Gold Coast, Queensland Australia.
T Minus
When I was a youngster I used to enjoy watching rockets loaded with
astronauts blast off into space. Actually, the thing I really liked was the
anticipation of the countdown. Part of that countdown was the term T minus. I
think this was a technical term for announcing the time left before takeoff .
Last week we had our own version of the countdown to take off. The
Down Under Go East Rally organisers and the weather routing services had found
a suitable weather window, and announced this via email on Friday the 19th
May. So I guess that we could have said that that was the start of our T minus
procedures.
The call came and at T minus 100 hours into overdrive and straight
into the Hope Harbour marina we went to tie up and get all the last minute bits
and pieces done.
Our countdown went like this;
T minus 100 hours. Marina sorted, motored to and tied in to the pen, ablution keys in
hand, headed for the one machine laundry along with four other crews, for last
minute washing, girls headed for the shops for last minute fruit and veg supplies.
T Minus 97 hours – Empty Jerry cans gathered on the jetty, ready to be taken down to
the service station. Repacked “stuff” (again) unpacked “stuff” to find wet
weather gear.
T Minus 72 hours - Took our 8 and Bossa
Nova’s 6 Jerry cans to Service Station and filled them all. Took them back to
the boat and readied to top up boat tank,
normally a simple task. After the little bit of motoring around the
Gold Coast, I thought it should take about 5 or 6 litres in each tank to top
them up. I poured 22 litres out of the jerry can into the port tank. Then began
to worry when I still didn’t hear the gurgling sound it makes when nearly
full. Where the hell was all this fuel
going?
I rushed down stairs to inspect the tank. Didn’t have to wonder too
long. As soon as my foot hit the carpet on the port side I heard the squelch
and felt the greasy fuel under my foot. Undoing the inspection cover I found
the reason that I had just poured 22 litres of nice fresh smelly diesel onto
the floor and into the cupboards. The hose that is supposed to connect to the
outside filler port to the inside floor tank was no longer connected to the top
of the diesel tank!
T minus 71 hours until T
minus 65 hours = spent cleaning and soaking up
diesel from behind and underneath the cupboards, pumping the bilge full of
diesel into unused jerry cans and washing all the surrounds with hot soapy
water. The procedure was wipe up diesel dispose of rag, scrub with hot soapy
water and dry off, then repeat as the diesel seeped out from the hidden places
we couldn’t get to. What a job!
“T” minus 60 hours, I began noticing black soot like pieces of
things swimming around in my right eye. Like all little weird things that go on
in my body I thought it would just go away. Back to service station, refilled
used Jerry cans and this time poured into boat tanks, not floor, so all full of
diesel. Job completed a day behind schedule.
Then I started noticing brief flashes of light in the right corner of my
eye. Now that had my attention. I
googled what it was all about and was a little horrified by what I read. Still
I thought it would go away. That night we went out for a crew night to the AFL
football (our crew are Adelaide Crows Supporters who were playing the Brisbane
Lions). While at the football I kept noticing these swimmers were still there
wandering around my right eyeball. Still I thought nothing of it.
T Minus 48 hours A day behind on our list of
things to do thanks to the fuel debacle. We hoisted our main sail to check that
it would go up ok. We would look a bit silly if we departed with 16 other boats
and could hoist our sail. Also we repacked and sorted “stuff”.
That night most of the rally participants went for dinner at a
nearby Thai restaurant. We took Neville and Amanda from Bossa Nova. On the way
we began discussing what was happening in my eye. Neville had a friend who had
been through a similar scenario, and rang him while we were in the car. He said
that he had a similar occurrence and it was because his retina had started
detaching from his eyeball. Now that got my attention and I was now in really
concerned mode.
The evening was a fun night but I must say that it dragged on
because all I wanted to do was get back to ET, find a doctor and sort out my
eye problem. I would have to get it
sorted by 9.00am the next morning, as that was when we were due to be processed
by customs for clearance out of the country. Finally, we got home about 11.0pm.
I was straight on the phone to 1300Health in Queensland which is an over the
phone service. After answering a dozen questions from the phone doctor she put
me on hold for a minute. She came back on the line and said her prognosis was
that I should attend an emergency hospital within 1 to 4 hours!
T Minus 30hours, Its’ now only 30 hours to when we are supposed to be departing the
country and sailing to a foreign country and I am sitting in the emergency
department of the University Hospital. I was feeling pretty low at this point
believing that there was a strong possibility that we would not be departing as
planned. All the suggestion, discussion, debating, decision making, planning,
organizing, financing, provisioning, learning, talking, shouting, frustration,
effort and time that had gone into joining the down under go east rally had
been foiled by these annoying black spots in front of my right eye.
As quick as they could, the doctor came and set up the machinery and
technology to look into my eyes. After about half an hour of the lady doctor
getting very up close and personal, she said that in her opinion it was not a
retina detachment. Good News. Not so good news was that she recommended I go to
an Opthamology specialist to double check the cause of entertainment I was
getting in my right eye.
T minus 24 hours, I wonder where you could find an opthamology specialist who could
fit you in for an appointment at 7.30am on a Monday? It appears that not on the
Gold Coast, but that was what would be required if I was to be checked out of
the country by Border Force and customs at
9.30am with the rally. In the end, I had to dodge the possibility of
ending up in a detention center, by going to my appointment at 3.30pm, well
after I was supposedly checked out of the country! I still had plenty of
reservations around whether Easy Tiger would be leaving with the rally.
Luckily, the opthamologist at Sanctuary Cove had a vacancy, as all the locals
there were out of town while the annual boat show was held. He was positive
that it was not retina damage and was relieved when I told him we were
travelling to Noumea, as he said there would be suitably equipped eye doctors
there, should I have ongoing problems.
T Minus 15 Hours To say that my crew, particularly my first mate, was relieved that
I had a medical clearance, at T minus 15hours, would be an understatement. We
celebrated by throwing the ropes and motoring out of the marina to spend the
night at Bum’s bay, ready for departure with the Down Under Go East Rally at
0700hrs the next day.
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