Our third week afloat has been a quiet one weather wise, but frantic maintenance-wise. We focused on Anui’s galley revamp in our old home port. We are expecting the work to take two weeks, so we are at the halfway mark.
We did manage to escape on the weekend to Steamer Landing and had a nice time in sunny and calm conditions, which recharged us. We love the Gippsland Lakes. We needed those few days of peace before the madness started.
Galley Dismantling
The main reason for coming to the Lakes though is boat maintenance. We moved back to Paynesville for the work to begin!
What are we doing? Our original chest fridge-freezer unit gave up the ghost earlier this year. Following several ‘re-gassing’ attempts which did not last, we had to accept that after 26 years, it’s dead. As usual, no gear replacement on board is simple.
Substituting the unit like for like looked frightfully expensive! Anything with the word Marine in front of it is, and that’s just for the fridge only! Plus Chris had a love-hate relationship with this top loading system… well a hate-hate relationship, really! Diving headfirst to retrieve anything in there was just too frustrating and there has been a lot of swearing in the past years when trying to dig out specific items from the bottom of the blasted thing.
No matter what we replace it with, the original unit has to come out and it means a change to the cabinetry and the benches. The team for this delicate job is Tim Heaney, our Shipwright from Frecheville Heaney Boats with his very experienced cabinet maker David and second year apprentice Charlie. We are counting on them to do their magic so we end up with a practical set up that does not look like it has been cobbled together.
With limited space in the galley, we are replacing the unit with two 85l Dune 24 Volt fridges, side by side, front opening, and have also bought two drawer-freezers which are operating in the back storeroom and are so practical. Before leaving the marina, we bought the fridges, the freezers and some rolls of Laminex. While we stored all of this on board, you can imagine what the guest cabin looked like, not to mention the saloon… We made do with the cockpit fridge and the two new freezer drawers for refrigeration on this trip.
The first huge challenge was removing the old unit without damaging the surrounding panels! It looks like the bench was built around the original unit, so it took David and Charlie a day of chiselling and sawing to extricate it. In the end the chest was chopped in half and taken away. Nightmare!
We admit to walking away and leaving the boys to the job during the ugliest part. It was too hard to watch. But they took great care and all was good. And no matter what, the old unit had to come out.
And once it was out, the bench needed to be braced, which kept the guys busy for a couple of days. They strengthened the bench framework, made a solid base for the fridges to sit firmly in place, cut the cedar panel to fit around them so it all looks good, then worked out how to affix the two fridges to the base so they don’t move underway. It was a fiddly job.
When we got to the dry fit stage, we could all breathe a sigh of relief.
It was time to prep for the new laminate. They carefully removed some of the wood trims, and patched the holes where the old lids used to be, so the benches are ready.
And now templates are being made for the laminate to be cut to size. It will be glued on top of the old one. Doing it any other way would open up a can of worms and we did not want to go there!
But laying down the laminate is a job for next week, as is the final fitting of the fridges in place and connection to power and fans.
Other maintenance
As we mentioned in a previous post, our NKE wind instrument died at the beginning of this trip, giving us crazy readings. And when we say crazy, have a look at this!
We go by the numbers to raise the right sail combination and to reef, so it was really stressful to have to guess what the wind was doing on the way here, especially at night. We contacted Steve Cody, from Melbourne Marine Electronics to get a new one. Steve has been looking after us since we have had Anui and got us out of trouble with our navigation gear on a few occasions. Not only has he sent us a new wind sensor which is now installed at the top of the mast, much to our relief, but he might also join us for the return trip. It would be great to have an experienced sailor and NKE specialist on board!
And then there are the usual mix of little jobs, like gradually replacing the One Way Vision film peeling off some of the hatches, fixing leaky inspection hatches…
Some thoughts
Even though boat maintenance is an unrelenting strain to the point where some of our readers have been predicting our early retirement from cruising, we are actually not planning to get rid of Anui yet. We will continue to look after the old girl so we can enjoy offshore cruises while we are still fit enough! And we will probably continue to let off steam in this blog because boat ownership and maintenance are synonymous and it does drive us nuts.
Sailing looks dreamy from the outside – and many days it is: quiet mornings at anchor, kindly seas, stunning coastal scenery, breathtaking sunrises and sunsets. But behind every calm moment is the grit it took to get here: long hours of maintenance, unpredictable weather, and the patience to ride out whatever comes our way.
We often think about the two extremes of cruising: the stressors and the delights. I wish we were better at savouring the delights, enough that they fill our cup and more than compensate for those moments which are unsavoury! But it is not always the case.
We get caught up in two places: the past and the future. We ruminate on the past and all the things that did not go well: the weather, the breakdowns, the mishaps. Then we worry about the future and all the things that might not go well: not getting the weather for the return trip, the next broken bit to fix. The secret is to be better at focusing on the present and not projecting too far ahead, though it is easier said than done. It is also about trusting that the path will be the path, with all its twists and turns rather than a straight line, yet it will all work out.
Overall, there has been more light than shadow in our state of perpetual change over the past 9 years. And the transition from our totally vagabond life to this new chapter continues to cast both brightness and darkness, demanding adaptability.
Talk to you next week, hopefully with a completed galley revamp and an idea of when we will start our trip back to Melbourne. At this time of year, you do get periods of gentle Easterlies like we have been having this week. So there is hope!
