back to the bossa

After our summer at home in Victoria, we are now back on The Bossa, our second ‘home’.  It’s not hard to understand why so many Victorians escape our Victorian winters as we’ve had day after day of sunshine here, such glorious weather.

No time to relax though. We spent nearly three weeks getting sorted. We’ve done the usual annual maintenance at The Boatworks of anti foul, prop speed and engine services, along with adding a few new changes and toys. We got our teak floor sanded and re-oiled which now looks like new, replaced a few fittings that were a bit tired after 10 years on the water, sorted our starboard engine idling issue by replacing the diesel filter, sourced and replaced some broken mainsail slugs on the mast, found a sailmaker (ours has retired) to restitch our screecher so it furls correctly, unexpectedly fixed our anchor winch which meant disassembling it and finding an engineer to retap some bolt holes (fortunately this was discovered while on the hardstand) and replanted my vegie garden for the season. But, there’s always ‘one more thing’. Our port waterpump died as the captain had his last shower before departing, which meant yet another visit to the shops! Did I mention shopping? I’d hate to add up all those receipts that have gathered in the car glovebox.

So how did our first season go with on water storage? You may remember we’ve always stored The Bossa on the hardstand at The Boatworks. There has always been considerable comfort leaving our boat out of the water and we’ve also appreciated The Boatworks attentiveness to security and care, so leaving our boat in the water was always going to be a bit more of a concern when we live so far away. But, the upshot is we have been quite happy. The birds were probably our biggest problem.  We dropped the lifelines and added netting before we left in 2023, which did help, but they found other spots to do their thing. Fortunately there was a big summer of rain up here and after, I think it was four washes from us, (including the purchase of a pressure washer), followed by Ben’s polishing and another wash, before The Bossa was all shiny once again!

Who stole our helm seat??

When we were packing up The Bossa at the end of the 2023 season, we had a discussion about re-covering or even replacing our 10 year old helm seat which was looking a tad tired. The ensuing disagreement was about when and where to do this. The captain wanted it to stay on the boat and sort in 2024, so he could visit and use the boat during the off-season, whereas I suggested we could take it with us in the car to sort at home, thinking ‘he won’t visit during the summer’. Might be a first, but we both recall the captain won the battle. So when we returned home, my list of ‘boat jobs’ included getting a quote on re-covering versus replacement of the helm seat, which I did do over the phone. We even discussed the quote and decided to sort it at Boatworks when we returned.

So, when we did return to The Bossa, we were devastated to see that someone had stolen our helm seat! Who would steal a helm seat?! Hang on, what, really.  My investigative brain came in to play. I remembered I had taken a photo as we departed in 2023, which I found. Proof … there was no helm seat ,which meant we had taken it home! (We also found the canvas helm seat cover in our car’s boat bits tub which confirmed it must have been taken home.) 

Two ‘homes’ can be tricky and perhaps a bit of old-timer’s disease??!!

So … no, we have not found our helm seat. Neither of us are convinced it is sitting at home.  I (yes me) must have taken it to our canvas man for a quote. I have no recollection of doing so and he claims (after a phone call) he doesn’t have it. That’s okay, we’ll just buy a new helm seat.

Well, the saga continued and became one drama after another, mainly because the post mount that connected to our pedestal was of course attached to the missing seat. We also discovered we had an unusual sized pedestal from a company who had closed, so replacing the post mount was another challenge. A challenge we won and then after chasing down some helm seats we could actually sit on and try (yes really, so many were only available online), we found one we are very happy with. A comfy, smart helm seat for the captain!

One day the phone call will come … your helm seat’s ready to collect! 

The biggest addition to The Bossa is a washing machine. I’ve been very happy for 10 years not washing. I’ve seen so many boats displaying their lingerie and attire incessantly.  Not me.  I’m happy to wash every few weeks at the next laundromat. I think the captain liked the challenge of a new project and after meeting up with Reeflection last season who had just installed one, it was quietly added to the 2024 job list.

There’s a new movie coming out called Fly Me To The Moon. Well, if boats could fly … we were certainly on the way. When the washing machine hit spin mode, it shook the whole boat so violently the captain and I had to race in to the bow and wrestle it still, till it finished its cycle. Nothing a few more bolts, some T Rex glue and finally fiberglass couldn’t fix. It’s only a 2.5 kg machine using 28 litres of water per wash, but it will come in handy. It does look like something from outer space too, so we’ve now called it Apollo.

We are now anchored at Garry’s Anchorage in the Sandy Straits with our friends on Waterfront and Skedaddle. We all coincidentally left Moreton Bay together and it is fun to sail in company. We had a very brisk, fast sail from Raby Bay in Moreton Bay, passing Mooloolaba early, so we ventured further to Noosa where we anchored for the night. This turned out to be a great decision as we then only had a short leisurely motor sail to the Wide Bay Bar crossing.  We’ve had such beautiful weather.

Just a reminder … you can select each photo for a larger view and sometimes a caption.