Lady Musgrave - Riding out strong southerly winds...

Ryan and I spent the next few days snorkelling at low tide despite the arrival of stong southerly winds.

There were no more dinghy trips to the island...unless you really wanted to get wet so Sam and Eric (with some help from Emily) baked up a storm - fresh bread, chocolate brownie and other goodies. Emily also spent a far bit of time at the stern desperately trying to catch a fish for our dinner.

We used our Spectra watermaker to top up our fresh water tanks and most days made enough water to keep our tanks full. We can only make about twenty litres per hour, but we don't use much water aboard and we still had heaps of power (despite the clouds reducing the efficienty of our solar array) to run the watermaker for several hours a day if required. The watermaker only draws about 9 amps at 12 volts, but you still need to be careful when you don't have a wind generator to produce power on cloudy days.

Most of the other boats left the lagoon before the wind pickup and during the worst of the conditions two fishing boats anchored on the leeward side of the reef. Sam was despertate for fish and suggested that we take the dinghy out to ask if they had any free. But given the conditons we decided that the idea was not a viable option - there would be no return if anything happened to the dinghy or outboard motor.

Our anchor held fast in the windy conditions and even at high tide we were generally comfortable in the 30-35 knot conditions. We did break one of the anchor bridles as the surf rolled over the reef at high tide, but the rope had been fraid a little anyway so it was bound to fail sooner or later.

All agreed that at least the sunsets were still great!

The Second Journey - Mid 2015 to Early 2016

We had a plan, well sort of a plan, to head out to sea again as a family between mid 2015 and early 2016. The objective was to find somewhere warm, with plenty of fish and lots of islands to explore, but as always the exact destination was unclear.

After the usual challenge of packing up the house, sorting out schooling and escaping work we found ourselves aboard Lucey Blue in mid May still with a moutain of work to complete - including replacing all the house batteries, installing a new Dometic Masterflush toilet, servicing the Liferaft, updating all the running ropes and provisioning the boat.

We hoped to leave Sydney in about three weeks and sail away as quickly as possible. We really wanted to explore New Caledonia and Vanuatu this year, but to do so we needed to stay on track and avoid unexpected delays.

The kids settled into boat life quickly and we hurled headlong into the list of jobs while exploring Sydney and visiting our favourite locations - including Quarantine Station and Bantry Bay.

We even made it to a few of the Vivid Sydney locations to watch the light shows which was a real hit with the family.

While our return to boat life was relatively easy we ran into a series of issues that took longer to resolve than anticipated - including a cracked end cap on our Spectra Watermaker and damage to one of our large curved saloon windows caused by a flying dinghy in a 40 plus knot southerly change.

We ended up stuck for several additonal weeks waiting for parts. Once they arrived we decided to head north to Queensland to escape the cold of Sydney. The South Pacific would have to wait for another year, but we were all looking forward to the adventure ahead...

Spectra Ventura 150 watermaker – Overhaul and repairs

After a long period of “relative inaction” it was time to overhaul our Spectra Ventura 150 watermaker. The system was installed new in 2005 and has only done about 500 hours, however, it had been left unused for about six months and we were not sure if the reverse osmosis membrane would still be ok.

At the design specifications the Spectra Ventura 150 should produce about 24 litres (6.3 gallons) of fresh water per hour. The system is incredibly efficient and relatively easy to maintain - especially if you run it regularly and let the Spectra MPC-3000 automatic controller do its thing.


The first step in our overhaul was to replace the 20 micron and 5 micron dual pre-filters and the active carbon cartridge. We also replaced the fresh water solenoid and pressure gauge as both were not functional. The old pre-filters were in really bad shape – being full of salt water ensured a nice “black colour” and a stale sulphur smelling residue.


The next step was to cross our fingers, switch on the watermaker and hope that the reverse osmosis membrane was still ok…..

Amazingly the system came back to life no problems and soon we were making “sweet” fresh water from Sydney Harbour (although we are currently dumping that over the side, because I refuse to drink Sydney Harbour water...no matter how much osmosis it has undergone ;-). The Spectra Ventura 150 even performed at near full capacity – we average 5.9 to 6 gallons of fresh water per hour with the system operating at an internal pressure of about 63 psi and drawing on average 9 amps.




Despite the online horror stories you read about watermakers they can be brought back to life. But I don’t think we will be so blase with such an expensive piece of equipment again.