Vale, Meander!

Today we finalised the sale of Meander up in Manly, Brisbane.

So this will be the final entry for this blog of our adventures on Meander!

HOWEVER... we have started a new blog at http://secondwindlog.blogspot.com . Soon there'll be nice picture of our new boat on the site, and some info about it.

We won't be leaving on our adventures until early next year - the prevailing winds are in the wrong direction until then, but we will be regularly updating the new blog after we take delivery fo the boat (whenever that is!)

Bye Everyone!

Mike and Jo

Xmas greetings to all

We're back in Geelong for a while - partly to get the house sold, partly for Mike to get his teeth done, and partly to avoid the dreaded cyclone season up north.

So you can expect this blog to go rather quiet for a bit - but in the New Year we will be back again with this chronicle of our adventures. -- We promise!

In the meantine, we would like to wish everyone both on and off the water a great Christmas and a fabulous 2007.

Love
Jo and Mike

Back to Mooloolaba

On leaving Brisbane and the warm hospitality of Michael and Sue O’Sullivan, Mike and I returned to Melbourne and Geelong. I was feeling a bit fragile after leaving hospital and needed to touch base with family and friends (and my GP). We spent 10 days down South and what a busy 10 days it was!! (no time for recuperation!!) In that time we put the house on the market and went to see our yacht broker friend Graham about selling Meander for us. No we are not giving up life on the ocean waves but plan to buy a bigger boat which is to become our home for the foreseeable future.

Our friends Cathy and John organized a wonderful wedding party for us which was a lot of fun. We also had a brief visit from Ptolemy (Mike’s middle stepson) which was a lovely surprise. My daughter Sara was in Melbourne for a conference. Because she lives so far away I don’t get to see her nearly as often as I would like, so having her in Victoria was an added bonus.

I was also able to spend time with my beautiful Indira (and her equally beautiful Mum and Dad), as Mike and I stayed over with them a few times. I saw my new great nephew Cody for the first time too, so all in all it was a short but rewarding trip home.

Our friend Andrew had kindly offered to help us sail the boat back to Mooloolaba (where we had already planned to spend the cyclone season), and we were delighted to take up his offer. We met up with him in Brisbane, and flew together to Rockhampton, and then bussed it to Yeppoon

We set sail south bound early on Wednesday, quite delighted at the proposed ENE winds which were forecast for the next few days. By Saturday, however, we had been at sea for 4 days and there had not been a northerly in sight!!

We decided to make the first leg of the trip an overnighter, taking us from Yeppoon to Pancake Creek (just south of Gladstone), a run of 71 nautical miles. What a trip that was!! Andrew and I were a bit off colour (well a lot off colour if we are going to be truthful) as we punched into SE wind and 2meter seas for most of the 16 hours it took to reach Pancake Creek. (Mike was just fine though, albeit rather cranky that he had to make all his own hot drinks and sandwiches!). We got to our first destination at 0335, and made our way into the creek in almost pitch darkness (no moon). Luckily we had been there on the way up, and Mike remembered enough of the entrance for us to feel our way past the cliffs and drop anchor in calm waters..

The morning after...

After a restful day of recuperation we set off again at midnight on our second leg, which was to Bundaberg. There was still no moon and still no sign of the ENE winds still promised to us by the weather bureau, however. We arrived in much better condition than at our previous destination, as the winds were somewhat lighter and our stomachs somewhat more accustomed to the motion of the waves. What was perhaps more important, was that we had regained our appetites, as our arrival coincided with the free lunchtime BBQ, which is a treat put on by the marina management each Friday for the hoards of hungry yachties staying at the marina!!

Jo

On our approach into Bundaberg we heard on our VHF radio a conversation that kept us entertained for quite some time. The conversation was between a yacht waiting at the Quarantine buoy and the port authority. There were actually two American yachts awaiting quarantine clearance but only one had a transmitting radio so he was relaying messages for the other yacht who could only receive but not transmit. We were very surprised to hear that the owner of the transmitting yacht had just arrived from Vanuatu on his own, and that the boat was only 32 feet. Our surprise was even greater (flabbergasted is probably a more apt description) to learn that the second yacht, despite having two POB (persons on board), was a mere 22ft long, and had no engine whatsoever. Furthermore, it had not merely sailed across from Vanuatu, but had in fact traversed the entire Pacific Ocean by sail alone! So hardy were these two (young) sailors, that they declined all offers of a tow into the marina, bur instead, insisted on sailing into the quarantine berth unaided.

The following day we headed off to Fraser Island, and then to Mooloolaba. This leg of the trip was relatively uneventful. On the upside we discovered that we could motor through the shallowest part of the Sandy Straits only two hours after low tide, and that the Wide Bay Bar was not too bad with one meter waves across it… Once again, the ‘iron genny’ did Trojan service getting us across the ocean: it ran for all except four hours of the leg from Bundaberg to Mooloolaba. So much for lazy sailing under wind alone – I don’t know how those Americans had managed to get so far without one!

Would you
sail around
the world in
this??

