"Today I ..." wanna post a view on the latest bureaucratic rent-seeking being suggested for the once fair CBD of Pert.
They wanna put a toll on car access.
(sigh)
Aside from a crap road system as it is (shouldn't a riverside road follow the river all the way in both directions ? shouldn't a coast road actually follow the coast all the way ?), the city is basically already DEAD compared to how it used to be back in the late 1970s early 1980s.
Back then, the city was the Place To Be near every night and especially on Thursday nights.
Rather than lifeless malls we had things called ROADS and PARKING SPACES where everyone would cruise in on/in their hotted up cars and motorbikes and park all in a row. The first bikers in on the evening would reserve half a dozen bays and before long there would be 30 or more motobikes backed in against the curb and angle parked.
There were people everywhere doing a strange thing called TALKING with each other. Lasses would be displaying/modeling their latest clothing purchases to leather and denim clad blokes and everyone would turn to watch the latest polished chromed and crimson red painted V8 hotrod to burble past in one of endless "bog laps".
There were Hari-Krishnas to harass as they gave out vegan books with weird art-worked covers and Potter's House God Botherers to troll, uh, argue with as they frothed in your face about hell. There was a smell of a couple of dozen different food places in the air and the sound of buskers and laughter.
The city was alive and useful.
Then the bureaucrats got in with their endless and ever expensive to administer "regulation".
The city died.
People like me eventually just gave up on the place ... and these days we are all far more inclined to plug into the world of skyrim or halo or an ipod.
Pert needs LESS regulation and MORE reasons to actually go to it.
Trying to make people pay to drive into the city is neither of those things.
It is just more bureaucrat cholesterol slowly choking the heart to death.
And what a healthy, vibrant, and beautiful heart it USED to be. ... but no more.
Still, Pert-ites, do yourselves a favour and get yourselves up to Kings park one early evening. While you are still somewhat easily and freely able to, that is.
It is kinda a shadow of how things used to be in the city centre once upon a time. IE, there are just people walking around doing nothing in particular.
Just Being.
Kinda like how it used to be once upon a time in the actual city before they took away Murray Street and made it a soul-less mall.
Oh, and has it really been over a year since my last post ?
A quick break from talking about the natural cycle of climate change and how certain folk seem dead keen on making a religion about it and other folk just wanna rob us blind over it.
Time to go boating. Yeah, apologies to readers from the Northern Hemisphere who have got loved ones stranded under the English Channel, or stuck in a London or Paris train station or in a New York airport at the moment ... hey, howz that "Anthropogenic Global Warming" thing working out for ya ?
Here is my tube of my maiden voyage in the new old (built in the 1960s) water toy on her way to be dry-docked for some repairs and antifouling (ie, painted with special stuff to stop other stuff growing on it):
Howz all those Mussels on the stern drive legs, eh ? Mmmmm, where is a pot of boiling water and some chilli or garlic when you need it ?
That was Part 1. Short and sweet eh ? Well stay tuned for Part 2 ... it ain't so short, so hang on to your life-jackets, this is going to get rough !
Here she is a week later on the planned quicky excursion back to the mooring that actually turned out to be a mini-odyssey. Once again, apologies to snow-bound folk unable to travel or get home over in the Northern Hemisphere at the moment.
Somebody elsewhere asked me earlier: "Oh and about your boat, what happens if she's leaking again, I guess that means she won't get looked at again til after x-mas new year? Be a bummer to your holidays if that happens."
The following is my response to that:
See for yourself and note the lack of concern in my voice.
"Today I ..." shared a surprise adventure with LSCP that we could have prolly done without but all things considered, better that it happened when it did rather than later.
Today was the day the new old water toy went back into the water after a week in dry-dock getting her bum sanded and anti-fouled (cheers Adrian & Daniel at Aquarama) and a new steering helmet put on her starboard leg and having the leg bolted down (a common "fix" for older volvo penta legs and their reverse retaining clamp of suspect design), the old Ward 32'er is back on the water again and ready to get up and go.
