Getting Into A Routine

The kids reading in our bed yesterday morning

We arrived at Urangan Harbour at the southern end of Hervey Bay yesterday afternoon. We finally had enough wind blowing in the right direction to sail and, with the sun out too, had a lovely day. Unlike the owner of Boomerang 7 who unfortunately got himself stuck on a sand bar off Urangan as high tide was ebbing a little after lunch time yesterday. The local Volunteer Marine Rescue got a crew together amazingly quickly on a Sunday but blew an engine trying, unsuccessfully unfortunately, to help him get off. They did take 5 people back to shore, leaving the owner on board until high tide at 10 o'clock last night - a long wait on a steep angle.

We refuelled and did laundry yesterday and will re-stock fresh food, water and gas bottles today before we leave civilisation again for another week or so. We plan to head north-east to Playtpus Bay on the north-western side of Fraser Island then back to the mainland to Bundaberg. Whale-watching season apparently officially opened yesterday and we've heard there are some in the bay - fingers crossed!!

We're getting into something resembling a routine. If we're on a timeline due to tides or weather, Shane and I are generally up early-ish and the kids are up when we start the engine which sits in between their cabins. If we're not going anywhere, we bludge in the mornings - reading, blogging or just staring into space.

Seasprint State School

Whether we're moving or not, Monday to Friday is "Seasprint State School". The first hour each day is mental maths, language, spelling and times tables - all revision and consolidation. Then we do some new english, maths, science or art. Haydee is "Exploring Literary Texts by the Same Author" (I chose Roald Dahl) and Cameron is doing "Quest Novels" in English. Cameron and I are reading The Hobbit, although Haydee recently stole it from us and Cameron is currently reading The BFG. I haven't ruled out switching their units.

We generally take turns cooking, including the kids once a week or so, and if you don't cook you wash up. The weekly menu starts with fresh food, then we defrost and eat our freezer stock, then we're into the tins. Food is stowed in our 75L fridge, 23L freezer, two small cupboards and under 3 seats.

When we're at sea, we use as little power as possible although the solar panels are doing a great job charging our 1 crank and 3 house batteries for us, supplemented by the engine for 30 minutes morning and night if we haven't used it during the day. The hot water system heats off the engine and I have been very clear about my need for a hot shower in the evening, hence the 30 minutes at night. 1 minute is a long shower - we use the time it takes for hot water to come through to hose down the head, then get wet, turn the water off to soap up, and then rinse quickly.We've found we're making full use of marina showers when we're berthed and judge a marina by their hot water system. No one has let us down yet.