Rigged

TC had nearly a week docked at the lovely Botanic Gardens in Brisbane. Matey was able to hone her rowing skills and is pleased to report she has mastered the art of rowing in a more or less straight line (while looking away from the direction of travel). Given Matey’s first attempts, this is progress. Her arms (and stomach!) are registering this new form of exercise. We also learnt something about mooring to and extricating ourselves from posts on a fast-flowing river (with some fabulous guidance from our delightful French neighbour).

It’s been great catching up with a series of visitors, including Adrienne and Jenny at the Gardens (oh – and HRH dropped by too, though sadly Matey didn’t ‘but see her passing by’ as she didn’t want to be confined to the boat for three hours while monarch and retainers passed. Matey chuckled to discover one of our neighbours on the river had hung out his washing – the ‘smalls’ – in salute). It was great that David could drop in once we were back at Cleveland.

Captain and Matey were sorry to leave the boat community at the Gardens (though Matey is a bit weary of cities), but had to be back in Cleveland for Thursday and Friday for Mr Rigger x 2 to weave their magic: TC now has shiny new cables and turnbuckles. There are yet more things to fix though – the VHF and HF radios don’t work properly, and the AIS (automatic identification system for detecting ships) is temperamental. Poor Captain – his work is never done.  As some people who have been cruising the planet for many years advised – ‘don’t ever expect to get through the “to do” list’ …