Journal Entries

November 2008

13 November - Another month...almost 2 have passed since my last entry. Time is just going by so quickly, but the good news is that I'm making progress toward my goal of getting out of here. Quite often I've read back through my journal and thought I sounded a bit negative. Sometimes I stop myself from writing the bad stuff but I came to the conclusion last week that I should write exactly what is on my mind so I can have a record of how I felt at a particular time in my life. That way I will know not to do whatever I was doing again. So having come to that conclusion, brace yourself for my rant.

I'm often complaining about the city and how toxic it is. It's not a nice place to be but it is convenient for making money. Last Sunday, my dinghy was tied to the dock and at some point during the night it was stolen. Fan-bloody-tastic!!! I got back to the dock and had to wait around to find someone who could give me a lift out to my boat. My life at the moment is one hectic state of rush. Every minute of every day is accounted for and this was something I simply couldn't afford to deal with. I'll keep the story short, but I had to maintain my work routine and somehow fit in getting to the police station to fill out a report, file a claim with the insurance company (who in the end would only cover $1000.00 which inconveniently was the cost of the excess payment so I would receive Zero and lose my no claim bonus. So the lesson learned.... take out a separate policy for the dinghy for the full value which is around $3000.

I eventually managed to get away from work and buy a new outboard and dinghy having lost half a days work and paying taxi fares to get around. So to the piece of $#%! who stole my dinghy I hope you sink. ...see what the city is turning me into.

Take a breath!

So now that I've calmed down I'll mention that all is good otherwise. In between my work I've managed to do a few small cosmetic jobs on the boat. I'll post some photos in the coming days. Cutty is better than ever and she puts a smile on my face each day. I'll often be stressed out at work and think of something funny she did which makes me laugh. We enjoy our runs in the park and Saturday expeditions. Here is a photo of her at the dog park watching the other dogs run around. She likes to get a high position away from the dogs to take it all in.

I had a bit of a clean up on the deck of the boat last weekend since it was starting to get a bit out of hand. I have to get the boat in a state to be ready to go sailing at short notice, which is hard when living onboard working an office job.

I took some time out and put the hammock up in the cockpit. Cutty soon discovered that it was a comfortable place to 'hang' out.

16 November - Half the month has passed by, it's a sunny Sunday morning and I'm sitting in the office with a pile of papers threatening to suffocate me. It's stinking hot outside and all of the jobs I need to do today I will put off until tonight when it's cooler. At least the office is air conditioned and both Cutty and I appreciate it.

I almost had a fire onboard last week...just to add to my problems. I don't use the toilet onboard but make a point of hitting the switch every couple of days so it doesn't seize up. The last time it must have stayed partially on and shorted out. Probably due to the moisture from recent rains. Instead of blowing a fuse it just started to melt. I could smell something burning and finally found the switch melting.

Here is a photo of the switch with a slight bulge from melting. I could smell the burning plastic but couldn't figure out where it was coming from.

the photo above doesn't look too bad but when I unscrewed the plug and revealed what was going on behind it, the source of the smell became alarmingly evident.

I'm thinking about putting in a "baby blake" toilet. They have been around for years, are manually pumped and apparently work forever with a little tlc.

As I was running around town getting some jobs done yesterday morning I went passed the boating book store in Brisbane. I'd managed to get ahead of schedule and thought I'd take a quick look. I'm a big fan of Ferenc Mate and have his book entitled, "The Finely Fitted Yacht". In the 70's and 80's Ferenc and his wife had a stunning Westsail 32 called "Warm Rain" which is heavily featured in that book. I saw one of his other titles on the shelf and had a quick look through it. What a great book! I wish I had this book when I first bought my boat. It sets out very clearly many of the issues faced by boat owners from maintaining spars and rigging to servicing outboard motors and diesel engines. It even has a section on the "head" (toilet). I would absolutely recommend this book for anyone with a boat.

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These days an entry in my journal just wouldn't be complete without a gripe. Am I getting old and grumpy? Am I just working too much and becoming less tolerant? I'll let you be the judge. Here is a funny story for you. I was walking back to the dock this morning and there was a big, wet, fat man in a pair of board shorts (that's all he was wearing which was all the more disturbing) standing on the dock. Buzzing around the dock was a woman on a jet ski. Apparently he had gone off to get a drink and she was waiting for him. So here he was guzzling down his bottle of Coke. It would have made a fine Coke commercial, this beautiful man with his fine physique (I'm not exaggerating, his stomach was more pronounced than a woman about to give birth only much hairier) with his head tossed back, draining the last drop of Coke.

Just as he finishes he puts the lid on the bottle and tosses it into one of the boats tied to the dock. So I see this and think something is wrong about the scene. Here is a man with a $15,000.00 jet ski and he tosses his empty Coke bottle into the dumpy little dinghy tied to the dock. Perhaps he was out getting some exercise rowing his dinghy and was spotted by a lovely lady on a jetski who found him irresistible, offered him a bottle of Coke and he was just about to get back into his dinghy. Perhaps not. Anyway, I'm walking to my dinghy and I can't help but ask politely, "is that your dinghy?" The fat man replies very loudly, "No mate, why do you want to buy it?" I reply, "No, I was just wondering why you would be throwing your rubbish in it?" Fat man replies, "get over it!" and then proceeds to climb onto the back of the jetski (which is now partially submerged due to his weight) and zooms off.

Nothing surprises me anymore. The fat man obviously thinks it's quite acceptable to expect someone else to dispose of his rubbish. That's my gripe for the day.

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20 November - We have been having some serious storm weather here over the past couple of days. The days have been very hot and humid followed by late afternoon or early evening storms. The night before last was the worst so far. Last night wasn't so bad but there was torrential rain with some hail.

This was the view outside.

This morning as I went to the dock I got some shots of the boats. There were several boats which had filled up with rain and simply sunk. You can see the one in the background. Cutty was not impressed.

Some of these boats went under water 2 nights in a row. You have to wonder why people didn't get up in the middle of the night and bail them. The one below was only saved by the floats attached to the outside.

Another almost full of water and probably only saved by the float noodles tied to the gunwales.

There was a lot of rain.

This one went underwater completely the night before last, was rescued and bailed out and then ended up like this again in the morning. I don't like the chances of the outboard having a long life.

A make shift water tank?

As I took Cutty for her morning run in the park this was the scene.

Debris from the storm was everywhere.

Cutty took the storm in her stride. We got caught in the rain on the way back from the office last night but a quick towel off took care of that. I think she enjoyed the adventure of getting back to the boat in the storm.