tick tock.

In order for us to actually go, (we've been talking about this for e v e r .)... we had to commit to a date. We were introduced to a wonderful family who were happy to come and live in our home but they needed a date. 'April, May, June, July, might even be August or September' wasn't quite specific enough for them.

Xave's dad was staying with us at the time, and he rather obviously stated that maybe this family was brought into our lives for a 'reason'....

So we accepted his thoughts, and accepted our thoughts of what perfect people they were for our home, and commited ourselves. To a date that is, and now we find ourselves watching the clock.

I have alot to do before we go. I've got to put our entire home into boxes and tubs, and transport them into storage, into the opp shops, and into the yacht.

I've also got to clean the house.

I'm really not very good at cleaning, and Xave has made it perfectly clear that I'm not allowed to hire someone to help.. but what he doesn't know won't ...etc. ( for the record, Xavier reads this blog with great interest). - I've got a wonderful group of friends all of whom seem to keep their homes in an incredibly immaculate condition - I struggle to keep my head above the laundry. Lastly, as I've mentioned before, I've got to try and work out what to take which does my head in every time I think about it. So I don't think about it.

Xave has even more to do.

We still need to get Awaitea onto the slips to be re-antifouled. This is a lousy job, and takes time. Always interesting to see what has made a home on her belly (or her prop for that matter, refer to pic - which incidentally should be inserted at this point, but I can't work out how to do that. If anyone knows, please tell me..). She was supposed to come out of the water a couple of weeks ago, but unfortunately we're still waiting....

Awaitea will always be a work in progress, but for the moment the cabins are done, we have places to sleep (and a spare cabin for our mates!). The Saloon is also done. but as we watch that clock tick tocking along, and as our time is running out, I have said to Xave, that we need 3 more crucial things finished FIRST, in order for us to able to live aboard her in Queenscliff until our departure.

We need a working bathroom - running water, flushing toilet etc etc,

We need a working kitchen (not that I'll be using it) - actually that might have to - dare I say it - change as Xave might be a bit busy doing other stuff!?

and we need some little comforts: a tv / dvd player for times when the s*** is hitting the fan. (Which it shouldn't be if everything has been plumbed in correctly.)

Will keep you posted.. x

'you must be getting excited'.

My answer to this commonly asked question is usually: 'excited and terrified'.

I have a vision of us moored off a palm fringed beach. Roo and Cookie kicking around on the sailing dinghy, zipping from one yacht to the next, picking up new friends from the other boats and being fiercely independant and fabulous. In my vision, the kids are a bit older, never bicker, can swim like olympians, and one in particular doesn't freak out if her toe gets stuck in her undies hole as she's trying to put them on.... . They are tanned and handsome (I know, there's nothing healthy about a tan), polite and loving, and they completely can't get enough of their new life. Xave & I are loving being together, I'm as thin as a rake of course, and each dusk, we meet up on different yachts with new friends for sundowners. Excited.

The reality may be something different.

The kids can't quite swim like olympians - although Lynette is doing a brilliant job teaching Roo - Cooks thinks she can, and is frighteningly full of bravado, but forgets that she has lungs. They are too young to take the sailing dinghy out, and they get along with each other only very occasionally (although thankfully this is improving) and in addition to this, I am starting to get anticipatory bouts of seasickness & I think that I may also be developing a slight case of claustrophobia. Terrified.

The Drama Queen.

I wonder if you all know the story so far. The story of our little boat. Of about how we noticed this vessel for sale years ago for a lot of money. Of about how we noticed this vessel for sale a year later for a bit less, etc etc. Of about how we put in an offensively low offer, and of about how we suddenly found ourselves the proud [and slightly regrettable] new owners of a rusty blue ketch which was then residing in Sydney Harbour.

The broker must not have quite believed his luck.

At this point I should mention, that her run down state, did in no way disguise her beautiful lines, and passionately crafted interior.

