Mooloolaba to the Gold Coast Nov 26 2007

Hello everybody.Here we are, back again like bad pennies!!! We left you heading into alarge fleet of fishing boats. Well, no drama there; we just navigated arounda bit and missed them. Had a beautiful sail. Yes, we actually sail, downtoMooloolaba. Right now we've just left for Manly, a suburb of Brisbane.Skipping Brissy, because it's 25 miles up a river. I figure we'll be therea few days as we'll be on the dock, boat services are good, and it lookslike we might need some work on the watermaker. Real easy up here insteadof Sydney, and we're in no hurry. Next stop is a short hop down to the GoldCoast which is the South Beach, Miami of Australia, then we don't knowwhere, butwith Sydney the ultimate destination--about 380 miles from the GC.We had a nice three night stay in Mooloolaba. Took that long just to getcomfortable pronouncing it!!!! Friday night we hit the boardwalk and wentto a nice place on the water for dinner. Saturday was a bit crappy withclouds and early rain, so we did the aquarium. While they claim the largestin the southern hemisphere, I think the one in Capetown is bigger, but itwas really nice anyway. They have all sorts of shows with seals and feedingthe rays, but the coolest thing is a large Lexan tunnel you walk through inthe lower level. Loaded with all sorts of large sea life and several large(8-10 foot) sharks. Looked like snaggle toothed bull sharks to me, but thelist indicated some kind of whaler. They do a swim with the shark thing,but we weren't interested!!!! There were a few terrified divers in thetank!!! Next day was a bit overcast, but we aretrying to get south and didn't want to stay 'til Tuesday, so we went to theAustralian Zoo anyway. They had a free shuttle a few blocks from the marinaso offwe went for the entire day. They shamelessly promote the Steve Irwin thing,but it is a really good zoo, as you get to interact with the animals.Keepers were even walking cheetah around the place, but we fed theelephants, checked out the huge salt water crocs and took loads of pics.Really worthwhile, and they claim they are plowing all the income back intoanimal conservation and the zoo itself, so it just keeps getting larger andlarger. They have 4 rhinos on the way next month. No lions, but they dohave tigers and weird stuff like wombats and Tasmanian devils, so it wasreally a must see place.Left this AM early for Manly. Originally, we were going to go outside anddirect to the GC, but the wind still isn't right so a little research led usto an inland route through the bottom of Moreton Bay. While we couldprobably make it the whole 80 miles today, Manly is conveniently right onthe way, we can get work done, and the inland waterway is a complicated setof canals and streams we didn't want to be in at dark.Well, we've arrived at Manly well ahead of schedule after dodging about amillion freighters as well as other boats. About 45 miles as the crowflies, but 60 by virtue of all the shallows and channels we needed to take.Brisbane is a busy place. Unfortunately, none of the 4 marinas in Manlyhave space for us, but there was a spot at the end of a Brisbane PortAuthority dock that says no mooring. The marina guys winked and said goahead and take it. Our other choice was to try to tie up to pilings andwith only 3 of us on board and winds blowing the wrong way (of course) weopted to sneak on the government dock for a night. Guess we'll try for thewatermaker repair on the Gold Coast or just wait 'til Sydney as it's notcritical. Called the marina at our next destination and they can't take useither, but, at least, it's in an inland waterway and there are loads ofplaces to anchor. Tomorrow we'll be weaving through a complicatedchannel--27 waypoints to go 35 miles--and have to time our trip to hit onespot at low tide as there is a cable across the channel just higher than ourmast.Its been an action packed few days, everyone!!! We left manly at aleisurely AM or so, as planned. Traversing the narrow and shallow channelson the inland route to the GC was nerve-wracking at best, especially goingunder the power cable with about a foot to spare, but all went well until,about 5 hours into the trip, the captain turned the helm over to the crew.Yep, you guessed it--ran aground. Fortunately, it was sand and, after ahalf hour of backing, spinning and all appropriate measures, we floated free.The boat we were traveling down with somehow steamed by and held on to makesure we could get free, but, then, no matter what we tried, we couldn't seemto find that little snippet of channel they passed through. So, after softgrounding and backing off about ten times, we just anchored and waited forthe tide to come up. Cost us about an hour and a half. We got to ouranchorage at about 3PM. Had to make a few calls, though. We know we hadbeen lucky for some time with no major breakdowns. No more. On the waydown, we thought it best to run the freezer which runs off the engine. Onthe dock, when we're plugged in, we have electric back up for that, and wehadn't really run the freezer off the engine since our arrival as we've beenin marinas. It didn't seem to be cooling, so we checked the lines in theengine room as they frost up when the thing is working. Okay, they're twohoses attached to aluminum elbows coming out of the compressor for coolant.One of the elbows simply broke in half so we had no coolant. The brightside is after a few tries, we got someone out the next day and it will befully repaired today. We've also been looking to have someone check out thewatermaker which has been acting up