'Sarf & West mate, Sarf & West' - 'Arfur' was right!

'Arfur' was right!

'Sarf & West mate, Sarf & West'

Pete Bernfeld

Tue 28 Feb 2012 23:45

Whilst in the Tuamotos (& in other places) I met an Aussie, one Arthur of Brisbane, who had brought a Prout 39 in the States and was wending his merry way back to Brisbane. Discussing future cruising plans he mentioned that there was a really good steak pub in Brisbane, the Breakfast Creek Hotel. Great value, good beer and superb steaks. I have to say that he was right, well maybe not exactly great value, although it was certainly worth paying the price, so maybe that is value in the sense of you get what you pay for. A superbly cooked T bone for A$32, OK so a bit extravagant but damn it was good. Castlemain 4X out of the wood was different as well. Well chilled so not exactly your traditional wooden cask, but certainly a really different taste.

I checked out the anchorage in the river. Plenty of room beyond the pile moorings and a fairly short dingy ride to a public access jetty, all in the heart of Brisbane's CBD. Still waiting for the PC battery to arrive, it should have been here yesterday, so it has two days to turn up. I decided to get a Vanuatu courtesy flag, but no luck 'off the shelf'. There is a place that will make and send one to Fiji, but I'm sure that I saw at least one pack off courtesy flags on the boat (now in storage) and I'm pretty certain Vanuatu was there. I also found 12V flexible lighting that I'd been looking for all through the Pacific. I brought one metre, which should be enough for cockpit lighting. No luck with masthead tricolour/ anchor light though. Must chase Mark at Multi-Hull international rescue. I did get a steaming/deck light combination though. Been a bit of an expensive trip, but very enjoyable. Bassa of Brissie has been running me all over the place, so the least I could do was buy the occasional coffee/lunch.

Hey ho, back to reality in a couple of a days. I'm hoping no emails means no bad news on the boat front. Thinking of being in the water again, I'm toying with the idea of going up to Savu Savu for a couple of weeks once I'm sure that most things are OK with the boat. From there to the west coast of the main island of Fiji, then on to Vanuatu for a month or so before heading for Oz. I had a phone call from Dan & Yolande, an Aussie couple I met back in Trinidad (can't remember the boat name). I last saw them in Fiji last year. Anyway, Dan reckoned the trip to Bundeburg from the top end of the Vanuatu chain was a good one, above the weather systems and a great wind angle. Despite my current antipathy regarding reefs, I'm going to have to bite the bullet at some point! So is that a plan? Hmm, a couple of weeks cruising cautiously around Fiji, over to Vanuatu then join the Port 2 port rally to Bundeburg. Last year the cost was A$200, but they paid the A$330 fees to enter Australia. Could be a good deal, also give me a few months of cheap living, which I'm feeling the need of.
http://roastbeefonsundays.blogspot.com/