So now we are in the Yacht Club Marina at Mooloolaba, safely tied up and rested. [More importantly we are just 2 mins walk from the fantastic beach and 5 mins from the equally fantastic coffe precinct (Jo)]

Yesterday we had a great time cleaning up the boat and taking lots of pictures of the boat for the broker’s internet site. This entailed moving everything out of one cabin while we took pictures, then moving everything into that cabin while we took pictures of the next cabin, and so on. Pretty exhausting work: especially when Jo looks at the pictures and says ‘that cushion was crooked. You’ll have to shoot that again!’ Still, we got there. Graham now has 51 pictures of the boat. That’ll keep him busy – I’ll be interested to see which ones he chooses. (You could see for yourself in a few days’ time. Go to http://www.yarrasedgeyachts.com.au )

What was behind
the camera!

And in case you’re wondering, Jo’s doing just fine. Back to her normal cheerful self. She’s cooking up a storm as I write!

Mike

Jo gets a free flight

Well, what an eventful couple of weeks we’ve had! As this photo shows, Jo has enjoyed (obviously he wasn’t getting the jabs prods and pricks!!! [Jo]) a few days as an involuntary guest of Queensland Health. This is Jo’s explanation how it happened.

Last week I was in the process of doing my open water dive course. I’d finished the theory part and was at the Rockhampton pool for the day doing the confined water section. I first had to do some basic swimming skills which included 4 laps of the pool. I’m a fairly strong swimmer but after completing just 2/3 of the first lap I got quite tired, out of breath, and had what I thought was a stitch. I kept going and finally finished all 4 laps quite out of breath but still with that stitch in the left side of my chest. We had a lot to get through to complete the whole confined water section of the course in one day so after a short rest I got my breath back and felt better. I just thought I was extremely unfit after spending the past 8 months onboard relaxing and undertaking very little physical exercise.
To cut a long story short, I passed that part of the course and got on the bus back to Yeppoon to prepare my gear for the open water section of the course the next day. I felt ok but I was very tired -- which was understandable as I had had a very long day in the pool.
Mike came with us next day on the dive boat because besides those of us going to complete courses there were a few others going out for a social dive.
I didn’t enjoy the dive very much at all. I wasn’t really breathing as easily as I had on the dives I had done previously with Mike. Even at the pool the day before I hadn’t felt completely comfortable with my regulator (or my snorkel for that matter), all of which I put down to nerves
After a while underwater I signalled my instructor that I wanted to surface. That in itself posed quite a problem as I didn’t have the energy to make my ascent. With some panicking on my part and a lot of effort on my instructor’s part I finally made it exhausted back to the boat where she dropped my weight belt (almost on Mike’s head as he was following us up!!!). I didn’t have any pain - just shortness of breath, due I thought to having been breathing quite heavily in my panicked state.
When we got back to the marina I just went to bed exhausted. Mike was a bit concerned because he could hear some fluid in my chest all during the night. We decided to go to the hospital by bus next morning to check this out. While walking from the bus stop to the hospital I experienced some more mild chest pain. When we got there Mike was intent on getting them to check me out for any water that might have found its way into my lungs, but once I mentioned the chest pain and relayed the events of 2 days ago that was it. They did an ECG, blood tests etc and discovered a high level of an enzyme which indicates that I had had a heart attack!!!
With that I was shipped off by ambulance to Rockhampton Coronary Care Unit where they did more tests including a scan of the heart. This revealed some very slight damage. to the heart muscle An angiogram was needed to find out the extent of obstruction in the arteries that might have caused the heart attack, but that could only be done in Brisbane, and there were no beds available at that time. Consequently, I ended up spending eight days in Rockhampton hospital twiddling my thumbs waiting for a bed to become available, while Mike drove back and forward from Yeppoon marina each day.
You can imagine the comments we received from the medical staff once they realized we had only been married two weeks!! The cardiologist told Mike that even a second hand car came with at least a 3 month warranty!! (cheeky bugger!!)
On Monday a bed finally became vacant in CCU at Royal Brisbane Hospital and The Royal Flying Doctor Service was called in to fly me there. Mike followed along on a Jetstar flight around the same time.
As soon as I arrived it all happened. I had an angiogram. ‘Good news’ they said. ‘No arterial obstruction’. Hmm... what could have caused the heart attack, then? Was it a clot in the lungs? Was it a bit of heart valve coming away during exercise?
So next day came a lung x-ray and scan - no blood clots in the lungs. And finally an ultrasound of the heart - no damage to the heart valves.
‘Go away’ they said. ‘No idea why it happened’ they said. ‘Take these pills from now on, and maintain your active lifestyle’ they said.
The important thing is I am feeling fit and well and raring to go and can’t wait to get back to the boat and carry on as usual, after first going home to see my family - especially my beautiful little Indira who by all accounts is now running around terrorising the neighbourhood.!!!
Jo

So here we are availing ourselves of Mick and Sue O’Sullivan’s hospitality (my in-laws), and making ready to fly back to Geelong for a week or so for Jo to see her doctor and for the angiogram wound to heal - and of course to spend time with Indira!.

And we’re still none the wiser as to the cause of all this excitement!
Mike

The Smiths do sushi - and become famous!

Inspired by our recent dining experience at a Japanese restaurant on the evening of our marriage, and also the close proximity of the best Fishermans Co-Op we’ve come across, Mike and I attempted to make sushi for the first time.

Here is a picture of the result! (Looks a bit untidy but they tasted great!)

The other photo and newspaper article was in this morning's local Bulletin. The result of a phone call from a Bulletin newspaper reporter, and a subsequent interview yesterday.

It was on page 2! You can look for the full text at www.themorningbulletin.com.au (if you are so inclined)

Until next time

Jo and Mike