Sailing around the World ( Presently in Mackay , Australia, )
A Lady
Stephen Hyde
Fri 23 Jul 2010 03:03
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THURSDAY 22nd
JULY 2010
08.00hrs, Bang , they Customs are on the deck, and
we are still in the scratchers,
Like a shot out of a gun, we spring to life, and
meet the guys and dolls, good looking dolls at that,
The quarentine bloke, Rod, was very pleasent, and
Aileen did most of the talking with him , while Skipper filled in all the
paperwork
for customs and Immigration,
The quarentine dept are very concerned that creepy
crawlies, such as Thermites and the like do not get into Australia, so Rod
examined
all the timberwork on the boat, including the
timber souvineers that Aileen and Scotty had purchased in other
countries.
He took up and examined all the floors, the doors,
the seats, the hand rails, the tables, and so on...a thorough
examination,
plus he photographed everything as well for his
records, plus of course, all the food items we still had on board,
Eventually , 1.5 hrs later, we had everything done,
and nothing confiscated, ( a bottle of wine for that , and another bottle for
not using the
engine during the race ) and our passports were
duly stamped , and we were free to go ashore now.
But first, that little BUT again, we had to
move " A Lady " to her permenant berth, C 17. not too far away,
The wind was blowing skittles, but moving the boat
around the place is a dawle to us at this stage.
As soon as we were tied up properly, we set about
cleaning up the boat, washing her down, polishing her metal, and so on.
Scotty did a lot of this
as skipper went to the marina office to fill up the
papers there and get the zappers for the marina gates.
Meanwhile Aileen was busy down below giving the
internal bits a big clean up, something that has not been done for a
while.
We were so busy, we never got around to having a
lunch, not even a nibble, anyway, after all we ate for the last few
days
we could do with a bit of starving .. But ,
its great to be here, and you know the feeling , the place feels good. so
now the 3 fat ducks
have turned into 3 happy bunnies,
After the no lunch, Aileen toddled off to scout
around , as women are good at doing, you know, find the hairdressor, and other
important
joints for future referance... store them in the
memory bank, to be retrived later when required.
Scotty just pottered around, while skipper had a
glass of red wine on " Lady Eve V1"
time just vanished, but skipper had made contact
with the Generator people, the Watermaker people, the Raymarine
people,
and the sailmakers, so we did make
progress,
19.00hrs We had dolled ourselves up , put on the
long pants and warm clothes and sauntered up the marina to the local Thai
restaurant
where we had a lovely meal, a little wine, and
recapped our wonderfull trip of 1150 miles to this place.
God, we are whacked after it all, so an early
night, skipper put on a DVD of the series " Coast " in the Captains
cabin,........ for those that dont know, this is
a documantary produced by the BBC and is all about the history of coastal towns
and surrounding areas of Britain and Ireland,
Its a wonderfull piece of work and well worth
looking at......
However, skipper fell asleep 5 mins after the
start, so we will just have to do it again some other night.
zzzzzzzzzzzzzZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZzzzzzzzzzzzzz
Thats it for today,
Signed :- Stephen
Hyde, ( Skipper )
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