- Date: April 16, 1987
- Location: Cairns, Australia
- Subject: Picking up Capt at the Wharf and Laundry Day
Dear WaterFairy:
Well, the first thing to tell you about is last night’s adventure. We had to meet Capt at 11:30pm, under the sugar wharf, which is located directly across the harbor from our pilings. Usually, when we go ashore, we aim the dinghy on a diagonal, north-east out to the harbor’s mouth and land at the Cairns Yacht beach, which takes about 12 minutes, depending on the wind, tide and such. Last night’s crossing only took about 5 minutes.
We left Sacha-B at 11:15 pm, with a flashlight, flask of hot tea, water and some snack., Mom said she was unsure how long we would be gone, and she always prepares for the worst. Her motto is, “If you have a plan B you probably won’t need it”. If all goes well, we would be back on board by mid-night. But plans don’t always work out perfectly. Thankfully, the night was not completely pitch black dark, because the full moon was just two nights ago, and the almost full moon, called a waning gibbous, was still bright enough for us to see where we were going. It was really cool because the water looks black, but the sky is a light silver and the moonbeams twinkly white of the water, like silver sparkly glitter. We made it to the wharf around low tide. That means we were sitting about 15 feet below the wharf, and the pilings that were holding the wharf up, were about 13 feet out of the water. We tied the dinghy off to the ladder that was attached to one of the piles. I was wondering how Capt was going to get down to us, but now I know! We were able to see all kinds of plants and animals that live on the pilings, which are covered with sea water at high tide, and uncovered at low tide. There were barnacles, and some mussels clinging to the pilings and a few starfish, along with some seaweeds. Under the wharf, we could hear little splashes of fish either being chased, or doing the chasing. There were also lots of popping noises and some other weird gurgling noises. Mom wasn’t sure what or who was making the noise. Mom was keeping a very watchful eye out for crocodiles, even though there has not been a croc sighting in the harbor for a very long time. If you shine your flashlight all around in the dark, and see two yellow glowing circles, you know you are in the company of a croc and you better skedaddle. Luckily, we did not see any glowing yellow circles. Capt got to the wharf about 11:15pm and was using his Kookaburra call to let us know he was there. I answered with my best Kookaburra return, so Capt found us, scurried down the ladder and off we went back home and like Mom said, in bed before midnight. Capt of course, had a cup of tea from the flask we made earlier and then went to bed. Capt usually goes to bed around 9 at night so it was a very late night for him. But he went to bed happy because he saw his friend John, and he got the parts for “Mr. Gardner, Sir” (our main engine)..
We all got up a little later than usual, but that does not stop us from having to do today’s chore—which is laundry. There are lots of things I like about laundry day. It takes almost all day, so I don’t get bored. We will go ashore and walk around, so that is fun, and we will probably go to the pastry shop for a treat, and I love that. But it is also hard work! First, we have to gather up all of the dirty laundry, strip the sheets off of all the bunks, find all the dirty towels and stuff everything into the sail bags. My job is to remember to get the laundry soap and all the coins for the machines. We keep a collection of change in a prescription pill container which is the perfect size for the coins, right near the laundry soap.
Now I am going to tell you how we get all the laundry to the laundromat. First, we get all the sail bags filled with dirty laundry to the aft deck. We also have the 2-wheeled folding grocery cart, which we will use to wheel the laundry to the laundromat. Capt pulls the dinghy to the side of Sacha-B , and holds it steady while Mom hands him the big bags of clothes. Capt puts the laundry in the middle of the dinghy for balance. Then Mom climbs over the lifeline and into the dinghy. Next it is me, over the life lines and BIG drop into the dinghy. I sit in the back, next to the outboard motor, and Capt and Mom sit in the middle. Before Capt sits down, he unties “DingDong” and shoves us off Sacha-B. That is my cue to gently engage the outboard, and OFF we go. Mom is the lookout for oncoming traffic, Capt keeps an eye on me and makes sure I am heading in the right direction. Of course, we have to cross the harbor to get to town. Today we will anchor on the beach of the Yacht Club. It is going to be tricky because the tide is coming in, and it rushes in at a rate of about 5 knots and the tide incoming tide keeps pulling us backwards toward the creek, so I really have to calculate the angle I will steer “DingDong”. It feels like a tug of war between the outboard and the tide.
