Zenitude: On the Move Again

It was a hectic week but finally we decided we were ready to leave Gold Coast City Marina. It is such a great marina that we are sure we'll come back there, most probably at the end of this sailing season.

The weather looked good and we left the marina around noon. The tide was going out so we had a quick run on the Coomara River for the 11 miles up to the Cold Coast Seaway. Out through the seaway we found a choppy sea until we reached deeper waters. It was a thrill to open the new sails and check that they are actually good and working much better and easier than our old ones, at least on the great downwind run we had for this trip. The upgrade of navigation instruments and software was great too so far, things working fine together, except for the AIS that now and then was losing power and needed to be restarted. There was a lot of ship movement along the night as Brisbane is a busy port, the AIS makes navigating in a busy area much safer and a lot easier.

We did a fast run until sunset when we decided to reef sails and slow down as it was no point to arrive before dawn. Right after sunrise, in the early morning hours the wind became very light and dead in the back so we decided to motor for the last 5 miles of the trip and then is when things got really interesting. We started port engine, and soon found out there was not water coming out, not good. Stopped port and started starboard one, same situation! What was going on? We were 5 miles from the coast, no wind and no engines. Luckily there was no current either so we were just drifting very slowly and wondering what to do next.

Oscar had just changed the impellers in the Gold Coast and went on to check them, unbelievable but the new impellers had almost disintegrated! Changed impellers again and we were on our way, 1 hour later entering Mooloolaba bar and finding peace in the nice river anchorage. By 10.00 AM we were happily resting thinking we have still work ahead of us, but that will be left for Monday.