Thursday, 22nd July 201008.00hrs Bang, the 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 quarantine block, Rod, was very pleasant, and Aileen did most of the talking with him, while Skipper filled in all the paperwork for Customs and Immigration. The quarantine 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 souvenirs 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 through 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 permanent berth, C17, 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 hairdresser, and other important joints for future reference... store them in the memory bank, to be retrieved later when required.
Scotty just pottered around, while skipper had a glass of red wine on " Lady Ev VI" . 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 wonderful 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 don't know, this is a documentary produced by the BBC and is all about the history of coastal towns and surrounding areas of Britain and Ireland. Its a wonderful 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
That's it for today,
Signed :- Stephen Hyde (Skipper)