Year 2 – 29 March 2025 -Bundaberg – A sorting out today

If anyone reading this and is free from late June to mid July 2025 to come to Australia then do contact me as I am short of crew during this period at present.

We had quite a night. It was raining cats and dogs and according to one forecast we had 86mm in the day!!. The other issue was the wind which strengthened and we swung around our anchor. I was concerned about dragging and heard the anchor alarm go off. It was probably not set for enough scope so I reset it with more scope. I also decided to put the anchor alarm on the plotter and I watched us move around on the screen for some time. We seemed to be ok but I wanted to ensure all was well. No one else woke so I got up about 4 times in the night to check we were ok.

I woke around 7.00am not having had a lot of sleep and we had a cup of tea etc and prepared for the day. I took Trevor and Mark ashore and they got in the same taxi to the airport. David and I had breakfast and surprisingly the sun came out and it was warm. The most important thing was to dry what we could as all our waterproofs, cockpit cushions, towels etc were soaking so everything was out to dry and they did. The only problem was that I had put my jacket on a hanger under the boom and when I came out it had disappeared. I knew the tide was going out and got in the dinghy and went ahead and within a minute found my jacket floating but the hanger had gone. At least I got it back and after a good wash it dried and was useable again.

I did some washing and prepared all the sheets for washing etc and we had a good tidy up. We went ashore mid-late morning and put all the sheets in the laundry washing machine. We then went to the chandlery and had a look around and then had a drink in the restaurant whilst the washing continued. We then had lunch whilst the dryer was on. The day continued as a lovely summers day and everything was dried which was great and you would never know it had rained so much.  

We then needed to shop so we made a list and called our friendly taxi driver who picked us up and took us Begera where we provisioned and stocked up. The driver picked us up and we brought all back to Stormbird and sorted ourselves out. We had had a good day and got a lot done which without the warm weather would have been difficult.

We relaxed on the aft deck with the chairs out enjoying the warm breeze. We then cooked the red cabbage with spices and had it with sausages and broccoli. We then looked at what we could do until we picked up Paul on 8th April and thought we may go back down toward Fraser Island as the wind is from the North for the next few days.

As I began to write this I could see lightning in the distance and now as I finish this the heavens have opened and it is raining heavily. We hope it will be over by the morning. The picture of the day is a kangaroo we saw on the way back from shopping.    

Need/Opportunity Year Two

I am in need of more crew from late June to Mid-July so if of interest do email me at  hine.nick9@gmail.com  

In year two I will be going from New Zealand to Sydney and hen up the Eastern Australian Coast, Indonesia and then through Bali, Singapore and on to Thailand to end year two about the end of November 2025.

The blog will continue as we continue the journey. If you have any comments or suggestions about the blog then do email me on hine.nick9@gmail.com