What a difference a week and a whole bunch of work and money makes, because "get up and go" she now does !
After paying the bill and visiting the fuel jetty to pay for go-juice at expected standard extortion rates, LSCP headed off in the car and I back to the mooring. All was good and well and the salt air soon made the smile on my face set harder than pelican poo on the aft deck.
I easily solo navigated her up to Claremont jetty where LSCP (who had driven around there from the slipyards downstream on the other side of the river) jumped onboard and soon took over Skipper duties.
Yup, LSCP not only stands for "Life Style Choices Partner", but also "Lady Skipper, Cute n Pretty".
As the newtube shows, she made skippering look easy. Tis much easier to steer now that one leg isn't flapping around in the chop. As for the water in the bilge, that's no worries and quite a normal thing to happen in a wooden boat that has been out of the water for more than a couple of days. The timbers dry out and shrink a bit and in leaks wet stuff, but I found even just a couple of hours later on the mooring, things seemed to have already swollen up again and the bilge contents back to more or less what they were before she was taken out of the water a week ago.
Besides, just like with Witches, Ducks, and Very Small Rocks, wood floats.
Ah, but on WHAT mooring "a couple of hours later" ?
Well, that's where the Adventure began.
After LSCP took her for a burn, she then assumed "grab the pole and hook up the mooring rope" position up forward. We idled up to the mooring and she deftly hooked up the mooring rope and slipped it over the thingumy on the front of the boat wot such things attach to, and I did my bit and turned off the engines and batteries.
Picture perfect, with no swearing or shouting at each other. Quite amazing really, especially considering the stiff breeze we were working against that was busy trying to push us ashore.
Then a strange thing happened.
Another mooring passed us.
WTF ?
How can that happen ... we're attached properly to our mooring !
Uh, yup ... but what was our mooring attached to ?
A long line of heavy duty chain that wasn't attached to anything other than algae and the wet stuff we were floating in.
fcukity fcukity fcuk ! (which is French for "oh bother, the train has stopped in the middle of the Chunnel")
Before I could get to the anchor, we had drifted aground ... well, the nicely newly antifouled/painted stern drive legs had. Meh.
So, then began the telephone ring around.
First up a call to Freo Sea Rescue (I'm a member and both boats registered with them for rescue attention ... well worth the $35 a year considering that they would tow me all the way back from Rotto at no cost).
Then a call to the owner of the mooring to tell him that it was no more and that the contractors employed to check it may have stuffed up because at the end of the chain there was a massive shackle missing its pin. A pin that holds it to the trio of chain linked concrete blocks at the bottom or whatever it is that is down there. A pin that is supposed to be wired to the shackle to prevent it coming loose like it just had.
Then a call to the DPI (Department of Planning and Infrastructure - all moorings are registered/licensed with them).
Then the owner rang back to say he had contacted the contractor but they wouldn't be able to attend until Wednesday (so what were we to do until then ?) and he suggested I get back onto the DPI again as they have access to some emergency moorings. Good to know !
Then the Freo rescue called to confirm our predicament (that we needed pulling into deeper water so we could start the engines and motor elsewhere).
By this stage another boaty on a nearby mooring had noticed our situation and rowed his tender over. LSCP and I were in the middle of sorting out a long rope to go from the bow to a nearby mooring with the idea of hooking it up and pulling ourselves into deeper water. I was in my Jesus boots and shorts and up to my waist in (thankfully warm) water (so much for Jesus boots allowing walking ON water) holding the bow into the wind. Anyhoo, the boaty rowed the rope out to the mooring and tied it on then came back and he and LSCP sat up forward and hauled on the rope while I put my back to the stern and heaved up while pushing and before you could say "ewwww, a jelly fish, and WHAT THE HELL WAS THAT SQUISHY THING I STEPPED ON" we were in deep enough water again.
So, time to call Freo Rescue again and say "thanks, but we're ok now" (I intend to send them an online donation later tonight for their troubles), and also call the mooring contractors who had called while we were hauling.
