Sunny 10 – 15 knt Northerly

How about that, northerlies at last and we aren’t going south. Oh well all our sailing friends will be happy. More office work today and some boat chores which were a pleasant change from paper work.

We changed the oil in the sail drive. It was a tricky job  squashed in the engine bay syringing the oil out of the reservoir and into an empty water bottle but the task was completed. The old oil was very burnt and had lost some of its viscosity.  The boat needed a tidy as we had neglected it over the last few days so it got a spruce up and wash as well. The boat repairs have been finished and now we have a lovely light bridal, a new vang strap and bolts in the gooseneck instead of rivets. Tomorrow we shall try and calibrate the wind instrument before we leave on Saturday.

Dave and Laura arrived at 4:00 and after  familiarisation with the boat we walked into Airlie.

We enjoyed a pleasant stroll along the boardwalk and beachfront to the yacht club.

Laura is coming back to Airlie in March for a wedding at the Whitsunday sailing club Pavilion, a lovely Balinese style pagoda out on the point and she wanted to see the site.

 

A yacht had been blown onto the breakwall surrounding the yacht club and is slowly breaking apart. It was a shame to see the lovely old girl come to such a sad end. She still had a lot of her equipment on her, even the radar was still attached and the furler looked to be in good shape. It was scary looking at it thinking how easy this can happen. Apparently earlier that day a catamaran Cool Runnings had crashed into the rocks on Boathaven Beach near the lagoon .The boat was wrecked but salvaged the next day.

 

 

 

 

 

On the way home we stopped at Barcelonas, our favourite restaurant on the deck overlooking the marina. We ordered 8 tapas and it was nearly too much to eat but somehow we finished it all.

It was a very pleasant evening with a guitarist singing an excellent selection of songs in the corner.