Thursday 15 July 2021
After getting to bed close to 3am for the last few nights, this morning was a serious sleep-in, with few signs of life onboard till after 10:00am.
The weather was once again stable and sunny, and even warm for a few hours in the middle of the day, but it looks like we are in for a bit of a blow over the next few days, which I suspect we’ll be experiencing from here at the marina as we continue to await a response to our hotel exemption application.
Meanwhile, in other news, Linda is feeling much better and has booked her flight home to Melbourne for Tuesday next week. She is still staying in Paihia, and yesterday actually took a photo of a yacht anchored off Paihia which looked very much like Chimere … before becoming aware that it actually WAS us doing our grocery shopping for our intended voyage home to Australia.
Today, Linda had an outing … catching the Happy Ferry across to the small town of Russell – New Zealand’s first national capital. As you can see from the photos, it really is an historic place, dating from the 1830s
of “no hands”
After sleeping in to around 10:00am, which is really only 8:00am in Melbourne of course, I spent much of the day sitting at a computer sending and replying to emails – NZ Customs, Australian Borderforce, Australian Quarantine, Customs Agents, Victorian Health Department … feels like there were more organisations. But at the moment, everything hangs on us obtaining a “Quarantine Exemption” from the Victorian Health Department through a unit called the … Compliance & Enforcement Branch | Engagement & Delivery Division.
Despite everything, I still have a degree of optimism about the final decision – that it will come down in our favour. Maybe that optimism will prove to be mis-placed, after all, I still go fishing yet catch very few fish … but based on common sense and the simple facts of our case, you have to conclude that we present NO extra COVID risk to the State of Victoria, or Australia. But sadly, as you get older you come to realise that whoever coined the phrase “commonsense” was probably being ironic.
But, there’s always got to be a Plan B, or maybe even a Plan C and D, because if we don’t get a favourable decision, my crew – and me – will need to reassess the whole idea of sailing back to Australia.
We might have been able to allocated 2-3 weeks for this sailing voyage, but to top that off with 2 weeks in hotel quarantine on arrival, at our own expense, is a bridge too far. Particularly when logic suggests we’d have more chance of actually contracting COVID in hotel quarantine than from being at sea for two weeks – talk about the ultimate isolation!
The rest of today, the guys just, how you say … “chilled” … reading and watching videos on an iPad in the Marina Lounge, having a coffee at the local café or going for walks along the waterfront. I even had a shower … which I suppose isn’t really news, but there’s a strategic element to spending $2 on a 5-minute shower that is worth relating.
It might derive from a sense of feeling “institutionalised” – working within other people’s systems and being part of a big marina’s “service delivery offering” … and when it comes to an “extra”, like hot water, your mind starts to find loopholes, workarounds and ways to beat the system.
I was immediately aware of this the first time I washed my hands in the basin. “That’s funny” I thought … “you have to pay $2 for a shower, and yet here we are with free hot water in the handbasin”.
Trouble was, the water only ran for about 10 seconds after every push of the tap’s knob. Any thought of arbitraging the system by way of a 5-metre hose from the basin to the shower were quickly discounted by the automated, press button tap.
Then Linda, with her long flowing hair, came back from the showers the other day complaining … “That’s NOT a 5 minute shower, you’re lucky if you get 3 minutes. The first two minutes it’s cold water until the hot water comes through”. As you can appreciate, Linda needs a lot of water to soap and rinse her hair, whereas me … not so …
Then, the next day Linda observed another woman in the shower … NOT exactly IN the shower, they have doors now … no, more in preparation FOR a shower. “She brought her OWN basin” related Linda … and then she filled it up from the hand basin, then used that in the shower to wash and rinse her hair”
So, the arbitrage solution was a bowl, NOT a hose … I knew it !!??
I don’t think Linda actually took a basin herself the next time, but some people have been stuck here, living on their yachts for over a year now – unable to leave and unable to go anywhere, or come back if they do – so any “win” against a system is one to take.
After spending a few extra days touring around, James and Eva flew back to Melbourne today, on their way to Canberra – talk about good timing! Again.
So hopefully with the current lockdown in Victoria they are still able to find their way home to the ACT – I know going the other way would definitely be a no-no; ACT having joined NSW as the latest … pariah states.
As for tomorrow, I’m hopeful of having something positive to report, because the ever-important “weather window” is looking very good for a departure on Monday. But, I’ve given up holding my breath, otherwise I’d definitely be blue in the face by now.
Smooth seas, fair breeze and still treading water
Rob Latimer
NZ2020 