Buccaneer Bound: The Ocean is Calling

Well here we are in Derby, the evening before we launch the boats and hit the Buccaneer Archipeligo. We arrived in Derby as planned on Saturday (2 nights ago) with everyone feeling pretty flogged.

In our case the lack of Air Con for 4 days had left us all dried out like pieces of biltong thanks to about 5 hours of hot air buffeting at 110kmph per day.

So upon arrival at Derby we were very thankful to be allocated a couple of big green grassy shady sites with water and power in the back corner of the Kimberley Entrance Caravan Park. We set up an then setteled in for a few well earned beers.

Next morning (yesterday) was battle stations as we cleaned up the boats and started to reconfigure everything ready for the boat trip. Bit of a wash, shade bimini fitted, mozzie nets fitted, Water tanks filled, anchors, buffers, fridges all fitted. It took most of the day to get the boats ship shape and in the afternoon Daz and I went to the servo to do the big fuel top up. 393L later ($680) we headed back to the caravan park with the boat feeling awefully heavy on the back. When We got back one of the fuel bladders (the new one) was leaking fuel around the hose connector thread so we had to do a bit of a repair job on it.

A bloke in a nearby camp launched his boat for a week on the water that morning. We'd been chatting to them and he mentioned he'd lost a life jacket out of the boat on the road (must have flown out in the wind). He couldn't get another because all the shops were closed on the sunday so he was about to head out without one. So I sold him one of our nice inflatable jackets with the intention of buying a replacement on monday. Well today arrived and the only life jackets to be found in Derby were those cheap shit pieces of square foam. So once again good deeds go rewarded with getting screwed over

Last night was State of Origin night, so we went to the pub for dinner. Daz almost got belted when the commentry before the game started with Fatty Vaughton talking his usual crap. Daz said something about Fatty Vaughton just as a lady pulled up a seat in front of him. She must have heard Daz say "Fatty" and assumed he was having a go at her, so next thing she turned on him with a rather sharp "excuse me?".. (commence Daz back peddaling while we all smirked). She didn't stay long after that. The night didn't get much better, with NSW trouncing QLD (and there's me in my Maroons shirt!) so we left to go home before Daz got into another brawl. Walking home in the dark Bruce rolled his ankle off the edge of the road and went down hard in a full body slam on the road. It's wasn't pretty and for a few long moments I thought he was in serious trouble. But he slowly came good and we soon had him up and home. He's got a swolen ankle and some sore ribs and wrist, and a few bits of bark off. But his a tough old bugger and hasn't missed a beat.

Today for Jessica's Birthday, we packed up the last of the gear (tents, bedding, cookers, food) onto the boat, and did the last of the food shopping. We had to pick up a few last minute items from the camp store and Daz has been ATMing his heart out to get enough cash ($3500) to pay for more fuel at Cockatoo Island. We managed to get it all done with enough time to dye and trim my hair. I'm looking dead sexy now!!

So now we're ready for the next phase. Tomorrow we'll be launching the boats at about 6am to conincide with the high tide. The weather is looking pretty good for us and so it's all systems go!

Next post will be from somewhere in the Buccaneer Archipeligo!