We are on the hard in Brisbane and despite the not favourable weather we have managed to get two coats of bottom paint on. It rained cats and dogs, or as my buddy Mike might say, Siamese and Dobermans, on Monday but we sanded down the gouges we had created in Vanuatu and made sure the bottom and hull were really clean. On Tuesday the rain was spotty and we put on coat along the water line while I filled up the gouges with Epifill, five hours later I sanded the fill to near perfection and we start painting. The weather held until almost the last and then it sprinkled a bit. It was not ideal conditions but it seems to be okay. We put the second coat on this morning, one more coat at the waterline late this afternoon and we should be good to go.

The boat yard is pretty spiffy and we are paying a pretty penny, but it was the only spot that could get us in on short notice, we aren't the best planners. One of our friends suggested that we cancel out because it was going to be rainy but we are glad we didn't. I had visions of us being here over the Easter weekend but unless their equipment breaks down we should be going in Thur. around noon. Oh yeah, the spiffy marina, notice the steps, we don't have to clamber up and down a ladder. I wanted to do my impression of "Here she come, Miss America" down the steps (Notice the very nicely painted bottom in the background). The other very impressive thing about this marina is that the laundry is free, OMG, it is so hard to believe, you walk in and there is nowhere to put your money in the machines, I was flabergasted. As a result we are washing and drying, I might add, everything we can think off, today it was the covers for the fenders and the cockpit cushions. I will probably wash all our dirty clothes again tonight so we can set of clean tomorrow.

The other thing we have managed to accomplish while we are here is to change our chain (it is rather hard to do that when you are at anchor with a 4 knot current rushing by you). Barry never did like the link we had to put into our re-galvinished chain in New Zealand so we ordered new stuff and here it is. We marked it in meters, flourescent green and pink, hoping those colours will last awhile. This to a yachtie is a wonder, beautiful new chain, when Barry pulled it up it slipped through the gypsum without a catch and tumbled obediently into the chain locker. I hope there was some ohhs and ahhs out there from our cruising buddies because this is definitely a high light.

Just about to be hauled out