Finally, after more than a year and a half Shepherd Moons might leave her mooring again.  A friend is arriving next week to help me clean and antifoul her, before hopefully, taking her for a week or so around the Whitsundays again.  It is hard being so close to the islands that it feels I could touch them, but being unable to actually get there again.

Preparing Sheppy will be like the first time aboard.  So long without maintenance means there is a backlog of things that need to be done.  Parts that can fail, things that can break.

Already we know that not being able to start the motor has caused problems.  The good old super reliable Yamaha 4-stroke now has salt build up and will probably overheat and seize the first time we try to use it.  The running rigging will probably have to be replaced before we even think of sailing.  That house batteries are rather sad and the start battery might need a boost.  Oddly, the battery that suffers the most abuse and is about three years old is the fridge battery and that seemed fine last month.

It will be an adventure getting her seaworthy again, but it will be a great feeling to be heading out of Shute Harbour again and across to Cid Harbour and beyond.