How often have you stuffed up because you don't know what you are doing?

I have mentioned before that my eldest daughter had sailed a couple of thousand nautical miles, before she could walk, & we'll blame her for these stuff ups.

When sailing inside the reef you tend to anchor at night. We were heading south to Brisbane, & had anchored at Shore island, at the southern end of the Whitsundays.

The next day the south east trades had piped up to 25/30 knots. We could have continued, but it was a bit bumpy for our 5 month old daughter. The anchorage was safe & pretty, the fishing was good, & the beach & coconut palms were nice, so we stayed.

We decided to make some coconut macaroons, gathered some nuits & grated one. When they should have been cooked we found what looked like a pie crust of coconut "stuff". The fresh coconut was far to moist, & our macaroons had run flat. Still it tasted nice.

We did not want to leave a trail of disposable nappies, so were using the real things. Washing them takes a lot of water, & yachts don't have that much. After 6 days of washing nappies we decided we had better go into Mackay, & fill the tanks.

We had 3 dirty nappies, & my wife decided to use the automatic washing machine of the yachts wake, to clean them. We had read of this in cruising books, so she hooked them on a fishing line, & let them out the back.

Well, it may work in op[en ocean, but not in the reef, it has too much plankton. When she pulled them in 4 hours later she found that nappies are an excellent plankton filter. the things were deep in a green brown mess of plankton, & totally disgusting.

She cut the line, added a large sinker, & we watched as the mess sank into what appeared to be crystal clear water. We of course now knew it was not as clear as it appeared.