Author: Ning Xue

22/09/2020

Last night there was dead calm, and this morning there was a warm northeast breeze. I was still oiling the teak in the front cabin, J came over and said we might need to get ready to head south, today, so we could go a few miles while the northerly was blowing. I immediately dropped the brush and went to the supermarket with him to resupply food for two weeks, as I was not expecting to leave today at all. At 2:30pm, we lifted the anchor and sailed away from Airlie Beach. Just after we left Pioneer Bay, Daryl, the buyer from Makay, knew we were leaving and made another offer. After a few bargains, it finally reached the price we wanted, and he agreed not to survey. We accepted immediately and opened a bottle of non-alcohol beer to celebrate. When we left Airlie we texted Bob to let him know we were off, he crossed his fingers and wished us luck, it worked, thanks Bob! In the evening we anchored at the southwest corner of South Molle.

It was a magical day, all decisions were made at the last minute: last minute to leave Airlie for Brisbane; last minute to reoffer; last minute to sell the boat; last minute to anchor before dark.

Fried Hokkien noodles with chicken for dinner.

21/09/2020

Woke up early in the morning, went to Bunnings and came back to continue cleaning and oiling the wood.

Feeling J was a bit low today, as he told me later, mainly because the pair who looked interested in buying our boat gave up. We had to sail Dagmar back to Brisbane as planned, but the northerly breeze has been lazy for the past two days, plus he’s not too happy with the work he did today. All I could say was that it’s not uncommon for things to go not as you wished in life, and it’s rare for things to go right all the time, but we’ve been lucky enough, and things could be worse.

I took a shower in the afternoon and had my first domino pizza in my life, which was fine except for the terrible base.

20/09/2020

As I continue to translate Yrvind’s article, I have more respect for his attitude not bowing to authority. When I recalled those rebellious boys who were humiliated and punished repeatedly by our teachers at schools, they were heroes.

In the afternoon, I continued to oil the wood in the bow cabin.

Roasted pumpkin with black bean and canned dace for dinner… quite tasty!

The whole pumpkin lasted all week! It is the best veggie to keep onboard.