We started off slowly in the light zephyrs of the protected bay, but soon were zooming out into open water. We were early, but the marina said our reserved slip was available so to just come on in.
Oh, the marina. Have I mentioned that the Whitsundays is one of the most popular boating destinations in all of Australia? That and it’s probably the most accessible to the main population base on the east coast. At Airlie, everything has the “C’mon, you’re on vacation!” markup. We decided to stay in the marina for a couple of reasons, a: We simply didn’t have enough time to anchor, row in, get the rental car and make it to the FedEx office in Mackay before they closed and 2: We needed water, both for our tanks and to wash off two months’ worth of accumulated salt. As a bonus, we figured we could also do some laundry and have a couple of meals out, even if they are pricey.
Well, the per night price of the Coral Sea Marina is (from memory) by far the most we've ever paid for a night in a marina, and we have been to expensive places like Sausalito, New York and Rome. We’ve stayed in nice hotels that are cheaper. In fact, I’m pretty sure it’s more than double what we paid at our previous record-holder in Monaco, where everyone drives a Lamborghini and fifty-thousand euro chips from the casino are handed out as party favors.
To be fair, the marina has some very nice amenities. My private shower room was the nicest I’ve seen since Nantucket. The place, however, is just too big. Our slip, one inside from the end, was a third of a mile from the gate, which was another third of a mile from the parking lot. EVERYTHING involved a long hike; taking out the trash, doing the laundry, buying a jerry can of fuel. I made a provision run the second morning and it took me five times as long to get from the parked car to Begonia than it took me to drive from the store to the only empty space way at the back of the marina’s main parking lot.
Anyway, back to the main thread…
We tied up the boat and then high-tailed it to the rental car company. There were plenty of attractions to entice along the way, but we weren’t here for fun. We were here to FedEx our important documents to the U.S.
{Maryanne: You may wonder why we were choosing to FedEx paperwork and not use the normal post office here in Australia. Well it was for several reasons, but mostly we wanted to guarantee the paperwork would arrive within a week. Since COVID has struck, international mail between Australia and the USA has been AWFUL. We have personal and 2nd hand stories of mail taking months with a service that is supposed to take 3 days. There are simply not sufficient flights between the two countries to keep the mail moving. Thankfully FedEx has its own planes and isn't subject to the whims of commuter travel and COVID lock-downs. Unfortunately FedEx doesn't have too many offices in Australia, certainly not out in the sticks so this is why we were making the effort to travel to the nearest FedEx office we could find, and even after sailing south for several days, we still had a 2.5 hour car journey ahead to make it there (that's 2.5 hours each way). Kyle had called ahead to verify they would be open and accept our package. With 4 days of sailing, an expensive marina bill and the car rental costs, it paid to be sure!}
The first sign of trouble came when we arrived at the Mackay FedEx office. It was clear that this office was not a retail one for the public, but more of a depot for FedEx drivers to drop off their loads before they were transferred to the airport truck. The lady behind the counter explained that the nearest office of the type that we needed was in Brisbane, about a thousand kilometers further down the road. When Maryanne explained the situation to her, she allowed that she could print a shipping label if we sent it from our FedEx account. Great we just have to create a FedEx account!
Not great. FedEx’s website is beyond terrible. It is full of annoying security features like it won’t let you register any address as yours that isn’t Australian from a computer within Australia, even if you are just a couple of schmucks stuck on a really long vacation. If we put in an Australian address (we tried the marina, and we tried the shipping office in which we were now standing), It balks because the billing address on our credit cards do not match with our registered address. Eventually, on about the sixth try, I was able to set up an American account using our American address (same as the credit cards), but it would not then allow me to use a non-American address as the “from” address for shipping. Aaaarrggghhhh!
Eventually, after spending over TWO-AND-A-HALF-HOURS at this, we finally arrived at a workaround that would allow us to put our papers into FexEx’s system and send them on their way to the U.S. Of course, we missed the freighter, so it will have to go out on tomorrow’s flight, but it’s in!
By then, it was dark and we still had the rest of the day’s list to do, the biggest task of which was to load up on a couple months’ worth of food before we will next touch civilization. We made it home before midnight, but not by much.
We were very reluctant to emerge from our bed the next morning, but we still had jobs to do. We still needed fuel, water, laundry and a boat wash and I had to do the aforementioned second provisioning trip before I returned the rental car. Maryanne had been hoping beyond hope that we could carve out enough time to visit the very nice swimming pool at the marina’s associated resort hotel. It even has a restaurant and bar, which seemed like it would be a perfect place to wind down.
