Month: October 2017

So unhappily, we made it as far as Palm Cove, before our trusty water maker blew a high pressure hose. Obviously we had not performed all our checks adequately, so we turned around and headed back to Cairns, as we did not have a spare on board. We anchored in the river this time, just […]

The installation of Sadie (as she has come to be known), the new sail drive, went as smoothly as we could have hoped, with the guys from McLeod engineering doing a great job. They were able to have us ready for a lift back into the water by Friday lunchtime, and ran a sea trial […]

  After spending most of the day getting used to being high and dry at a somewhat jaunty angle, we headed in to town for dinner. Whilst we could still cook aboard, washing up had to be taken down the ladder into the laundry/kitchen, so made cooking less attractive. We decided to find the Spicy […]

Fran and I got up early on the Wednesday and headed off up the big hill to the Atherton Tablelands. Our first stop was the Cathedral Fig, which was spectacular in a different way from the Curtain Fig, having way more ecosystems growing in its crown. These figs are quite something else, with a huge […]

We have now been in Cairns for nearly two weeks, and are beginning to get to know the place pretty well! We arrived on Sunday 1 October, had a cracking crab fest dinner at the Raw Prawn, then waved goodbye to Fran and Choppa temporarily on the Monday. With no trades available over the weekend, […]

On waking the next morning, neither Choppa nor I felt so lucky. Poor Choppa had had a sleepless night, finding his arms covered in itchy bites which had kept him awake all night. I had a few, but had managed to sleep most of the night, so handed over the stingoes for Choppa to see […]