Back in Bello

After seven months of travel we are back in Oz and moved into our house in the tree change heaven of Bellingen.  The first 4 days were spent going back and forth to our storage locker to unpack all our 'stuff'.  We couldn't help but wonder why after living quite happily for 7 months out of a small duffel bag we needed so much 'stuff'.  We culled drastically when we moved from Canberra but there is still too much and we are culling again.  Why did I think I still needed to keep a 30 year old jacket???

All our 'stuff' in the storage locker

Bellingen greeted us with a torrential tropical downpour of much needed rain.  It is very dry and poor Boggy Creek consists of just some sad isolated puddles.

Rain pouring off the verandah roof

Boggy Creek reduced to puddles

Boggy Creek by the bridge

As we suspected after nearly 20 years of tenants, termites and the sub-tropical rainforest environment, the house needs a lot of work.  We are going to have a very busy 5 months of fixing and renovating.  Despite having a great tenant for the last 11 years who loved the place and worked very hard keeping the grounds in check, the place is a bit like Angor Wat where the jungle has taken over.  Trees that were little saplings when we left have turned into 35 metre monsters. We are living in a verdant cave that not only is claustrophobic but a huge fire hazard.  We have arranged for Tony from Dorrigo to come with with his bulldozer next week to clear around the house.

That Tibochina 'shrub' was suppose to grow to only 2 m

This palm was below the bottom of the verandah when I first met Bob

View from the paddock

The driveway

There is a house behind those trees

The wildlife here is even more lovely than I remember.  We have a friendly Brush Turkey that visits the back yard everyday. An Azure Kingfisher flits around the dam and the frogs chorus us all night long.  We have seen some beautiful Regent Bower birds as well as the usual Kookaburras, Whip Birds, Honeyeaters and Lorakeets.  Then a wallaby and her joey comes to graze close to the house every evening and they are totally unfazed by our presence.  I do not remember the animals being so tame 20 years ago.

Brush Turkey.  We think their eggs are under that mound

 Of course being  amongst all the wild life also means sometimes sharing bits of the house with them as well. 

The 3+ metre python skin found in the attic

The area really is quite magical and I feel quite privileged to be able to spend some time here.

Looking up along Boggy Creek Road

On the Hard

The big day came for Songster to be put on the hard for the Northern winter.  We had hoped to get her out into the bay for a bit of a motor before she was lifted out but alas, the motor wouldn’t start again.  We realised there must be teeth missing on the fly wheel and the starter motor is just unable to engage the engine.  There is nothing we could do about it until next year when a new motor will most probably be needed.  It was very frustrating not to be able to take Songster out at all this year but with boat ownership, we have to go with the flow.    

  

We got up early to do the last minute preparations for the haul out and waited for the marinaros to come to tow us the 50 metres to the haul out crane.  Finally at around 4 pm they came, attached a line from the boat to their dinghy and in about half a minute we were tying up to the crane dock in a queue behind two fast Russian racers and before a lovely Najad that had circumnavigated and just been shipped in from Thailand.  The marinaros are fantastic here, very efficient and professional.

 

In the queue at the haul out dock

Then as the early darkness was descending in the short autumn days, Songster was lifted out of the water, put in a cradle and given a wash.  

Songster in the straps being  lifted out of the water

Getting a wash

Early the next morning we were nestled amongst the forest of boats on the hard where Songster will stay until our return in April.

 

Being moved into position

Close neighbours

 

View from the cockpit

Climbing this wobbly steel ladder was a challenge, especially when the reverse polarity of the marina made it live.  180 volts gave me a tingle!

Getting Ready for the Hard

We have only a few more days on Charlie dock before we go on the hard for the Northern winter and back to Australia for the summer.  So we are going through the checklist of preparations to store the boat for 5 months while doing some maintenance and repair jobs.

I was sent up the mizzen mast in the boson chair to secure the wind generator blades.  For someone who does not like heights, I was amazed I could do this.  Mind you I hung on to the mast for dear life as the bruises on my legs and arms the next day attested to.  Because I wouldn’t let go of the mast all the knots were tied one handed.  I will definitely need to practice my knotting skills.  Using only a clove hitch and bow line were not enough.  But what the ropes lacked in knotting finesse they made up for in bulk and it should hold during the winter storms that hit this area.  I’ll try not to think about untying them in the spring.

Eileen up the mizzen mast

A big job was getting the sails down, folded and stored in the forward cabin.   The sails hadn’t been used all season so were still clean and crisp and they all came down easily.  Folding them wasn’t too bad either but they are certainly bigger than the sails of little Solar Mist!  I washed the sail covers in the big blue bucket.  While on the boat I have been getting quite good at this hand washing caper.

