Buccaneer Bound: The Final Countdown

It only took them 2 months, a bit of LinkedIn stalking, 3 loan cars and a couple of hissy fits, be we finally have the Dmax back online with a new motor with a week and a half to spare before departure day!

It wasn't easy. After 3 weeks in the repair shop, Isuzu Australia agreed to replace the motor since the compression tests showed that the cylinders were buggered (we didn't know why at the time). 2 days later Isuzu Japan weighed in with a "Nope. Run more tests". Actually, "Run the same tests over and over again". FFS okay.

This went on for weeks. Norris Motor group were pretty helpful by providing us with various Hyundai Death Traps to drive around in the meantime. But they kept selling them, and we had to keep swapping cars.

The Isuzu service desk lady was insistent that their company policy didn't allow customers to escalate (I mean how is that even a policy?) so eventually Daz and I hooked up linked in Premium and sent some polite messages to some Isuzu senior execs. While they never responded to us, it seemed to light a fire inside Isuzu and next thing there was an engineer sent to the repair shop to look for themselves. He diagnosed that the emissions reduction thing had cracked and leaked something over the head gasket and chewed it out, then it ran down into the cylinders and buggered them up too (or something like that). The bad news was that they decided to replace the busted parts instead of the entire motor at that point, stating that all the parts were in AU and it could be done within a week.

Two days later there's a phone call. "You want the good news or the bad news? Bad news is that the parts aren't actually in Australia, they're in Japan and it'll take six weeks to get here".

riiight (deep breathing exercise time). "The good news is Isuzu is going to loan you a ute for the six weeks"

Thus commenced a comical discussion as the lady asked Daz how many Kms he thinks he'll do....

"well we're going to Derby"

"oh is that far?"

"about 6000km"...."each way"

"Oh (pause) ..uhhh...what for?

"Towing a boat to the Kimberley for holidays"

"dirt road?"

"No"

"Big boat?"

New Motor for the Dmax arriving

"Big enough to bugger the stock suspension on a Dmax. Can you make sure it's got an anderson plug for the break controller on it. Oh and RACQ ultimate insurance please"

"uhhh...ok we'll work something out" (you could hear the whites of her eyes rolling around her head)

Meanwhile I'm in the background rolling my eyes and ranting "Who the hell is doing the maths on this deal? They're an idiot. By the time we put 15000 km on their loan-car and fuck the suspension and it gets all the stone chips, and Isuzu have still pay for all the parts and labour on our Dmax, SURELY that's gunna cost more than just putting the new motor in it. We already know there's one at Corparoo....muppets"

Daz deciphered that into something marginally more polite. Two hours later there was another call. "We're replacing the motor". Two hours after the lady a Norris Motor Group sent us this photo of our motor arriving. And a few days later we collected the Dmax with new motor. Phew!!

Boat & Dmax back in action

While all that was going on Club Marine sorted out the Skeg on the motor with significantly less drama. And we got the outboard serviced. On Sunday we took it for a quick spin on Moreton Bay to check it out, and I'm relieved to say that both Boat and Dmax are now in tip top condition and ready to roll.

So there's been something else we've been working on. We've been trying to work out how to moor a boat when you camp on a beach with 10m tidal movements and crocodiles (ie we want to be able to get to it without swimming, but not have it high and dry 90% of the time). So we've done a bit of experimenting with something we've dubbed "the circular mooring system" (a different type of CMS to the one I usually deal with!)

The theory is this:

The Circular Mooring System in theory

A couple of Skegless trips to Moreton Island gave us a chance to test it out in practise. Setting it up without going for a swim takes a bit of careful choreographing, and we stuffed up a few times on the first attempt. But attempt number 2 worked a treat. So hopefully that's another unknown solved.

....And in practice

So now it's time for work handovers, final packing, and safety plans. I'm trying to set up a GPS tracking page with the Garmin InReach so you can check where we are when we're out of contact. But really I think we've broken the back of all the prep and packing now. This time next week we'll be on our way. (eeeEEEP!!).

Here's a few random pics of packing, planning and equipment testing happiness....