Jitters

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 off Smiths Creek, as Pete would be able to get ashore quickly in the morning to head to ENZED to get new hose. Once we were settled on our anchor, we set to taking the water maker to pieces. We removed the blown hose, and checked all the others. Pete altered some and added new jubilee clips to others, and finally removed the second high pressure hose, as we would replace both. We then had a quick dinner, and distracted ourselves by watching a DVD of the film Lion. We really enjoyed it, though as we were watching it on deck, the noise from the shipyard, made it a little hard to hear.

Evenings entertainment – deconstructing the water maker

He isnt pleased about this

At 0730, Pete headed off in the dinghy to get the hoses, and I chiseled out some space in our bottom companion way step. This was to help the new intake tube for the sail drive have a better line to its bend on to the sail drive. It worked well, and while I was working in this area I also restuck some of  our stair carpet. As soon as Pete got back, it was full steam ahead to reconstruct the water maker, and by 1130, it was complete. We packed away the tools, restowed Goon Bag, and then weighed anchor, to head down the six mile fairway and finally depart Cairns.

There was less wind than the previous day, and though we managed to get the headsail out and drawing in the light nor’easter, we didnt gain much advantage, and ended up motoring most of the way to the Low Isles. We arrived at about 1830, as dusk was falling, and dropped anchor SE of the light house. We didnt really have any shelter, but there was no breeze to cause us bother, and just a slight chop, so it was actually relatively comfortable. After dinner, I checked my email and noted a few comments on the blog. One was from Liz, who was also anchored at the Low Isles, but behind the island from us. K’Gari, her cameraman, had left Darwin on 15 October, and she offered to give us any information we may need. We ended up having a great email exchange about a number of useful items, including diesel refueling, gas refilling and internet/weather.

We weighed anchor at 0730 the next morning, to head up to Hope Island, with another day of light nor’easters ahead. Its likely that this may be the last opportunity for me to get any blog posted for a while, but we are checking in daily with Cordia Radio on the HF, and we should still show up on the Marine Traffic app. I will post if possible when I can, and otherwise, we will fill in the gaps when we get to Darwin!