They confirmed they couldn't get there until Wednesday but wanted to know where they could pick up the recovered mooring equipment from. I told them they would know once I knew where I was going to end up.
Okay, where were we ? On somebody else's mooring, wondering.
We decided to go back to Claremont Jetty, tie up there, then walk up to the club to see if they had temporary/short term pens or moorings available.
No such luck ... especially seeing as we weren't members. Still, they were very helpful with what they could do, which was to lend me their phone to sit through "on hold music" until an obviously Very Busy DPI were able to offer a rescue by registering my port-less vessel to one of the emergency moorings they have.
Excellent, even though it was around 9km away in [deleted for now]. So, after "merry festivus"es were exchanged with the DPI and the Claremont Club staff, LSCP headed off in the car and I in the boat. Talk about having an unplanned workout ... and so much for the plans of getting her back in the water and back to her mooring in about an hour !
Still, what better way to get used to skippering her alone ... especially seeing as this was only the second time I'd actually skippered her since purchase. On the way around to [deleted for now] with the salt spray slipping by the middle window and helping with setting my smile again, I got to thinking how blessed it was that the mooring should go when we were there to attend to it rather than in the middle of the night and have the boat smashed up on shore.
Yeah, I'm a glass half-full kinda guy.
Are we there yet ?
Almost there ...
So after having a laugh with Poseidon and telling the Sirens (I did say "Odyssey" earlier) they were wasting their time coz I already have all the lurv'n'comfort I need with my LSCP, etc, etc, I made it into the still waters of [deleted for now].
Now WTF is that DPI mooring ... and how am I going to tie up on it without LSCP to help ?
Couldn't find it ... but I did find a complementary temporary mooring and was able to pull up my fine craft along side and hook onto it by myself. Then it was a simple matter of paddling ashore using one of the waveskis and towing the other one, then LSCP returned with me.
Another call to the DPI and the lovely and patient lady explained exactly where it was and yeah verily what other numbers were nearby ... and instructed me to call back when we were safely tied up there.
The instructions proved instructive and after a bit of mucking around making our own multiple mooring ropes, we had a new temporary home.
Yes, we are now "there yet".
All that remained was to secure the wayward mooring for the contractor team, paddle ashore with me singing LSCP's praises all the way for her patience as well as apologising for the one (maybe two) occasions I, uh, "failed to effectively communicate" and did an exasperated naggy whinge thing.
The poor girl is now horrible sun-burnt as she wasn't expecting to be in the sun much at all for what we originally planned ... but seriously (and as I said multiple times throughout the long afternoon) "you wouldn't read about it" (let alone plan for it !)
And yet here you are doing that very thing ... and well done if you made it this far.
Anyhoo, I get home to hear about cyclones up North and folk stranded under the English Channel and New York snowed in, etc, etc, and so how can I think of our afternoon's troubles and inconveniences being anything other than an adventure ?
Merry (good natured) Bah Humbug to one and all and may all your travels be adventures ... rather ordeals. Grin.
Just got back to land from two great days and evenings relaxing on the Swan River in front of the beautiful city of Perth. I've been wanting to take my own boat out for Oz/Invasion day for years but I usually had to be on shift ... but not this year. Yay !
So, numba1son, LSCP, and I, put in at the boat ramp down the street from us at around 7pm on Sunday night (the night before Oz day) and he and I putted around to pick LSCP up from an even closer spot to home after she took the boat and trailer back for safe-keeping. Then it was time to cruise downstream for but a couple of kms and hook/raft up with a mate who was already busy "relaxing" with his own LSCP on this nice little toy:
A few snags and ales later it was time for us to give the love birds some peace and quiet and to motor back upstream for about half a click (if that) and pull in for the night at "The Lagoon" at Herrison Island. We had it all to ourselves and all was calm with much high pitch whining in the air. Bloody mosquitoes ! Ah well, the price of taking shelter from the wind ... and nothing a bit of roll-on repellent didn't fix.
