From Gloucester Island, we left Whitsundays behind and took
3 days of lazy going to arrive in Magnetic Island. Our plan is to stay in
Magnetic Island Marina for over 2 months, complete some of the projects in our
ever growing list of ‘things to do’ as well as take a month off to travel
overseas in a carefully planned SE Asia backpacking tour.
The trip to Magnetic was in a weather pattern when every day
was calmer that the previous day. We motored for about 40 miles each day stopping
the first night at Cape Upstart, an outstanding place, next day at Cape Bowling
Green where we’ve been before and did it all over again, anchoring in the exact
same spot, getting the dinghy down, going to the beach, admiring the sea life
jumping all over around us, especially the little rays and the big fish. The
only misfortune, Oscar’s fishing rode had broken, so we couldn't get dinner
this time around.
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| Sunset at Cape Upstart |
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| Cape Bowling Green |
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| Passing by Cape Cleveland |
We arrived at the marina and right after lunch our project
priorities where just hard to ignore. One of the things we need to do is fix
our new main sail design. The sail has extra fabric at the leech and does not
raise well, the first reef is the best we can do in light winds. We needed to
take some measures with the sail up and then remove it. We knew it would take
us around 4 hours. We looked at each other, then at the absolute windless day
and decided there may not be another perfect day for the job. So we did, raised
the sail, took the measurements, and started with the slow process of removing
battens, reef lines, and the sail itself, folding and getting the whole 28 kg
of sail ready for transportation to the sail maker that has promised he can fix
it.
As expected, having looked at the forecast at least twice
daily, on Thursday the wind arrived. After having a week of windless nights my
mind had forgotten all about the noises, so when the silence in the boat was
replaced, at exactly 3:04 AM, by the vibration of the shrouds, the mast noises
and the shackles we had somehow left in the wrong place I was completely awake
for the rest of the night. This is what happens after 10 days of fantastic, idyllic
weather. Now, after several days of howling wind I have adjusted again and
being safely docked in a marina, good sleeping nights are back despite the
noise.
On Friday we took the ferry to Townsville carrying our 28 kg
of main sail and found it possible to rent a car from Avis at the ferry
terminal. Oscar discovered this as he was getting ready to take the bus to the
Avis office in town. For some reason this is not advertised and not easy to ‘discover’.
With the car we took our sail to the sail maker, which we found in a farm, 25
km from Townsville. A strange place to find a sail maker workplace, but the guy
seems to know his business and just happens to have a daughter that likes
horses, as per his explanation.
Having taken care of the sail fixing project we will continue
with one project on top of another in this marina life, Zenitude going from a
lovely livable place to a chaotic messy place, back and forth several times a
day, depending on what is it we are trying to fix or which cabinet/area we
decide to ‘organize’ next.
G.
