Day 8 anchored in Tin Can Bay – The return of the Skipper

We all had a good sleep in and surfaced around 9 to another sunny day, but the breeze was up. We had smoothies for breakfast and cleaned and tidied the boat. Clare talked to Paul who was on track for airport and we talked about what birthday party arrangements we would make for the returning skipper.

We discussed whether or not it would be a good idea to move to a different anchorage and whether it would be more sheltered, though no decision was made. I actually read my book for a while and we spent the morning relaxing.

Pete decided to take budgie for a spin to see if there really was any more sheltered anchorage further down the creek, and he said it was, but we would still likely have breeze from the other arm of the creek. After lunch of chicken wings and salad, we decided to all go off in the budgie to check out the anchorage question and to lay the crab pot. We got the fish head out of the freezer, loaded the crab pot into budgie, and off we went.

We headed down to the possible alternative anchorage first, and decided that there would, be no more shelter there, then we headed across the creek to the west side along the mangroves. Clare said we needed to have the pot covered the whole time so it was a challenge to find a location that wasn’t going to dry. Eventually we did so, and so commenced the fun of putting it all together. First we had to set up the pot itself, then we had to find a way to pop the fish head (v smelly and falling apart) in and tie it to the pot. Once it stopped falling apart and Pete managed to prize its mouth open, he got the string through and it was secured.

Next challenge was to locate the pot and then tie the buoy to a mangrove root. This was eventually effected and so our crab pot was launched. We asked the crab gods to please arrange for 4 crabs to fall in there by tomorrow. We headed back to the boat, so to commence party preparations.

First blowing up balloons, then putting the pork in the oven. Preparing all the veggies to go with it – roast potatoes, roast pumpkin, leeks in Chardonnay and sugar snap peas. Once all this was prepared, it was translating the Lindt lava cakes recipe from Italian and getting them ready to go. Pete put tea lights around the place, having changed the batteries on about half of them, and we watched Gone with the Wind in the background.

At about 5:15pm, Pete headed into shore to go meet the skipper, and as he left, so Paul called to say he was there. Clare cooked up the haloumi and started on the pitta, and as is was just getting crispy budgie arrived, so I sent Clare on deck to be reunited with Paul!

It was lovely to have Paul back on board Pilgrim, returning the balance, and showing off his stitches. He was delighted with the balloons and party atmosphere, though looked v tired after a long day of traveling. We served up dinner, and chatted, and sang along to various tunes from my playlist, coked the lava cakes which were yummy, but not quite runny, and made the candles melt when I put them in and tried to light them!

We sang happy birthday, and then Paul went off to bed and Pete and I sat on deck for a little while looking at the stars, and then we went off to bed too.