Once we land at the Yacht Club beach, we have to do some math to figure out where to put the anchor. It is almost exactly high tide when we get to the beach, but it will probably be almost LOW tide when we come back in about 5 hours, so we calculate where to put the anchor, which is about 40 feet from the high tide mark. Before we anchor, Capt drags the “DingDong” to the high tide mark, and puts all the bags of dirty laundry on the beach. Mom and I also get out. Capt will walk the dinghy back out into the water and set the anchor. By the time we get back, the tide will be way far out, and our dinghy will probably be sitting on the beach.
We load up all the laundry into the 2-wheel cart and head into town to the laundromat. Capt leaves us to go to the chandlery (place to buy boat parts), and we will meet him later this afternoon at the yacht club. First stop we make is to the Post Office. I wait outside with the cart of laundry, while Mom goes in and checks our post office box. Lucky day we got some REAL mail from Gramma and Uncle Stephen and Mom’s friend Katie. Mom also bought some stamps, so we can write lots of letters before we leave on our trip.
We walked about 3 blocks through town wheelying the laundry to the laundromat. We were lucky, because it was still fairly early in the morning, we got 5 washing machines. Sometimes there are not enough empty machines for us to do all our laundry at once, so it takes forever to wait for empty machines. We loaded the machines up, put the soap in, deposit the coins, and turned the machines on. Mom and I have a system, she loads the machines and I put in the coins and turn on the machine. We had 45 minutes before the wash was done, so we walked over to Coles, checked out some prices for supplies that we would need to get later to finish provisioning the boat for our trip. We were also lucky when we got back, because there were dryers open for us. Sometimes, we bring the wet laundry back to the boat and hand it out on the lifelines, but because it was so humid and a little rainy, Mom said it was just easier to dry everything now. Plus, we are getting ready to go to Fitzroy Island for Easter weekend, so we were in a hurry to just get the job done.
My favorite part of the chore is going next door to Mozart’s pastry shoppe to wait for the laundry to dry. I get a huge, sugary pastry, Mom gets a cappuccino. She says it’s our a reward for a job well done, even though we are not done yet. Mom likes the pastry shop because it is very European and reminds her of when she traveled Europe when she was in her twenties. She went to many pastry shops in Germany, Austria, and Switzerland. She told me one of the reasons it is so European is that no matter what you order it comes on a small silver tray with a paper lacy doily, a small glass of water and a folded napkin in the shape of the Sydney Opera House. Very fancy. We took our little tray outside and sat on the sidewalk to watch the world go by and to read the mail. Mom read her letters to herself first, then read them outloud to me. It is fun to get mail.
Getting the clean laundry back on the boat is just like getting it off, only everything is in reverse. When we got back to the dinghy, sure enough it was about 35 feet from the high tide mark, sitting on the mucky bottom. The tide was still going out, so we will have to aim the dinghy way over to the right of where the boat is, so we don’t get dragged out to sea. I got to drive home. Capt says I am turning into their private taxi driver, and said it was good practice for when they get old and I have to wheel them around in their wheelchair. Capt said he is still working out the details about how I am going to get him onboard Sacha-B in his wheelchair, when he is old. Tonight, we are going over to Sunshine and Whiskey for happy hour. I hope Hannah will be there, she said she would read some of Mary Poppins out loud to me. The grown-up will be talking about their plans for the weekend at Fitzroy Island. I think it will be an early night for all of us, because it was a busy week and last night was very late. byebyebyebye for now.
