Sun and heat

   Dorothy has arrived back at the boat but a day late. Her flight from Vancouver to San Fransisco was delayed so missed her next connection. The suitcase with all the boat bits in it did not arrive so we were worried we might not see it again. However it did arrive the next day, delivered to the boat. 
    The weather here is finally back to normal here in Queensland.  After over two months of rain we have finally got more than two days in a row of sunshine.  We are actually on our fifth day with no rain, so I have started doing some painting on the decks.    The trains are free this week because of the floods so we are going to take advantage of that and explore a bit.

Rain and Wind

Back to heavy rain again, some thunder and lightning.  The AM radio is non stop flood talk and road closeres,  many towns are cut off and can't get supplys.  8 people dead and 72 missing from the flash flood at Toowoomba.  There are a bunch of swift water rescues going on now.  More people are stuck on roof tops and car tops.  People are no being told to evacuate the lower levels of Brisbane as at high tide tomorrow there will be flooding.  Hoping it will ease a bit so can get out for a walk here because there is also high winds with the rain.  I have never seen so much bad weather for such a long time

More Rain and Floods

    I am really starting to getting bored with all this rain. The rain now is so bad it even discourages travelling around.  There is a huge number of road closures and the train into Brisbane get delayed sometimes because of flooding and power outages.  It does not help that Queensland is so flat because the water just spreads out everywhere.  Yesterday saw more towns getting some flooding and the city of Toowoomba got hit by a wall of water piling cars on top of each other and killing a dozen people or more, some still missing.  This is just West of Brisbane.  Brisbane itself now can look forward to a bit of flooding because the dam that protects it upstream on the Brisbane river is over full.

The heavy rain seems to have stopped for this morning just a few showers.  But more is coming they say.  By Thursday weather suppose to be a bit better.   Even though I don't like all this rain I do feel sorry for all the people with flooded homes and know I don't have much to complain about.

Bought a new umbrella a couple of days ago as the other one rusted out. An umbrella is not always useful as the rain is sometimes horizontal in the winds.  Not getting much down on boat now as is mostly just painting left to do and need good weather for that.   Just starting to pour rain again, it is very on and off now.  Really looking forward to heading North in April and up to Darwin and to get back to sailing again.

Still Raining in Manly & Up the mast Location: 27 27.447S 153 11.397E

   Yesterday I continued the process of replacing my twin back stays on the boat. I had guyed up the mast good with rope the previous day and lowered the Starboard back stay before the rain started and then it rained the rest of the day. Then yesterday I went up the mast just as the wind was picking up and by the time I was at the top the boat was swaying and the gusts of wind were plucking at me at the top of the mast, so I just tied the new stay off and decided to do the rest when the wind died a bit. The radio was putting out a strong wind warning for the day.  Today I went up the mast at 6AM  before the wind started again and finished the job and then later today between the rain showers replaced the 2nd stay as winds were okay.
There are masts steps on my mast to make the job easier being by myself, and I used a jumar ascender that I slid up a halyard to belay myself in case of a slip.

  We had some heavy rain a couple of days ago and now the Mary river is in danger of flooding. This river is about 50 miles North of us and is a place we are considering hauling out later. There is another heavy rain warning for SE Queensland for tonight (that's us) so will see what happens.  The radio news is saying almost half of Queensland has been flooded to various degrees.  Queensland is 1,727,000 sq km.   almost twice as big as British Columbia (home)

I am spending a lot of time on the computer these days sitting out the rain and with Dorothy away.  I'm going to be real boring now and tell you what I did for dinner.  I cooked up some hamburger meat and noodles and after they were about done I realized I forgot to buy pasta sauce.  So ate with just the meat mixed in and the noodles and I also cooked up some broccoli  which I dumped on top and ate the works after dividing in half so enough for 2 days.  Yumm.  Maybe I will by some pasta sauce for the left overs for tomorrow.