As I was cruising down the river on Friday night eating oysters and watching the world slip by (driving a charter boat, not Kadoona) the realisation hit me that after neary 4 years in Sydney I'm going to be departing soon leaving behind all the people and places I've grown to know. I can't help feeling I'm going to miss it, in a fortunate twist of fate I've had farr too much on my hands to think about it. New water tanks installed, two new windows in place, HF radio installed, solar pannels wired up, charts arrived and sorted, new batteries in place and wired up, engine spares sorted (almost), new spray hood and dodgers, holding tank...... ah well its in place just not quite plumbed up. Add to this a whole host of smaller jobs, organising, arranging, moving, checking, throwing stuff out, trying to find the thing I just threw out, cursing, swearing, not a whole lot of sleeping and the feckin liferaft is huge. While most thing in life have reduced in size, take phones and computers for example, for some reason liferafts have grown exponentially. Our 20 year old RFD 4 man liferaft was, unsurprisingly, condemned. So we purchased a shiny new 4 man liferaft, note 4 man but I've told Laani I'd share. To say its a little larger would be like saying Pavarotti was carring a little weight. Its feckin huge, so much so that not only won't it fit in the nice liferaft shelf in the cockpit locker, it won't even fit into the locker!
And now I'm sitting back having a cup of tea in work looking out the window and wondering if I'll ever see anything like this again? It hasn't been a bad place to spend my time, I may have disagreed with myself this time last year but isn't it funny how we only remember the good times when we look back don't we? Maybe the next time I see a ship passing under the Harbour Bridge I'll be driving it myself, the ship not the bridge. This time tomorrow I'll be on a plane to spend Christmas in Gearldton with Laani's family and the flies, not that Laani is related to any flies but the flies and Geraldton do seem to go hand in hand. You may well ask why we thought it would be a good to spend two and a bit weeks just before sailing off into the sunset on the other side of the country to the boat we are supposed to getting ready, well the short answer is it seemed like a good idea at the time. Live and learn eh but hey before that I have to survive a barbi with Greg on the mooring and John next door that seem to think me finishing work is a good excuse for them getting on the beer. Its fortunate that I haven't had much sleep of late as flying with a hangover is merry hell, I'm planning on sleeping through the pain.
So goodbye from 'the tower'. Updates after this one should be more of a cruising nature. We still hope to depart in January subject to fitting the self steering that has yet to arrive (mental note, add minimum of 4 weeks to anyone in the marine industry that promises anything). I'm hoping by that stage the protracted registration process should be complete, watch this space, my battle with buracuracy continues however I have a man on the inside working wonders for me, we seem to be gaining the upper hand. Boat drinks Max, boat drinks. If any of you meet him over Christmas buy him a pint from me, God knows he deserves it :)
Finally, MERRY CHRISTMAS, catch you all on the flip side :)
Finally, MERRY CHRISTMAS, catch you all on the flip side :)
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