It looks like we’ve found the boat for our
adventures! It’s about 50 foot long, made of steel and the current owners want
to hand over straight away – so our adventure is starting sooner than expected!
Last weekend was Mayday long weekend, and
there was a boat for sale in Yeppoon that we decided to go and see. It’s a good 6 hour drive and also near where
Great-Grandma Joyce and Great-Aunt Colleen live in Rockhampton, so we thought
it was be a good opportunity to visit them too.
A few days before we left, a girl got in
touch via one of the FB pages I’m on, and where I’d posted that we were looking
for a boat. Anni said they were selling
a suitable boat and they were in Gladstone, a couple of hours further south
from Rocky. So we arranged to see that boat too.
The days Matt and I both had off work were
the Sunday and Monday, so we had to whizz down on the Sunday and get back on
the Monday, in time for school and work on Tuesday. To complicate matters, I was signed up for the
team relay in the Hammo Hilly Half, a
marathon event on Hamilton Island on the Sunday morning. I agreed with Matt that I would take the
first ferry back to the mainland, shower and we’d head straight off (instead of
lounging by the pool with my team mates, patting ourselves on the back and
sipping cocktails after the run, which was also quite appealing).
I had a gruelling but thoroughly enjoyable
run with amazing views. There was a
great turn out, despite it being only a month since TC Debbie went through and
devastated so much of our beautiful Whitsundays. I had a wonderful team, the atmosphere was
fantastic and I was on a massive high afterwards. Somehow we floated back to the mainland and
hugged goodbyes, finishing medals clinking.
Matt and the girls were waiting with our bags packed and the car
running, and off we went.
We got to Rockhampton after hours of
driving, a couple of them in the dark, which makes me nervous on the Bruce
Highway (where roos, pigs and livestock roam).
After lots of hugs and a quick cup of tea with Great-Grandma and Colleen
we all collapsed into bed. The alarm
went off early the next morning as we were due at the first boat at 8am and had
an hours driving to get there.
The family selling the boat in Yeppoon were
friendly and had older kids, who had clearly been told to stay off the boat
whilst we were looking around and so were fishing/netting off the pontoon. Tilly and Sasha were intrigued, and also
loved the kid’s cabin in the forepeak. The boat however, felt sad and a little
neglected. There were lots of jobs that
Matt and I could see that needed doing, that would be hard for us to live
with. After our allocated hour (we were
on a strict schedule in order to get home to Airlie Beach that night) we said
our thank yous and hopped in the car for the two-hour trek to the steel ketch.
We were met at Gladstone by the couple and
their two younger kids in the marina playground. Tilly and Sasha immediately threw themselves
at the climbing equipment having been cooped up the car for so many hours and
the mum offered to stay with them all whilst the dad showed us round the boat.
Iron Will is a steel cutter-rigged ketch,
about 45 foot long (although no-one seems quiet sure of the exact
measurements). She was built in 2001 for
an Antarctic expedition, so is solid and sturdy. We liked her immediately, from her robust
bowsprit with good-sized anchor to her solar panel and dingy davits
astern. We liked her wide decks and stout
(almost agricultural!) deck fittings.
She had all the appropriate gear on board, bags of storage, a decent
galley and the requisite accommodation set up we’re after – forepeak for the
girls and aft cabin for us.
The kids came and joined us on the boat and
we all sat and chatted. There were some
design curiosities – the passage from the saloon to the aft cabin is only about
5 foot high so you have to stoop and make like a Hobbit. The cavernous top-loading fridge and freezer
are also accessed in this tunnel and don’t have much space to lift the lids, so
you’re hard pushed to look properly inside.
In the cockpit the engine controls are mounted near the companionway
hatch, instead of by the wheel, which would make for interesting close-quarters
maneuvering! However, no boat is perfect
and we could see ourselves stepping on this one and heading off.
The owners had owned the boat for nearly 3
years and had been about to set off on a circumnavigation when they discovered
they had a little stowaway! The stowaway was now an energetic toddler and had
been joined by a little sister who was nearly one. They had tried moving one board a couple of
months ago and had found the kids were just too young at this stage. They’d been offered a chance to be involved
in the family business back in WA and were keen to sell the boat and start
their new life – although they had a 5-year plan to get back on the water. So they were flexible about price, and as we
were cash buyers we all had lots of space to negotiate.
The timings were a little quick for us but
we liked the boat and promised to get back to them, before hurrying up the
pontoon and jumping in the car to start the long drive home. We chatted about the boat all the way home,
it was clear we both felt the same way (keen) and we talked through logistics
- whether we could make it work by
keeping the boat on cheap pile moorings in Gladstone while we got organized
over the next six months. We decided
there was no way we wanted to be doing this journey on a regular basis, so the
boat had to be in Airlie Beach.
We got home late that Monday night, tired
but still excited and sick of take-away food after two days of it! We spent the
next few days nutting things out with the owners and by Friday we’d worked out
that they would deliver it to Mackay as soon as they could and weather permitted,
and Matt would join them for the last hop up to Airlie as a handover. We all signed a contact saying we’d buy it
from them and they’d sell it to us, and we transferred the deposit.
So now we’re hoping it will all work out,
and the boat will get here soon. We can
only afford 3 months in a marina in Airlie Beach, which is one of the most
expensive areas in Australia. We won’t
have much change from $5,000 for three months, which should keep us focused
while we sell/store everything we own and rent out the house. Hopefully it will also give us a while to
transition to living aboard and give the girls a chance to get used to our new
home.
Matt was hoping to help deliver it from
Gladstone, and asked his employer for the time off. They were short of skippers for the period
required so it couldn’t happen, but it meant they were curious about what he
was going to do with a boat. Airlie is a
small place and everyone knows everyone and everyone’s business. So Matt took the plunge on Friday and told
his employers, so I now feel I can tell mine.
I’m very sad about leaving the school that
I love and the friends that I’ve made, although I know that adventures
await. Tilly and Sasha also seem to have
mixed feelings about leaving school.
Tilly is fairly sang froid about it all; her two closest friends left
the area last year which made her very sad and a bit disconnected. I suspect as long as she has books and a bunk
to read them in she’ll be fine. However
Sasha is a bit fretful. She’s excited at
the thought of no more actual schoolwork but she loves her teacher, her friends
and the school community. St Caths is a
very special and wonderful place and it’s good to know that when (if?) we come
back in a years time the girls will be able to return.
We’ve decided that the kids and I will
finish at the end of Term 2, which gives us nearly two months. Matt will work as long as he can to keep
filling the coffers. Our three months in
the marina will be up in August 2017 so we plan to head off then. We’re thinking about first of all cruising
around our own backyard, as the Whitsundays are a very special place, then we
can head south at the end of the year and see friends and family down towards
The Sunshine Coast and Fraser Island, away from the Cyclone belt.
Matt and I are already immersed in plans of
what to keep, what to sell and what to move onboard. We suspect we have a very busy three months
ahead of us!
