Journey to Freedom Sailing

Second trip to Fitzroy Island but first trip for baby William and staying overnight.

New to sailing, new to own a boat. Its nothing easy when you are newbies, and you always learn the hard way.

Add on top the joy of parenthood with a baby of 17 month old onboard for the first time. I love sailing for the relaxation but with a baby it’s slightly different.

On this trip, we realised a few things. First, our dinghy is taking water. No big deal, its very little but still. Then the little man has been touching the autopilot and somehow it wouldn’t lock on the helm. Again, no big deal, probably needs a bit of screwing which we don’t have the tools for it on board, we know better for next time. And our headsail is not fixed yet which is really sad, we had beautiful wind on our way back.

I have been very pleased on how William handled himself on the boat so well. He is talking about “bateau” (meaning boat) all the time. He particularly likes the dinghy.

But it’s not all like we want. William when he becomes tired he is already difficult, so on the boat, in a different environment, it’s even harder. More listening and caring for each other, and I really mean that to everyone on board. It’s already a different place with challenges, we all need more patience and listen to another even more. I really have a different approach with my 2 men on the boat, as I know they are out of their comfort zone, still but this will improve with time.

That’s where my oils are even more powerful then ever. (I am into essential oils, they keep me sane!)

So here is a short video of our trip, what I have been able to film. Still in a very big learning curve with our videos.

Thanks so much for watching,

Fred, Mel & master William

Sailing is about the journey, not only the destination. It is an adventure of every moment. From the moment you step out of the house, with all your gears, your supplies, everything you require to last a few days at sea, to the moment you make your way back home and think about your next adventure.

 

We purchased our first boat, a 36-foot Dufour, a sailing boat. It’s a 2000, so not new, and she has not been looked after very well by his last owner. A lot of work is required to put her back into shape, but that is also part of the pleasure of having a sailing boat. She is now part of the family and requires as much attention as a child. There will be times when the weather would not permit us to go out at sea, these will be the times to look after maintenance, refurbs and upgrades.

 

But for now, the weather is perfect, and we got the chance to sail out to Fitzroy island and get the hang of our boat, just Fred and me.

 

As we were not able to sustain the cost of a berth, we decided to have the boat on the Trinity Inlet, and we have arranged to have a dedicated mooring put in place with a 3 tonnes block on the bottom of the river. We had to buy a tinny to get to our boat, our little zodiac (dinghy) is too small to carry all our gears and we got really wet one day on coming back to shore as the ride is bumpy with the incoming tide and wind, and we have a fair ride to do to get to the boat ramp. So, the tinny with more power was needed.

 

Not only we have a 36-footer, but now we also have a tinny with a 25-horsepower engine, another boat we have to get the hang of it.

 

First day on our own with the boat, we decided to book a marina berth, to load the boat and get some work done, like cleaning, checking how we were going to install our solar panels and the installation of the netting on the rails to make the boat safe for William (these points will be for another post). Parking a boat in a berth is much harder than we thought. We wanted to park it with the stern facing the pontoon, well after trying that 20 times, we gave up and parked the boat bow facing. Not to mention the very little space we had each time to start our manoeuvres again and again… it was putting a lot of pressure on us, making sure we were not touching the other boats parked around. Somehow, the bow berthing was no struggle at all in one go.

 

The next day, we sailed out to Fitzroy Island. William was being looked after by family friends, so that we could focus entirely on the boat and to get use to sail just the 2 of us first. We make a good team and communicate really well, which is important. However, we already had an issue on the way to the island, our headsail was not unfurling, we had to sail all the way with just the main sail, and with the very little wind we had, we had to use the motor sadly.

 

Best part of our journey, being able to go diving from the boat and from the dinghy (we made 2 dives); we also looked at the sunset with a drink in our hand from the boat; and saw the moon rising from behind the island (it was a full moon, so beautiful); then we had a gentle rocking night, which I love and the next morning, the stillness on the island and the clear crisp morning weather I love with the sunrise. These are the moments I only had during liveaboards when going scuba-diving prior having William and wished myself and Fred to live this over and over again even with a little man crawling all over the place. This is what our happiness is about and what we are aiming for with our boat.

 

So proud of my husband for going all the way in and making the necessary steps to become a good and safe captain; working towards a life on the ocean is not only a dream now, it’s becoming a reality. We do step into the unknown all the time, we challenge ourselves all the time, but nothing would change if were not taking risks. I am not talking about taking risks with safety, but mostly financially, work career and securing our future for the whole family. You do not take risks when it comes to safety, you take all the precautions and study well your options beforehand, you communicate and think ahead.

