Fran Experienced a Squashed Fingernail!
6 Nov 2007 During the rough sailing off Frazer Island Queensland the cockpit slider slammed forward and squashed Fran's right finger nail! Ouch! Fortunately when the blood blister formed there was a pin hole leak otherwise Dr Jim would have had to burn a hole in it with a red hot paper clip to let the blood out. Double ouch!
I've been wearing a bandage ever since and slowly the nail is lifting off. However it will be better if the new nail forms underneath. Imagine sailing ever day and trying to keep one's finger dry and trying not to bump it. Impossible!
There is nothing relaxing about rough weather sailing as things chance so dramatically at any time. Bring on the FUN part of this adventure!
Fran Welsh
Clearing Customs -Townsville
7 Nov 2007Clearing out of Townsville was very interesting. We rocked up to the Customs Office at 4pm. Tom had already been there earlier in the week to get our Departure forms. He had also phoned to give them our departure time and to make an appointment to visit the office.
When we arrived the Customs Officer didn't know that we were leaving the next day! We wondered if this was a case of the right hand not knowing what the left is doing! Then he told us that he had researched the files for Hamamas and had discovered that she had once been PNG registered and had arrived in Townsville in 1993. Then they had not heard anymore about her until the import Tax had been paid some time later. He seemed quite chuffed that he could tell us this but of course we already knew about it.
The Customs officer then proceded to process us .We filled out all the necessary forms for the GST refund on fuel and our new anchor as well as the forms for Customs and Immigration. Just when we thought we were about finished Tom mentioned the 22 rifle that we had on board. Well that set the cat among the pigeons as there were heaps more paper work that had to be done if we were taking a gun offshore! Bear in mind by this time it was 4.45pm on a Friday afternoon and we started to wonder if we would be finished by 5pm the usual knock off time.
Then the Customs officer suggested that we leave it behind to save all this paper work and perhaps hassels and lots more paper work in each country we visited. Tom thought about it for a while and then decided that he would. However, we then found out that it wasn't as simple as just leaving it with a friend or Customs. Oh no, there was a special process for surrending guns that had to be strickly adherred to!
The strategy was for Tom to go to the Police Station and see if he could actually surrender it. So we all went with him as we were curious to hear what they had to say. The Police Officer on duty said it was ok to surrender it so long as we were able to get it to them. At first we had thought they would come down to the boat and collect it or we could just remove the bolt and give that to them! But no, the 22 with the bolt removed had to be bought back to the Police Station and then surrendered after filling in lots more forms!
On the long walk back to Hamamas in the Marina where the 22 rifle was, we debated whether or not we could acheive the surrendering of the gun. The Customs Officer had said that if the rifle was surrendered sucessfully we could leave early as they had completed all the paper work they needed. We really wanted to depart early the next day as we had a good weather window for the crossing to the Louisiades. So of course we all had our fingers crossed. Nothing is more disappointing than to be all prepared with full fuel, water, provisions and have the right weather for a crossing of hundreds of nautical miles and miss that weather window!
So by this stage we were walking very fast and it was also getting darker. Remember there is no long twilight in the tropics. Finally we arrived back at the boat and Tom very quickly got the rifle, removed the bolt and wrapped both in a blanket then commenced the long walk back to the Police Station. We chose to stay on the boat as by now were were very tired it
Poor Tom was a tad nervous on this walk back as Townsville does have a few seedy characters about after dark. He must have looked rather suscpcious wandering around town with a long object wrapped in a blacket! Finally he arrived at the Police Station and without any hassel was able to surrender the rifle with removed the bolt ! Of course then we gleefully welcomed him as it meant we had cleared Customs and could leave on schedule early the next morning!
7 Nov 2007
