 |
| Mooloolaba anchorage |
Yesterday
we went off on a mission to have our gas bottles refilled. Not quite
as straightforward an exercise as in Fiji due to local laws requiring
gas bottles to have a current Australian certificate of approval
which we don't. They weren't even certified in NZ. A friend had
given us the tip off on a hard ware store where the young man in
charge assumed your bottle had had all the right inspections. He
filled. We paid our monies and walked off with two full bottles (six
months supply) on our trolley. It was a good find because in the
next country we visit, Indonesia, it is illegal to fill gas bottles.
I understand the Bali bombers used gas bottles and now they are
outlawed.
A
few doors down from the hard ware is one of David's favourite places
– a chandlers with all things for boats you need and things you
didn't know you needed until you saw them. I found a vinyl cleaner
for our city grimed bimini and David found an AIS transponder that
will do what we want and at the right price. We've been talking
about upgrading our Automatic Identification System, AIS, which we
use to view the details of commercial, and now yachts too, traffic in
the area. It can tell you if that freighter six miles over the
horizon is going to pass miles away or very close and how long to the
closest point of approach. With a transponder we'll be transmitting
our name, length, course and speed to anyone else with AIS receiver
ability. Singapore recently made AIS transponders mandatory for any
vessel moving with their waters and it is another layer of safety as
we travel the seas.
People
ask 'what about pirates using a tracking device to find targets?'.
There's a silent button on the new transponder where, at the flick of
a switch, we stop transmitting while still being able to receive.
We
walked home with our gas bottles filled and new toys to fit. It felt
like a birthday, or Christmas, our simple wishes come true. And of
course I had a new bottle of chemical for cleaning the bimini.
No comments:
Post a Comment