Nois birthday bash
Rogue
Alan and Noi not sure which is which
Wed 6 Oct 2010 09:18
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20:29.03s 149:04.06e I stopped logging positions some time ago, we just
seemed to be going round in circles.
The last of our guests (the lovely Jacqui and Monique) left yesterday. So we are preparing to head south for somewhere around Brisbane, to be decided at some later point in time. So the beginning of the journey South:
Today we left Airlie Beach anchorage after refueling and restocking food and essentials….. Beer and wine that is. It is also Noi’s birthday so an auspicious day to depart. It is not common knowledge in the Noi department but I didn’t remember what day it was until Liz sent an email saying happy birthday. Anyway the day in the life of a Whitsunday tourist:
up at 06:00, cuppa tea, anchor up by 06:30, get the main sail and jib flying and
engine off by 07:00, start the first part of the trip south. Still S East winds
so tacking all the way but the first 3 hours we are with a 2 knot current
flowing down the Whitsunday Passage. By 08:30 the wind was up to 15 to 20 knots
so reef in the main and the jib, still doing about 7 knots. Keep taking all the
way to the start of Shaw Island then the current turns. Start getting pushed
back the way we have come so engine on. Noi is in a desperate rush to get
anchored by low tide so she can go on another oyster pillaging run to the
beach.
Anchor down at Shaw Island by 14:30. Launch the
dinghy. Run in to the beach just as it is getting to low water. Walk the dinghy
in the last 100 meters because it is too shallow to use the engine. Watch out
for stone fish, toad fish (which I am told can chomp your toe off if
aggravated!!) and stingrays. Everything in Australia is designed to maim and
kill by the sound of things.
Start knocking oysters of the rocks, get two
buckets full by 16:00, start a fire, burn the burnable rubbish and Bar B the
oysters. Also Bar B some chops for later. One or two beers down the road and
start shucking the cooked oysters. Miss throw in my haste to get the job done
and the result is one irate wifie with a sore head caused by an oyster shell
being throw rather too vertically up and therefore coming vertically down onto
said persons heed.
Keep an eye on the dinghy with the water rising to
high tide which means keep moving it before we have to swim back to it
later.
Everything cooked and burnt and shucked so back to
the boat by 18:00.
Noi cooks a birthday feed and then dominoes which
because of the circumstances of the day I let Noi win. Movie and bed by mid
night.
Bad weather forecast for the next couple of
days.
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