Sv-Anui 
A well written post, thanks! I too have wondered if and when all of the troubles that come with Anui and life at sea bring will bring an end to your sea travels. You two are tough and can handle the good with the bad very well! I looked at the photos of the old freezer and said wow aloud. It looks very difficult just in a photo! A boat is still a hole in the water into which the owners pour money…
Hi John, yes boating gobbles up your money. I suspect what will put an end to cruising for us will be old age and worsening health issues.
And yes the bench was built around that fridge freezer! An ugly problem now dealt with but boy, it was scary!
Think positive and keep on truckin’ !! I’m 65, my arms are wrinkling as is my face and the aches and pain are creeping in… uhg…
I’m 68 and Wade is 66… lots of physical changes!
We are all Baby Boomers as we call them here. My body is like an old car, the older, the more difficult to keep running! 😂👍🏻
Oh my goodness! That’s no small reno, but great that you have trusted tradesmen who will look after Anui.
The extra fridges and easy access will make you smile every time you open the door and peruse the contents instead of having to dive head first into a chest freezer!!
We’re recharging the human’s batteries up at Fraser Island/K’gari at the moment. The last twelve months felt like an endless holding pattern and as you say it’s easy to lose sight of the beauty around us.
Our cruising lifestyles have so many challenges yet bring rewards that few can match on land. And it brings friendships strengthened by those challenges and the shared adventures ❤️
Hiya Helene, yes there is an intensity about the cruising life, the friendships… good and bad.
And yes too to that holding pattern!
Wow! I have followed you on the ANUI for years and did not have a clue what your kit . . . . oops, galley looked like. Actually, bigger than I would have thought tho’ I did not expect for you to have to dig for your food items from the top! Thanks for all the photos, especially the ‘diving Dave’ one 🙂 ! The change looks like a very practical improvement even if an expensive one – and, since both of you are very logical people, it looks as if we may, selfishly speaking, have quite some more Friday meetings with the ANUI and those aboard ahead 🙂 ! Looking forward to the next chapter . . . may it again be a productive and enjoyable one . . . and thanks for the gorgeous Lakes’ photos . . . be well!
Morning Eha, it’s funny what we never really talk about or show about life aboard until a big appliance fails! This one is a major hassle and was never put in with an easy ‘out’ in case of breakdown, but we are at the right end of the reno. So glad to be doing this with a tradie we trust.
We are leaving Paynesville for the weekend for a break so hope to have some more Lakes photos in the next episode.
Chris – silliest post-lunch Q you have ever had! Remember I am an ignorant but curious landlubber! Looking at your kitchen benches again, you have bottles and jars and pots etc loose on the benchtops and stove. How often do you have to clear all small loose items off all the surfaces lest everything ‘goes flying’ ? . . . ie how ‘wild’ can Anui’s movements get when you strike weather?
Not silly at all! The joys of a catamaran is that most things stay put in a following sea. When we are underway we don’t leave anything on the stove or in the dish rack as a rule. If we expect to have swell or rougher conditions then we clear the benches of loose things and put them in drawers which are locked so they can’t slide open, or even in the sink so they can’t fall off. But all the decorations at the back of the couch for instance stay out. We have very rarely had breakages.
Anui being a big and wide cat, it is very stable, but you can still be thrown around. The movement can be jerky and if a wave slams under the bridge deck, underneath the boat, anything loose can jump up. They are plenty of hand holds everywhere when you move around the boat on passages. The worst sea and movement is when we are sailing into wind that’s over 15 knots, or with a beam sea, but we tend to avoid that if we can. Most of our passages are with the wind on our back quarter and then it’s a sled ride and quite smooth, even in 25-30 knots.
Big job! Hope it all goes well. As you head out past Flanagan’s Island you will see Nungurner jetty to port. That will be our home port soon. We have purchased a block just up the road, and will start building next year. I am looking forward to building a small cruising boat to explore the Lakes once we are settled in. Somthing smaller and faster to build than Selah. Selah is currently in Darwin, possibly on the way to SE Asia, depending on the intentions of her new owners. Best of luck with your Reno’s.
Hey Peter, nice to hear from you and what a great plan! We love the Lakes and can understand the appeal. We’d easily move here if it was not for the very cold winters.
When it’s not the reno on the house it’s the reno on the boat! Not too much more to go on both. I don’t think the original builder of Anui had planned for the eventuality of the fridge freezer failing! Huge job to get it out and rearrange everything, but not much choice!
All the best for the eventual home and boat building.
Standing in a shower and ripping up £50 notes is part of the ‘joy’ of cruising eh?
It’ll be a pleasant change not having to rummage through the chest fridges!
I sailed up the NSW coast years ago with a guy who had a quirky solution to the fridge problem for a mono. He had built a 50′ steel sloop ( beautiful job) , and he had 2 normal fridges, one on the port and one on the starboard. His idea was, if he was sailing into the wind, he’d use the fridge on the downhill side so stuff didn’t fall out! He stocked them the same!
Here’s hoping for more ups than downs in your cruising life 😉
Monos have that added challenge of leaning! What a weird arrangement, but anything to avoid chest fridges. I remember many years ago when we were debating whether to buy a mono or a cat we hired a mono. Going to the loo was interesting…. either poured out of it or wedged right in depending on the tack!
And spending money like it’s going out of fashion is definitely part of the pain of cruising. It is outrageous!
You definitely made the right choice getting a cat, your cruising long term is much more comfortable. Not to mention access to shallow bays!
They are much more liveable. The catch is the cost… the initial purchase, the maintenance, the marina, the insurance… it’s like owning two boats!
Seems like the boat was built around the freezer. It will work well once complete.
It’s a bit that way, Phil – it will be so much more practical… no more diving down for food and more usable bench space! One week to go and we are there.