Now becalmed

At least the current is drifting me smartly in the right direction.

Fair winds and following seas :)

Underway Brisbane to Sydney

Things have finally calmed down after a long and tiring 24 hours.

Course: 165 T.
Speed: 4.0 kts.
S 33 06.821
E 153 02.681
Wind SSW 8
Wave SW 6 ft
Sky 10%
Bar 1016

Big wind shift, now clocking again.

Fair winds and following seas :)

Roger sv Reboot +61 (0)476 768 335

Long day, long night

Heading down the coast from Brisbane to Sydney got caught in a "strong wind warning" for about 24 hours. Fortunately I was traveling down wind but still uncomfortable. With only a slip of the jib I was surfing at 10 knots.

Fair winds and following seas :)

Found the key!

After a long and unsuccessful search yesterday for the key I cut the lock on the outboard with my rig cutters. Of course today I found the key.

Fair winds and following seas :)

Underway to Morton Island

Upwind and up sea of course.

Fair winds and following seas :)

Brisbane River anchorage

Last night I exited the Brisbane River like a thief. I have enjoyed my time in Brisbane but the facilities leave a great deal to be desired. I anchored in the river between Mowbray Park and New Farm. The bottom is mud and the strong current reverses. This means the anchor resets four tines a day. And drags. I solved this problem by adding a stern anchor to keep from swinging out into the channel. That worked until both anchors started to drag. Last night at slack tide I had enough, hauled both anchors and departed.

There are a lot of mooring balls (and boats) in the river but almost no guest balls. The mooring fields occupy the best anchorages. It is hard to find a spot as the few guest facilities are almost always full. Finding a place to land a dinghy is also difficult. The fields are not well marked. Traveling down the river at night I had to keep a very sharp lookout to prevent Reboot from hitting moored boats with dim anchor lights.

Then of course there are the Citi-Cats. These ferries run at high speed and wake every anchored boat as they pass. And sometimes they pass 30 feet from the boat. Not pleasant.

All said I enjoyed Brisbane a lot. I wish they made it more boating visitor friendly.

Fair winds and following seas :)

Dumb

I was reminded today after a strong thunderstorm why one does not park the dinghy under a scupper.

Fair winds and following seas :)

Stillness

It is the middle of the night here on the Brisbane River and all is still. XO woke me. His water bowl was empty. The tide is turning and there is no wind. I am sitting in the cockpit. The interior is stifling. XO is standing guard to repel boarders. I will most likely doze until sunrise. A very quiet moment.

Fair winds and following seas :)

Local knowledge - Australia Chartlets

My friend John @ Anglican Church Grammar School pointed me to these beautiful chartlets (free) for Queensland and New South Wales. The links are:

http://www.msq.qld.gov.au/Boating-maps/Moreton-Bay-guides

http://www.rms.nsw.gov.au/maritime/using-waterways/maps/boating-maps.html

Enjoy

Fair winds and following seas :)

Dawn

Every morning just at dawn (which here is about 4:30 AM) the birds start making noise. XO feels it incumbent on himself to wake me. Bummer.

Fair winds and following seas :)

Queensland Museum (http://www.qm.qld.gov.au)

I went to the Queensland Museum on the South Bank today. This is their science and technology museum. I admit to being jaded; I grew up and lived in the New York City area, spent years traveling to Washington D.C., and have visited London and Paris. So I knew it would not compare in the awesome category. My expectations were met. It is a beautiful museum targeted at middle school students.

I went, however, to see the exhibit on the large Hadron Collider. It was a major disappointment. There were lots of pieces of hardware but the video presentation was, imho, awful. Just building the LDC was a major engineering feat. Nothing, no pictures. No real explanation of how it works. Like, we shoot this beam and it gets squeezed by these magnets (picture.) Nope, just a bunch of talking heads in a conference room. Lots of superficial talk about the Higgs Boson. Not my thing.

Fair winds and following seas :)

Help me Ronda @ FedEx

About three weeks ago I gave up on getting my mail from the U.S. that has been floating around New Caledonia for a couple of months. I called my bank, asked them to invalidate the credit card in the New Caledonia mail and send me a new one to Brisbane. No problem they said. We can get you a new one in Australia in about a week. Great I said. After about two weeks and several trips to Australia Post no mail. I called my bank and they said its at Brisbane Airport. A couple of more trips to Australia Post. No mail. So I called the bank and asked for a tracking number. Then I called FedEx. "We don't deliver to Australia Post." They might have told that to the shipper! After a dinghy ride, a Citi-cat ride, and an Uber car I finally got my debit card. Quality...

Fair winds and following seas :)