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February 26, 2003  Monty's Marina/Boatyard

G'day!

Our Ozzie adventures continue on the Sunshine Coast.  We have been enjoying our stay in Beachmere which is an hour north of Brisbane.  For the past eighteen months there has been a drought in Australia.  Now that we are in Australia, the drought is over.  The rain started when a cyclone passed five hundred miles to the north.  Since then we have had enough rain to make us wonder whether there is going to be a flood.

In mid February, we purchased a Land Rover Defender 130.  This vehicle has a crew cab, long range fuel tank, snorkel, bull bar and topper to cover the pick-up truck bed behind the crew cab.  It’s great to be driving around Queensland in a Defender.  This truck has a wheel base that is twenty inches longer than the usual Defender 110 that we have had previously in Arabia and New Zealand.  The longer wheel base gives more load carrying capacity which is great for carrying camping gear, food, fuel and water in the Outback.  The only disadvantage is that the longer wheel base means that the turning radius of the vehicle is larger.  So we have to give ourselves more room when we make U-turns or sharp turns.  Other than that, it drives just like a Defender 110.  The fact that it has the long range fuel tank, snorkel, bull bar, topper and crew cab are bonuses that we are glad to have.  That snorkel may come in handy if we decide to drive to Cape York in Northern Queensland.  You have to ford a lot of rivers and creeks if you want to make it up to Cape York.

Boat work at Monty’s Marina continues.  We installed an email system on board Exit Only.  We have an Icom M-802 marine transceiver with a Pactor III modem.  We also added a new Outbacker Marine/Ham antenna that is dedicated to the email system.  The Pactor III works great.  We can upload and download emails wherever we are in the world.

The second major project was to install a new refrigeration system in the galley.  That required major modifications to the cold box with additional insulation being placed around the box.

The third major project was to put new gel-cell batteries on the boat.  We have never tried gel batteries before and it will be interesting to see if they work better than our previous lead acid batteries.

The rest of the boat work has been fairly routine.  We have been keeping a relaxed schedule since arriving in Australia.  Life is too short to keep our nose to the grindstone all of the time.  So we have made plenty of trips to Brisbane, Manly Harbor, Mooloolaba, Maroochydore, Bribie Island and many other places as well.

We have enjoyed seeing our cruising friends who are now in Australia.  Here on the sunshine coast, there are three cruising yachts that we got to know when we were sailing in New Zealand and Fiji.

January 22, 2003  Monty's Marina/Boatyard

G'day mates.

We are presently on the Sunshine Coast of Australia.  We are five miles up the Caboolture River at Monthy's Marina/Boatyard where we are working on Exit Only to prepare it to sail once again.

Monty's is an economical boatyard.  It offers all the services that you need in a boatyard and the price is right.

It's located on the Caboolture River about five miles from the ocean.  It offers good shelter from any aberrant tropical cyclones that might wander south toward Brisbane.

Monty's is about an hour north of Brisbane and getting into Brisbane is not a big deal.  Sometimes we take the day off from our boat work and spend the day checking out the sights.  Brisbane has some great museums and the Ozzie food is always good.  Life is too short to work on the boat all of the time.  After all, we're cruising.

The do list will keep us busy at Monty's for at least a month.  It might take a bit longer if we do some touring on the weekends or spend time visiting with other cruisers on the Sunshine Coast. 

As soon as we finish boat work at Monty's, we will go to Scarborough Marina for a short stay and then move the boat up to Lawries' Marina in Mooloolaba.  After that we will head for New Caledonia in early May.

January 2, 2003  Leaving the Magic Kingdom

It's been two and a half years since we put the boat in storage at Monty's Boatyard in Australia.  We finally are leaving Saudi Arabia and starting to cruise once again.  It is sad to leave the Magic Kingdom and all the great camping out in the desert with our friends.  Nevertheless, it's great to get back to the world of being a real ocean cruiser. 

For some strange reason, the following words keep coming into my mind, "Free at last, free at last, thank God Almighty, I'm free at last."