 

I have been told and well aware of sailing being an adventure of every moment, you never know what will come next, but you have to be prepared in taking the challenge that comes ahead. On our return to our mooring the next day, we struggled to catch our mooring on the river. We did not prepare a longer mooring line for us to catch easily with the boat hook. So here I am, trying to catch the buoy and lift it up to attach it to the cleat. The buoy has already some weight, add to that the 3 tonnes block on the bottom of the river it is attached to, I couldn’t get it up. We went back and forth, around and manoeuvre 20+ times, it took us over an hour to finally get it. I jumped into the tinny we had attached and from there I could get to the buoy and finally secure our boat. All this in moving boats, with wind gales and incoming tide. With lots and lots of patience, we finally made it. I lost our boat hook in the process, and the tinny made some scuff marks on the hull. 

 

What we have learned from this trip, to get more fenders if we want to avoid more marks on our boat; attach a longer mooring to our buoy for easy pick up and quick attachment to the cleat; patience in every moment, when things are taking an hour, double that just in case.

 

Prior to this trip, we also experienced being out of fuel in our zodiac in the middle of the river, with no spare petrol jerrican onboard and no rowers. After 10 minutes, someone saw us and kindly towed us back to the boat ramp. It all sounds silly especially now that we go back on this memory, but trust me, now that this has happened, it won’t happen again.

 

When you have so much to think about, you sometimes miss little details and usually the once that makes the most sense, so from now on, we will be also working on checklists. It is so quick to check if everything is there, everything that needs to be done is done, call them cheat sheets if you want, I like the idea of simplifying where I can.

 

For that head sail, best would be to go up there ourselves with a bosun chair, but we are not quite ready to make that step yet. So, we’ll have to connect with other sailors around to find a person to go up there.

 

That’s it for now… Thanks for reading and following our journey.

Yes we did it! We bought the Dufour 36.

After a whole year of research, numerous boat visits, endless phone calls with brokers… we decided on the Dufour 36 Classic from Magnetic Island.

It came down to 3 choices and that last one was the best option. Not only it is located closer to us but it all felt right when stepping on it.

Good and bad are to be expected when you purchase second hand or even third hand in this case. Our choices were limited with the budget we had. But we are proud owners now of a 36 foot long sailing boat (11m).

More details of the Dufour 36 here.

A few tips we can give you while we are still going through the process of buying and getting the boat ready to be sailed up our way:

Never believe the first quote!

Issues we encountered so far:

• Antifouling cost: the initial cost was made with our online research and we believed it to be around $1600-$2000, final cost was $3067. Something we didn’t realise at time of purchase was the state of the hull. And it needed a lot of extra work to bring it back up to standard. Antifouling is recommended to be done every year and can be stretched depending on how well you maintain your hull. So trust me when I say this but I’ll be getting down there with my scuba to scrub the hell out of this baby as much as possible; we’ll be also doing the antifouling ourselves in the future, meaning that the cost would involve getting the boat dry and purchasing the products and equipments.
• Taking the boat out for survey was $350 but then something we didn’t expect we were charged for a waterblast at a cost of $250 which is necessary for the surveyor to inspect the hull properly;
• Actual survey wasn’t too bad $540, cheaper then we expected;
• Insurance, with our researches we believed it would be around $800-$1000/year and the quote came back at $2000;
• Marina berth being too expensive $230-$250/week, we decided to have our boat on a buoy on the Trinity Inlet instead. The application fee with Marine Safety Queensland $147; getting the buoy installed with 3 tonne block concrete $2250; yearly fee to stay $56/yearly (very cheap);
• Rigging was a good surprise, first quote in Cairns was $6500, actual invoice in Townsville $4400;
• Solar panels are our biggest concern, first prices found online for high quality solar panels $1500 + installation; even the broker found this too expensive. He introduced us to a professional he knows and his quote was even higher at $3000 and he explained us why. It made all sense, so we wonder if the previous price found might not have included all of what he explained. We don’t want to do a cheap job but we’ll keep looking for something better without having to blow our budget.

As we speak, she (yes… she is a she) is getting the rigging done and the additional work will wait when she is up in Cairns.

So driving back to Cairns now and can’t wait to see her up here closer to us.

Schedule sailing up beginning October 2019.

More to come soon!