again, checking the membranes and, ifpossible, to put stainless fittings on the end of the pressure hoses asregular steel gets knarly with the salt water. Fortunately, the freezer guyknows someone and he's supposed to come out today. Seems easier to getthis stuff done here than in Sydney, as we're closer to everything.The GC is fairly spread out, and there are a couple of boats we know here inthe anchorage who suggested we rent a car. They're several $25-30/dayplaces, so the freezer guy gave us a lift yesterday to get a car. When wegot there I remembered I forgot to bring the Vodaphone modem that needed anew SIM card for our wireless internet on the boat. No problem, the boatwas on the way back to a huge shopping center near the anchorage. As weslowed to check out the nearby parking. WHAM, rear-ended. Car undrivable.Of course, the guy claimed it was my fault for stopping in the middle of theroad, but fortunately, the law here is like the states. The rear-endor isalways at fault--never the rear-endee. But we wasted about 2 hoursdickering, calling the cops who said it was an accident, let insurance dealwith it, and going back to get another car!! No damage to Rose and me,thankfully, but the rent-a-wreck is totaled. We got a nicer car this time,though.As the crew is spoiled, and we like to have Skype, getting the modem to workwas a high priority. We specifically purchased, for big bucks, the "Vodem"in Fiji, because it is compatible with the entire Vodaphone world widesystem. BUT, only if Vodaphone will give you an account!! At the mall, wego to the Voda kiosk to get the new SIM card. "Can't do prepay on data,only on cell service. Okay, no problem, put us on a month to monthcontract. No, sorry, you need a permanent Australian address. No problem,we've got Rose's cousin for a mailing address. Oops, no, you need proof,like a utility bill, that you live there. But, but, but we didn't havethese problems with Vodaphone Fiji. Tough, call the home office in Sydney;maybe they can do something." Okay, so we checked the Telstra office whichowns Telecom, NZ, and we had our old wifi modem from them--also a veryexpensive modem. "Sorry, we used to offer service through that modem, butwe've changed and can't accept your account as we're phasing it out." A newcompatible Telstra modem would be $450!!! Okay, so now I'm pulling my hairout. I'll just go back to the boat and call Vodaphone and sort it out.This is a serious problem as it is now my nap time, and I have to make phonecalls!Now cell service here is almost $1/minute. Hard to believe with what onepays in the rest of the civilized world. We'd already blown through about$30 at the accident; now another $40 went trying to work something out withVodaphone. After about a hour of working on it (I finally got them to callme back as I was running out of money on the cell) and talking to about 10people, they just held firm--no prepay on data and no account without apermanent address. Absolutely ridiculous when anyone in their right mindjust takes your credit card, like the localized wifi service we've beenusing in the marinas. Okay, so it dawns on me that, if Telstra is phasingout the old Telecom system, they must be offering their existing customers adeal on the new modems. Fortunately, the call there was free as they're mycell phone provider. This is already too long, so, suffice it to say, theyhad no problem with setting up an account, and we negotiated a special dealwith some credits to offset over half the cost of the new modem. So, I amnow on a new mission to get everyone to quit using Vodaphone. They arereally crap and haven't a clue about customer service. I've been using themfor over a year and will never again!!! It's Thursday as I write this, butyou'll have to suffer through a few more days in this letter until we leavethe GC sometime this weekend, weather permitting.Well, the weather was just fine, so we took off on Sunday for Ballina, about 60 miles south. Oh, I forgot to mention one of our friends was in the anchorage and is working on a big super yacht (Big Erin) up in Brisbane, commuting up there from the Gold Coast. One thing led to another with his skipper and it turns out it's Will, of Will & Kim from Voyage charters. Kim is back in Spain doing something, but they're still together. Unfortunately, we didn't hook up, but it was quite a coincidence. As we pulled into Ballina, the tide wasn't quite right for the river bar and we had made excellent time with a 2 knot favorable current, so we just circled around for about 1 1/2 hours waiting for the tide to change. Then our friends on Zafarse called on the radio and we made a plan to meet up. When we finally entered the river, the tide still wasn't quite right and a big breaker came up behind us. We were sure the cockpit would be flooded and Rosehightailed it into the cabin, but good old Rendezvous just rode it up and surfed in the channel at 14 knots. Paddy and Allison-Zafarse-dinghied out and piloted into the anchorage. We had a small, we hope clutch problem that worked itself out, but these drives are known to be troublesome, so we'll have to get it checked in Sydney. Had a bit of a party Sunday night and made arrangements with Paddy and Allison, who have a house nearby, to take us on a grand tour of the area, including Byron Bay, sort of a hippie place frequented by the rich and famous. Really beautiful with a huge surfing area, and we checked out the lighthouse, etc. The point is the easternmost part of Australia. We've left now, and we'll fill you in in our next tome as this is getting a bit long.Cheers.Tim, Rose & Joe