When the din decreased somewhat, Maryanne quickly dove out of the protection of the bimini and threw off the mooring pendant. She was dry on her leeward half, but soaked on her windward half. I gave her a couple of twirls, then she was just damp all over. I was feeling smug because my top half was still dry. That wouldn’t last. By the time she had changed into dry clothes, the deluge had resumed and all of mine were sticking to me. The bimini didn’t seem to stop the rain so much as slow it down by making it go around the sides to get to me.
The river was the color of chocolate milk, with plenty of debris to dodge along the way. All of that rain made for a fast ebb though, and we made it to the Sandy Strait turnoff in just two hours. The wind was from astern now, so I used the opportunity to give the jib a good, long rinse. The water drained off of it in a big sheet onto the deck, where it joined the river plunging toward the trampoline. At least the rain was keeping the midges at bay.
The rain stopped just as we reached the anchorage at Pelican Bay, which is just inside the notorious Wide Bay Bar. We were at the wrong state of current/tide to go through that, so we would have to wait until tomorrow to actually transit.
Our relief at finally seeing blue skies was short-lived. Ten minutes later, the sun started evaporating all of the accumulated water and we suddenly found ourselves in a steamy, airless sauna. Oh, be careful what you wish for.
Maryanne: Given the dreary passage conditions I decided to bake on this passage. We use our oven as storage for a few oven pans and containers, the first step is to remove these before pre-heating the oven. On this trip a Pyrex bowl lid managed to stay hidden in the oven - so we spent much of the trip scraping out the melted plastic from the oven floor - ugh!
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