A Leisurely Cruise...

SO...after the de-barnacling episode we had some lunch, and then cast off again and headed towards the Spit bridge. The shuddering and juddering had stopped completely. I was amazed two months of barnacles could make such a big impact.

The Spit Bridge is an opening bridge that we needed to pass in order to get out on to Sydney Harbour.


It even has a traffic light to assist in the orderly passing of yachts! Whodathunkit?






It is worth pointing out at this point we had no bimini or spray dodger on Lucey Blue....ours are off the boat for repairs!

Anyway...once through the bridge we headed out towards the city.


We were enjoying the ride until we noticed this:


Do you see a problem out there? Remember me saying we had no bimini or spray dodger? I think this video will give you a better idea of what unfolded next:

This is our first edited video, and the first time I have ever uploaded into YouTube...hope it works.

We were both pretty much soaked...we don't have full sets of wet weather gear on board yet (DOH!)...but it was a lot of fun! Some of us came out of the experience completely unscathed...nice for some ;-)


We are back up on Lucey Blue this weekend. Nick is in the engine lockers pondering the cracked thingummy-jig back there. I'll get the deets and fill you in on that at some other time (betcha can't wait ;-).

Sam.

Easter Sunday and Barnacled Propellors...

The Easter bunny managed to find his way to us on Lucey Blue, which I thought was rather industrious of him. The kids woke to find some bunnies on the saloon table, and little eggs hidden about the boat. It was fun lying in bed listening to them shrieking about having found eggs here and there.


Against my better judgement we allowed them to start on their bunnies.


Can you say S . U . G . A . R . ?




This is a pic of our youngest later that afternoon...I was going to try and Photoshop in an Easter egg instead of the mandarin...but didn't....you get my drift at any rate...

After we'd got ourselves all together, we decided we'd take Lucey Blue out for a spin. Being without a main....it was just going to be a leisurely motor. We turned on the engines, unsheathed the instruments (except for the chart plotter which wasn't there), returned our tray tables to the upright position and prepared for take-off. Once Nick had taken us off the mooring I gently eased the engines forward and steered us out. I didn't notice anything at first but as I eased the revs up there was an awful lot of shuddering and shaking goin' on. As we watched everything in the cockpit visibly bouncing around we agreed that we should return to the mooring poste haste!

Nick decided that a survey of the propellors was in order, and promptly went in search of his wetsuit (it not being that warm in Sydney Harbour in April). When he eventually went in...this is what he found...


...two months worth of barnacles had made their home on our propellors...


...and a cute little fishy (but we are fairly confident that the fish did not have anything to do with the shuddering and shaking!).

So Nick went about scraping them all off. While he was down there he noticed that part of the rubber fitting around the sail drive leg had come off.


He was very pleased about having discovered this because it explained the presence of some water that he had found in the engine locker...and is easily fixed (next time we haul out).

With the propellors all de-barnacled...we were finally able to set of on our leisurely motor cruise. More about that later!

:-)
Sam.

Going Up The Mast...

A recent post on the Pegasus blog here, inspired me to go up Lucey Blue's mast and have a look around. The view from up Pegasus' mast was beautiful (their video should have been in the Britain From The Air documentary I watched here last night...great show!).

We have a bit of an unfair advantage over Pegasus though, as we have mast steps and a crows nest (for people who need to stop and rest on the way up...like me ;-). On Pegasus, Hamish had to prusik up the mast, and I can tell you now I'd be having none of that...maybe when I was 20...but not now!

First off Emily took a turn, and for someone who is only 5, she did an awesome job!




...note Mr 3 manning the winch below - you'll be pleased to know that the rope was tied off elsewhere and he had no control over Emily's ascent or otherwise ;-).


Holding on for dear life (even though we did tell her she was firmly tied off)! Check out her groovy full-body harness too. Emily has much tougher feet than me...I couldn't do it barefoot!


...takin' the easy way down


Then it was my turn...



Getting around the spreaders and the radar and TV antennas was not that much fun! By the time I had got to the crows nest I was pooped and decided not to go any further.


(Nick trying to make it look like I got a long way up....but in reality I made it about half way. Since the mast is about 17.2 m tall, that's only about 8.5 m up). But the view was still good.



...the trampolines look nice from up here

...note the missing main (away for repairs) and bimini + dodger (also being repaired and altered).

And finally up went Nick...for some real work. The Halyard for the Code 0 sail (which we don't have) was jammed in the pulley up there (I am sure there is better terminology to describe that, but I don't currently know what it is...):

...sorry its so dark, you'll have to believe me he is up there!

...so that was our morning climbing Lucey Blue's mast. It was fun!

Sam.

Easter Long Weekend 2010

We had a pretty relaxing Easter weekend (and hope you did too). We went up to Sydney to spend the four day holiday on Lucey Blue. Lucky for us we got a relatively pleasant drive up....the traffic leaving Sydney looked bad from our perspective (it looked even worse for them as we returned home last night):


Lucey Blue is currently still on a d'Albora Marina swing mooring in beautiful Quakers Hat Bay in Middle Harbour, Sydney. This bay is very quiet and pretty, and was a nice place to spend the weekend.

Part of the marina package is a fast tender service out to the boat (check out the size of the outboard....PHOARRRrrrrrr)...


I love this ride...and so do the kids (although you can see me holding Ryan's hand...I get worried he'll blow right over the back of the boat)...


We had some jobs that needed doing before we could go anywhere on Lucey Blue this weekend. One of the jobs involved the steering. I'll post about that later though, because that'll be a technical post and I'll need Nick to vet it before I publish. I'd be likely to say something along the lines that this big brass bracket with two big wheelie things on it, was....wearing out, and this other brass arm thing in the engine locker had a big crack in it and Nick has to replace them both (after much ummmming and aaaaaaahhhing, too-ing and fro-ing, pondering of the Harken and Edson catalogues, and outlaying of mucho $$$).

The other job for the weekend was tying in the mended trampolines. They have been mended (patched and re-sewn)...to ensure that we don't have one of the kids disappearing through a gaping hole at some point. I had wanted new ones, but it was decided that they could be mended...

Lucey Blue looked really odd without them on, and it was surprising to me how much their absence affected the deck room. I felt like we'd lost half the boat:


Nick kept telling me the trampolines were going to take a long time to put back in...about 3 hours later, and one trampoline down...I finally believed him ;-)


I'm glad he has good balance!

...finally, near the end of the day...the task has been finished. Nice work! (the funniest thing was, as he finished the job, and leaned back to survey his handiwork, he says 'we might still replace these, make them look a bit nicer'...LOL!).


So now the kids are safe, and enjoying their trampolines again...






I'll leave it at that for now. Here is a pretty pic out our cabin aft hatch, sunrise on Easter Sunday:


Ciao!
Sam.