The first thing was to bring her down to Victoria. This took two attempts, with the first wave of crew flying up to Sydney, only to come home days later due to delays caused by bad weather and needing to return home for previous commitments. The second time Xave put together a crew again, and set off early one morning from home in a hire car which was promptly written off at the start of the Hume Hwy by a night worker coming home from night shift. Need I say more. The boys were all a bit battered and bruised but chose to continue regardless.

Once in Sydney, they set about preparing the boat for her voyage down to Vic, and no sooner were they underway to bring her to her new home.

During the first half of the trip, it became apparent that the car accident had caused more damage to a crew member than he had first realised, with him needing to be met at Port Kembla by ambulance. He was then forced to go home, leaving the boat at Eden. Another crew member chose to return home as well leaving the remaining crew with no choice but to leave the boat on a borrowed mooring in Eden until a new crew could be assembled. It was also around the time that the equinoxial (?) winds kicked in, making sailing down the East coast a bloody bugger.

When Xave walked in the door, sans boat, I asked him if I could rename Awaitea 'The Drama Queen'. He said, 'no, it's bad luck to rename a boat.'

She spent months in Eden due to a combination of lousy weather, and busy crew members. During her Spring 'rest' she was privy to one of the worst storms in Eden in 80 years. I'm talking NASTY. The kind of storm that caused a van to be blown off the Eden pier. The kind of storm to blow yachts off their moorings. The kind of storm to blow OUR yacht off her mooring.

Yep.

We got a late night wake up call from the Eden water police telling us that our yacht had come off her mooring, and was sitting on the rocks at the base of a cliff. Xave and I organised a mate to come and watch Alex and Dan, (thanks Kirney) and drove up the next morning to see what we could do.

It was a bizarre sight. she was wedged in a crevice of rock, just above the high tide mark, sitting unbelievably upright. She had a hole in her belly, and the tide was going to be a ripper that night. We had about 4 hours to get her off that rock, or she'd fill with water and start sinking. Yippety - flippin - yee.

'Xave, can I rename her The Drama Queen now?'. 'No, it's bad luck to rename a boat.'

The combined efforts of the Eden water police and Xave & I - I felt like I was on the set of Water Rats, I tell you, scrambling down the cliff face with the uniformed boys, ropes in arms...WE WERE ON FIRE, (in a water ratty sorta way) one almighty surge of water, coupled with a fierce tug from the water police boat, and she was finally freed and towed to the pier by the water police. You'd think that would be it. wouldn't you......

NO. There was no room at the Inn.... (on the slips) for our girl, and being that she had a hole in her belly, Xave & I had to spend the next 24 hours pumping out the bilge with a rip starting petrol pump every hour to prevent her from sinking. Finally she was hoisted onto the slips where she spent the next 8 months, give or take, being 'FIXED' in every possible sarcastic sense of the word.

Months later, when she was deemed 'repaired', Xave returned to Eden for a trial sail prior to finally bringing her home, only to have the gear box seize, engine found to be full of water, and broken engine mounts, etc etc etc.

Back on the slips.....

... and then back in the water. Xave and his mate, set off from Eden, with our boat having been pretty much rebuilt (except for the failure to reconnect the alternator to the batteries, and the failure to clean out the fuel tank, leaving it full of sludge,) causing engine failure at 3am with no lights in the middle of bloody who knows where.

We're glad we had it professionally repaired.

I think at this point, having not heard from Xave when he was due to call, I had called every possible emergency number I could think of, who were all on the look out for Xave and the yacht. I had convinced myself that they had disappeared in a 'Tasman Triangle' and was quite hysterical (who me? surely not) when the coast guard finally called to say where they were -Port Welshpool. Getting the alternator fixed.

They arrived home the next day. A little light in the distance, bobbing up and down, a very very relieved wife. A very very exhaused couple of blokes and a lovely blue ketch. Full of rust, but with beautiful, beautiful lines.

'Now can I call her The Drama Queen?' I think in our case, it would be bad luck not to rename her.