About 10am we managed to raise enough energy to motor back out into the river and so we headed off and found a great position next to the skyshow perimeter looking back at the city from South-Eastish Perth. A bit of a battle getting to it mind you. It was low tide so I had to pull up the 135hp outboard and drop down the 8hp kicker instead - and even THAT had to be kept with prop about level with the bottom of the keel in order to avoid kicking up mud and crap !
Not a place to be diving off boats. Anyway, here we are in the afternoon chop which fortunately did settle down in the early evening and by midnight had become dead calm for the rest of the night. Oh, and not only did we have the Biggest Flag in those parts of the river, but I only saw one other Red Ensign anyway. The Channel 10 news chopper made a point of hovering low nearby and filming towards LSCP and I cuddling on the bow with that Big Flag flying over behind us. Her cover is well and truly blown now ! Heh.
These were some of our closest boating neighbours. Really nice folk in "Fuzzy Duck" (far right) and a bunch of Really Big ski-boats rafted next to them ... apparently all friends of their son. They all spent most of the day floating around in arm-chair thingies. I'd hate to think of how their skin looked when they finally got out ... not just because of the "pruning" affect, but also because of the 2stroke oil, etc, that ends up spread through the top 10cm or so of water from all the dirty outboards (guilty, your honour).
Anyway, ya can't spend a day or two on the river and NOT get in ... so here is yours truly running the gauntlet on the "Swan River Whalers" (that's "Bull Sharks" anywhere else in the world ... nasty buggers and they are making a comeback in our waters apparently). Numba1son and I also got into some water fights with lotsa kids and dads on other boats. I put the 8hp on my inflatable/tender which gave me a speed advantage, but I tell you what, they were pretty cunning with the outflanking and balloon artillery. All I had was speed and a bucket ... which was also pretty good for catching what was squirted or flung at ya. Heh. It made things pretty hairy for any to-ing and fro-ing from our pozzie on the river to where the "Big Toy" mentioned earlier was moored, so we had to give up on that particular trip as the day progressed - kinda hard to transport cameras and guitars and keep an LSCP's hair-dry when there are gangs of kids armed with super-soakers, balloon water-bombs, and buckets just waiting for you to take a step off your craft.
Yeah, the unwritten rule of the river that day was if you left your main boat, you were fair game for a soaking. Great Stuff. Good clean harmless fun ... well, as clean as it can be in a muddy 2stroke soaked river. I should mention that the only water delivery device numba1son had at his disposal was a silly little trigger squirt atomiser used to keep one cool. Sure, it could manage a straight squirt if you twisted the stupid little top on it, but we are talking about a pinhole stream against massive water-guns that could suck up litres of river in one move and eject it 5 metres with another. His comment ? "How emasculating". His battle cry was "I'm a man" as he squeezed the trigger to let fly with his feeble dribble that only managed to wet his own feet. LOL. Never a truer word spoken.
Here is a view of our front row vantage, taken from the tender. Pretty choppy still. Note the plane doing acrobatics to the right. There was A Lot of that stuff going on all afternoon. Everything from squadrons of Bi-planes (pics coming up) to cowboys flying choppers backwards or pin-wheeling across the sky, to water bomber planes and choppers, to sea-planes landing and taking off on the river, to military jets doing the "shock and awe" thing at noisy low altitude. Top Stuff, all of it !
Here are but a couple of pics of the Air Stuff on display. No, don't expect any photos of the fireworks ... we were all too busy enjoying the 30min display of some 20,000 shells being ejected into the sky in pleasing arrangements of colour and noise to worry about photographing it.
Okay, there WAS one flag bigger than ours. :) ... but I had something prettier, closer to mine - and I'm not just talking about that beautiful wooden craft to the left/behind ours. Heh.
Anyway, to any Oz readers, I hope your Oz day was a True Blue and "Ridgy-Didge" as ours was.
... and as the Oz flag flew off into the sunset, numba1son sat quietly contemplating the fact that in but a few days it is "Back to School again". Heh++
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