Put on your boots and Go!
-H.W. Tilman-
(Mr. Tilman was 79-years-old when he went missing on a sailing expedition to the Antarctic. The above was his advice to a young man who earlier asked him about expedition logistics.)



Hangover Cruise




Cruising with the spirits? The new little plastic tender honors the memory of my sister Anna, who now cruises in tow with mother Aliisa.


Bloody Hell! The re-fit is...I suppose, over for now. A lot has happened in the last two months. I have become voluntarely unemployed. I have spent AUD $20.000. I have managed (with some valuable help from Paula, Tino, Craig, Phil, Alan, Darryl, Phyllis, Dave, Chris, and many others) to make more improvements to the yacht than in the last six years combined. New fully battened main. New genoa slotted in my first-ever furler, new 36hp Yanmar engine, new shaft with a dripless seal, new propeller, new toerails, stainless steel boom gallows, new exhaust, an inner forestay, all lines in the cockpit, rope lockers, new cushions inside, new stove, new solar panels, and more f-words uttered than ever before.


Aliisa is going back where she belongs. For some unknown reason the antifoul smeared off under the the slings. At this glorious moment I'm yet to discover that the exhaust under the aft cabin is rotten and leaking.


I have worked myself down. I've been tired, moody and stressed. Mostly because all the money is gone. Every day a new problem, big or small (depends on your frame of mind), and jobs that I didn't plan to do. It's time to put on the boots and go!

I have never been this ready. I still have no liferaft, no radar, hardly any charts and bugger-all money. But I've never been this ready.

Paula, like myself, has had enough of the dirt, shit and mess that comes with making the yacht ready. Our job lists are getting shorter and the rest can be done while on the trip. We plan to slip away one evening without telling anyone. I'm planning to take the rest of the cash (about AUD $1000) and close the bank account, cancel the credit card and throw my mobile phone into the ocean without paying the bill.

I'm waking up to the the change in life style. I have spent a great deal of money to maintain a comfort of living, holding on to my e-mail account and mobile phone. Yet, I am not attempting a fake adventure with sponsors paying my bills. But will there be enough money to stock up with red wine and tobacco?

     
Tino       and        Phil

On Tuesday 6 July I discover rotten stainless elboes in the ass-end of my exhaust. Tino tells me to make new ones out of 2205. I don't know what it is and say "yep. can you do it?" Tino says "yep" and makes me a new exhaust out of the most expensive grade of stainless steel. If the boat sinks, make sure you take these out before she goes down, says Tino when he gives me the new tubes. I spend the night putting them on and at 11pm the motor is running again.

That night we sit in the half-empty yacht club bar. Geoff from the bar gives me a bottle of champagne and Phil brings a cask of wine. We drink until 4am.

I feel sorry for people who don't drink. When they wake up in the morning, that's the best they are going to feel all day.
-Dean Martin-


After a three-hour sleep, at 0630am, Paula wakes me up to ask if I still want to leave at seven in the morning. I get up, still drunk from last night. I walk up to Alan Cane to return his battery charger. On my way back to the boat I hit my toe on the ground and a big piece of skin comes off my big toe.

At 0700am we push Aliisa off the edge of Cairns. Coffee and Scotch. Champagne and croissants. Wind picks up to 25kn and a big swell rolls the boat. It's all downwind and good. The alcohol is burning out and in the afternoon I feel pretty average. I lie down for an hour and dream of a sheltered anchorage.

In the evening, as our place on this planet turns away from the sun, we are securely anchored in Low Isles, 60km north of Cairns. But that's another story, and belongs to the Voyage (Or see updates: Cairns to Thursday Island).


Too much antifoul left over. The rest of it goes on Anna. The colour scheme is not intentional. The local paint shop happened to have the same colour on special...


Aliisa is ready to go. Altenator does not charge and there's no reefing lines in the mainsail. A few years ago that would have been a big problem. Right now Paula and I are happy to push the boat off the jetty.