Alas, it was not to be. Because of the length of the walks between one job and the other, all of our tasks took longer than expected. The final unexpected delay came on my walk home from returning the rental car.
Just before I got to the perimeter of the marina complex, I spotted a mountain bike on an empty section of sidewalk alongside the freeway. It seemed like a very strange place to abandon a bike. There was nothing there except a road on one side and an embankment on the other. I went a few steps, then turned around to have a look.
That’s when I saw a rustling in the branches on the hill below. After a few more moments, I saw a man trying to pull himself up the steep slope by pulling on branches and handfuls of grass. He said that he had been going up the hill on the bike, got to that wobbly stage when you get too slow, lost his balance and fell down the hill. He was shaken, but otherwise uninjured. The problem was that between the edge of the undergrowth where he was climbing and the path where I was standing, there was a no-man’s-land where the brush was cleared and all that lay between us was a berm of loose dirt too steep to stand on without sliding off of the edge.
I got as close as I could to the edge and then crouched down low to try to get to him, but he was still too far away. I found a palm frond, which bridged the gap, but then it broke before I could grab the guy’s hand and he slid back down.
Below him, the drop-off to the marina parking lot was just as perilous, so he went sideways for a bit looking for a shallower route up to my path. We then repeated the same frustrating climb, slide, climb, slide routine to no avail. At one point, I decided a good, strong branch might help us by giving me a way to pull him up. I went to the nearest tree and broke one off.
What I hadn’t done was look at it first. Before I even got to our poor victim, I was swarmed by angry, biting green ants. The branch had their nest in it. Oops! Now before I could even offer the branch to the guy, I was tossing it away, along with my hat and shoes, and running away clawing at myself. I managed to not throw away the rest of my clothes, but not without some rather undignified hunting around for the ones that had gone up my legs and down my shirt. I tried to focus. There was a guy in distress who had no idea what was going on at my end, other than that I just seemed to have given up on him to do some break dancing.
Damn! That branch was the only decent one in sight. I scurried barefoot down the bank to the guy, using one hand to fling the dozen or so remaining ants away when their bites revealed their presence. There I learned that his name was Stephen. We was too knackered from his struggle to get up on his feet. Every time it looked like we were making good progress, he would collapse and we would both go sliding back down. All the while, a continuous line of ants was marching across to me to enact their revenge. As far as I know, they left poor Stephen out of it, but they were definitely mad at me.
This wasn’t working. I texted Maryanne saying: Help. Can you bring a dock line to this location?
Her response was: ??
Poor Maryanne. She thought I was trying to surprise her by telling her to meet me at the pool. The rope was just a bit of unnecessary kink. I didn’t have time to explain, so I sent her a picture of Stephen in the weeds and said: He’s stuck.
Good ol’ Maryanne. She arrived with the dock line slung over her shoulder, looking like she was getting ready to summit the Matterhorn. Her arrival coincided with our first passersby, a strong-looking man and his young son on rented electric scooters.
The ants decided that the man’s son was even more infuriating than I was, and so shifted their ire toward him. That left the three of us (no, wait – four! Another guy showed up!) to haul Stephen up the embankment. In the end, Maryanne and Strong Dad climbed down to tie the rope to Stephen and lift him to his feet while New Guy and I took on the role of sturdy tree trunks on which to anchor the rope. A few moments later, I was falling backwards as Stephen fell forwards on the grass alongside the sidewalk. Watch out for those ants!
Kyle helps rescue a local on his walk back from returning the rental car
A motorist stopped on the road above and climbed over the rail. She was a supervisor at the ambulance service the next town over. Soon, we had two ambulances pulling up, to Stephen’s objections. New Guy said, “What’s the big deal, mate? It’s not gonna cost you anything.” What the hell kinda crazy country is this? By the time the "ambos" left, as they are called around here, we all agreed that Stephen’s condition was probably a lot worse than it had initially seemed and that he could use a good checking over. The ambulance people thanked us for our help in carrying Stephen’s litter to the road so they didn’t have to wait around for the “firies” (Fire Department), and then we all scattered back to our original tasks.
Well, now it was definitely too late for us to even think about going to any pool. We took as consolation prize a walk to the nearest waterfront restaurant for a meal and a jug of cheap Australian lager. The food was much better than expected and the beer was the two things we really needed: big and cold.
Our 2nd visit to Airlie it didn't work out, but maybe the next time I'll get to float around on a beanbag in this lovely pool
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