We always seem to be on a see saw with our life afloat: serendipitous moments alternating with tedious times, highs and lows, green lights and red lights… a bit like life on land really!

First, the serendipitous moments

We have been on a mission to get down to SE Queensland, but it has not all been hard yakka. We have had privileged times that made us feel good. Here are a few glimpses of these:

Then the tedious bits!

At this time of year, our voyage south heralds a period of chores. We always hope it won’t be too bad, but things typically take longer than planned and cost a fortune!

We are spending a week at the Mooloolaba marina, dealing with body, engine and computer maintenance… One of the challenges of being sea wanderers is that you have to manage all this on the go and it just does not happen easily at anchor! Sometimes you have to bite the bullet and we figured we would get as much done as possible while we are paying those exorbitant marina fees!

Mooloolaba is our medical base: health check, scripts renewal, dental check, skin cancer check, and a couple of visits to the Physio for a wrecked back. Don’t you love getting old?

We have also connected with a really good diesel mechanic, Alex Eacott of Wilkott Marine Services, highly recommended by our friends on Bossa Nova. Our previous interaction with a marine mechanic was at Boat Works, which was less than satisfactory. We needed to find an alternative! Alex has given Anui’s engines a thorough check up, taught Wade a few things about belts, impellers, oils, filters. He has improved the heat exchangers and redone the mounting for our new house alternator which if left unattended could have been a drama. We will see him again next year!

It looks like we will get the rigging checked here too and a furling line extended before we leave.

It is just as well we have booked a week at the marina, because on top of everything else, Chris’s laptop has been on the blink – yes, again – for probably the same reason as last time: a faulty power jack. The Computer Doctors are on the job but waiting for parts takes time! We are so dependent on the Dell XPS. It has lots of grunt for photo editing and publishing work, but it is very frustrating when it breaks down.

The next maintenance marathon for Anui is the haulout at Boat Works next week. Our shipwright, sailmaker and painter are lined up and waiting for us: hulls clean up and antifoul, new boom bag and sun strip for the jib to replace the ragged ones, paint touch up, and Wade is all set to instal our two new folding props. We’ll tell you more on all this in the next post!