It's a big sail

 

Raising the main sail

Being inspired by watching one of our neighbours cleaning and packing away his dinghy, we decided to clean ours.  This turned into a one and half day job.  First it had to come off the davits and onto the dock.  The dinghy is much heavier than we thought and we may have to get some wheels for it as I doubt we will be able to lift it with the motor on.  Once on the dock I found an out of the way spot to do the cleaning.  It was a bit of a shock to see the grime under the nice blue cover.  A good cleaning product and lots of elbow grease and it came up looking pretty good, much to the amusement and comment from our various neighbours (a good way to meet people is to do some work on the dock).  Then for another big wash of the cover in the Big Blue Bucket.  The BBB has become my friend.

Cleaning the dinghy

Meanwhile Bob has been plugging away at the electrical wiring.  He has done a fantastic job.  He pulled out at least 10 kg of redundant wires which were not connected to anything, put in fuses, got rid of excess joins and resistance in the circuits and tidied up the whole thing.  Most importantly he now knows what wires go to what instruments and the electrical system is all making sense to him.

 

Behind the 12v panel before

After

 

Before

After Bob's brilliant handiwork

The other day while we were at the marina office a huge cloudburst broke bucketing down rain.  When we got back to the boat the settee under the starboard hatch was soaked through to a puddle on the lee cloth underneath, as were all the freshly dried clothes I had placed there to be folded.  An urgent repair was needed as we have been having lots of thunder storms over the last few weeks and we certainly couldn’t leave the hatch like that over the winter.  I shudder to think what a mess we would have had come back to in April if we hadn’t discovered this leak.  Never mind, making lemonade out of this lemon, I took a Stanley knife and sliced away all the black silicate sealant from the top and bottom of the Perspex pane.  Then I cleaned all the excess rubbery sealant and aluminium corrosion off the lip of the hatch.  After several hours of this we were finally ready to add fresh black Sikaflex sealant.  What a messy job spreading the sticky black tar like substance, while carefully not getting anything on the deck.  It cleaned up fairly well with alcohol solvent but we couldn’t get it quite as neat and tidy as I would have liked.  My fingers will be black for days. Still what the repair lacks in beauty it makes up for in utility.  We now have a water tight hatch.

Scraping away the old silicone

The finished hatch

Then we had to top up the fuel tanks for winter storage.  Peter, the broker, had come along and given us some good tips on how to do this easily with no mess.  It is best to keep them full to minimize condensation during the wet winters. 

Siphoning in the diesel

Cleaning up the fuel locker

So progress is being made and I am feeling quite proud of all of Bob’s work and of me learning new skills.

The real meaning of BOAT

Domestically Songster is wonderful.  She is very pretty, very comfortable and has all the conveniences of a land home.  We are enjoying living on her and after 5 months of travelling and eating in restaurants, I am enjoying cooking meals again.

The comfortable salon

Fully equipped galley

But we want to be more than Pontoon Rats.  We want to sail.  Sadly as we get to know the hidden recesses of Songster we realise she needs a fair amount of work before we can feel confident sailing her.  I am glad Bob is so handy technically but this means most of the work to be done falls on his shoulders.  He goes from being totally overwhelmed to being a bit more sanguine.

Bob overwhelmed by the tangle of wires behind the Navigation panel

A more sanguine Bob

First was the wiring – a total mass of spaghetti.  Bob pulled out metres and metres of wire that was not attached to anything.  Slowly Bob is begining to clean up things but there is still so much to do.  The circuit diagrams are more aspirational than accurate so Bob spends his day tracing wires through the recesses of the boat. 

What are all these wires for?

But wait, there's more!

Just a sample of the wires Bob pulled out that were unattached and went no where

Bob's beginning attempts to tidy up the wiring

While rummaging around the engine room Bob found something much more serious, a rusty worn steering cable.  We were shocked that this was not found in the survey.  The implications if we had gone out motoring in the bay and the cable failed does not bear thinking about.  To the surveyor's credit, when we told him about the cable, he came to investigate, admitted he blundered badly and reimbursed us towards getting the cables fixed.

The damaged steering cable

Then the refrigerator failed.  We contacted Ali in town, who doesn’t speak much English but is a very good refrigerator technician and he came to the rescue.  To our horror the refrigerator was leaking R12.  So we got it properly re-gassed with the less environmentally nasty gas, R134a.  Now the frig/freezer is working a treat and we even have ice cubes for our G & T’s!

Tomorrow the marine mechanics are coming because the starter motor doesn’t seem to want to engage.

Thus we are learning the real meaning of BOAT ownership – Bring On Another Thousand!