland does not observe daylight saving, this morning was at 0503. Yesterday I said I was going to get underway at first light without realising just how early that would be. Nonetheless, we in fact got underway at 0515 which was just on high water so we had no problem getting back out over the shallows of Pelican Bay and into the deeper water of Tin Can Inlet. We covered the eight miles up the inlet under motor to where Mark's Mary Lee is moored, arriving at 0713, to find Mark on hand in his dinghy ready to pass the mooring line up to me. Thank you Mark. Then of course we enjoyed a short chat exchanging news before getting on with some chores for the day. My main chore has been to repair the main halyard. I noticed some chafe in it a few days ago and repaired it temporarily with some tape. The halyard is a wire spliced to rope and the chafe was in the vicinity of the splice. This morning I cut the splice out and tried to re-splice the wire to the rope but the splice did not turn out very well, mainly because the rope has suffered from significant UV damage and the outer fibres tended to fray very easily. I managed to splice the core of the rope to the wire but not the sheath and had to be satisfied with holding the sheath in place with some tape. Consequently my repair is in fact no improvement on my previous temporary tape repair. Indeed, I suspect the halyard is now weaker than it was before I repaired it. Clearly it needs to be replaced which I will do at the first opportunity. In the meantime I hope the halyard will hold out for a few more miles until I can get to a chandlery. Now that the chores are out of the way, I am looking forward to a having a relaxing beer and maybe a meal at the Tin Can Bay Yacht Club this evening with Mark. All is well. |