Author:  Pete

Location:  Coomera, Australia

The last days have been spent readying Tayrona for show.  We purged the boat again of our old sailing belongings, goods, food, tidbits.  All our sunburned clothes, salted footwear, and tattered hats not even worth donating went overboard.  The ocean is a tough place for leather, cotton, metal, skin, electronics, zippers, plastics…  It feels decidedly good to shed our worldly possessions like lizards doffing cracked skin, cathartic somehow.  We didn’t have too much clutter or junk aboard really, but without the little bits of our personalities spilling over into the cabins and salon it feels empty.  Maybe not empty so much as awaiting.  

Miranda and I did some deep cleaning, fixed this and that, met with brokers and workers.  We were at it from sunrise well into the night.  That’s not too great of a feat, seeing as the sun sets at five, but after a few days we felt the fatigue of cumulative grind.  I was almost too wiped out to have a heavy heart when suddenly it was our last night afloat.

The morning came and I pulled Tayrona around and docked her for the last time.  It makes you feel like a docking hero when there’s no current or wind and four line hands are helping bring the boat in.  The travel lift hauled Tayrona from the water, drove her by remote control (!!!!) for a few hundred yards, and gently placed her in the work yard next to several other boat friends.  These guys at The Boat Works are pros.

Miranda and I too made boat friends in the yard as we worked on peeling off the old blue bootstripes and putting on spanky new silver ones.  It was our last big project, a nice mix of geometry and turpentine.  We’re having professionals bottom paint and buff the topsides while we’re gone.  She’ll look a lot better when we get back!  

We worked into the evening on the bootstripes, packed or jettisoned a few last tidbits, and then spent our very last night aboard our fearless Tayrona.  Laying in our cozy berth where we had sheltered through so many miles of ocean, we sleeplessly recalling all the glittering memories she has given us, revisiting stories, sorrows and triumphs until our eyes would stay open no longer and we slept without rising to check the anchor.

When morning broke, we emptied Tayrona of our last vestiges and left her in the hands of our capable brokers.  It’s not yet goodbye; we’ll see her again in a few days after some touristing along the coast, but we need to let Tay-Tay speak for herself in the upcoming boat show without her obnoxiously proud owners glowing all over her decks.  Shake your tail feather, pretty girl!

Author:  Pete

Location:  Brisbane, Australia

So that’s it!  Sail in from the deep blue and be done with it!  Quack!  With all things boaty it’s not that easy.  But, we’re making progress in the right direction.  We met with quarantine in the morning after our arrival and then found my mom in town.  Brisbane is fabulous!  Who knew?!  I was a bit overwhelmed by all the people, commotion, cars.  The speed of the whole thing after the solitude of the waves was unbalancing.  That much time seeing nothing changes your internal tempo and I’m not sure when it will reset.  We walked and walked, reviving hibernating bears that are my legs.  People crossed the street for fear of their growling.

Early the next morning before we headed south to Coomera a package showed up out of the blue, a bottle of Tasmanian bubbly from our friend Greg, long time supporter of our exploits on the seas.  We’re still not sure how he tracked us down so precisely, but the guy is wily as he is witty.  Thanks for the great surprise and the libations Greg!

We fought the rising tide out of the Brisbane River then turned south.  Almost no wind stirred the water and we motored over the glassy cape. 

Eventually we reached the winding narrows that make up the inner waterway.  Shifting sandbanks, braided channels, and contradictory navigation buoys make the fifty mile run from Bris to Coomera scenic but tenuous.

As we delved deeper into the mangrove maze, neglected boats sat on their crusty hulls in the muck of low tide.  I had to assure poor Tayrona that this was not to be her fate, forgotten on the banks.  It’s a sad demise for a proud boat.  No, we were going to Coomera to get her shined up at a fancy marina with other catamaran friends!

We passed over one-meter shallows several times.  No fun getting stuck on your last day-sail.  It got dark.  We followed the glowing lights up the winding river as bats the size of raccoons flocked overhead in the twilight.  I wondered what they fed on to get so big.  Moose?  Eventually the riverside marina came around the bend and, tired but happy, we found our slip in the dark.  Oops!  Someone else is in our berth!  So, tired but happy, we found a vacant slip in the dark.  Oops!  The owners show up in their boat just after we tie up!  So, tired but happy we found a third slip and then snuck off in the dark to the marina bar before anyone could oust us!  Last day-sail for Tayrona!

The next day was Mother’s Day, so we scuffled off to the Lone Pine Koala Sanctuary, just outside of Brisbane.  It’s one of those cheeky things that sounds too toursty to be fun, but fun it was!  It’s hard to not feel like a little kid around koalas and kangaroos.  There were tons of other native animals.  My favorites were the husky bats which I had earlier confused with the Australian Air Force, as well as laughing kookaburra, though they didn’t like any of my jokes.

Undeniably hilarious was the sheep sheering demonstration.  An embarrassed ewe was dragged out by the underarms and shorn to her skivvies in front of a chortling mob.  She waddled off mortified but unharmed, no doubt feeling more than a little sheepish.

Fuzzy animals are a great way to take one’s mind off of troubling events looming on the horizon.  When it was time to go and get back to the business of listing Tayrona I felt a little like this guy.  Merp.