Hi to all,
Well, the best news is that Jean is definitely improving. She still has to be extremely stringent as to her diet - nothing acidic basically. This means no alcohol, coffee, most fruits, and no gluten. It's very restrictive but we're hoping that as time goes on the need for most of these restrictions will lessen.
We've been settling into life here - finding our way about, going to the weekly Cairns (Rusty's) Market and getting various items needed for the boat. We went to the cinema the other day and saw an Australian made film, The Sapphires. This is about a quartet of Aboriginal female singers who were discovered and eventually taken to Vietnam during the Vietnam War to entertain the troops. It was a poignant film and dealt with all the issues of the day, particularly some pretty nasty discriminatory racism which was the case in most of Australia in those days.
This marina (Yorkeys Knob Boating Club) has a courtesy mini bus which goes to a major local shopping mall at Smithfield 3 times a week so provisioning is no problem. In addition the buses into Cairns leave from a stop about 800 metres from the marina. Only problem there is that direct buses to town only run at commuter times. Otherwise it's necessary to change buses at Smithfield or the James Cook University campus. Then it can take an hour and a half!!
We are getting on with the deck caulking - we've now completed 16 out of 22 (73%) as well as some shorter seams on the foredeck and in the cockpit. We've now still got about 2 weeks here and hope that we might have completed most of them before then.
On that subject we have had a most disappointing time over the last month or so. We withdrew from the Louisiades Rally in early August when we realised that it would not be a good idea to take part in view of Jean's health. We asked for our fee ($A990 - over $NZ1,200) to be refunded and were refused point blank in a most discourteous and peremptory fashion. Our reaction was predictable and we threatened them with legal action but the cancellation policy as written is at best misleading and at worst deliberately misleading. There seems some doubt as to whether we would succeed or otherwise. However, part of the rally deal was that we would get a "free" week's berthage from 8/9 to 15/9 so we are determined to stay and at least recover that, although for us the week is of course far from "free" and the stay here has now become quite unpleasant. The whole business has left a very nasty taste and we will be doing everything we can to make people aware that if they do enter this rally in future, they would need to be very sure they won't be cancelling. In addition to all this we were made aware by the rally organiser of a dodgy arrangement they have with the marina for the "free" week for rally participants. This is supposed to be highly confidential. Since we told them that this could well become public as an unintended result of any legal action we might take, we've been threatened with expulsion from the marina and being sued for libel!! Another issue that arose was that we needed another 2 weeks between our last month for which we had paid at the monthly rate and the start of the "free" week. The marina told us that, as this was less than a month we would have to pay the weekly rate, in spite of having been here for 2 months already!! We refused point blank and then they backed down and said we could have the 2 weeks at the monthly rate. However, it was actually 12 days and we had to point this out to them too. So, things here are only fair to middling and we are looking forward to the day when we can leave.
We intend to go out to Fitzroy Is. for a few days before we go to another marina where we expect we will be much happier - and more secure from cyclones. The litany above is an entirely new and unpleasant experience for us. Since 2009 we have been in 3 marinas in NZ - Town Basin and Marsden Cove in Whangarei and Opua in the Bay of Islands. In addition we have been in 2 marinas in New Caledonia - Port Moselle in Noumea and Koumac in the north and now 4 in Australia - Port Bundaberg for 4 months, Abel Point at Airlie Beach, Breakwater at Townsville and now here. This is 9 marinas (some for considerable periods of time) and we have never been treated as we have been here. In particular we have very fond memories of all of the above marinas and we miss the friendly people we invariably met.
Sadly the Louisiades Rally and the Yorkeys Knob Boating Club Marina will not be getting any good publicity from us.
Cheers from us
Tiare Taporo III
www.tiaretaporo3.blogspot.com
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