At 0800 the travel lift rolled over to us and the crew worked on getting the straps around Kosmos. The straps can be unhooked in the middle, so they rolled the machine on top of Kosmos with the straps undone and hooked them together around the blocks we were resting on. With us inside Kosmos, the lift picked us up and drove us back to the slip. Once we were centered over the water, we were slowly lowered down. And we floated. Phew. A good thing indeed.

We had an appointment at the fuel dock in the marina at 09:30 for fuel. We did circles in the river to kill time. The freshly repacked shaft was getting hot. Too hot. Not good.

We had already decided that we should spend one night in the marina before heading off to Lizard Island. Kosmos was absolutely disgustingly dirty and we wanted to give her a good scrub down, which is much easier to do tied up at a dock with a municipal water hose than at anchor. Plus we had a few non-urgent loose ends that we thought would be nice to get wrapped up before leaving civilization.

Fuel in Cairns is the most expensive we have seen yet at $1.41 a liter (Americans, it is almost 4 liters to the gallon). We only got a little. We can get duty free fuel when we check out of the country, so we will wait to fill up until then.

Once we were done at the fuel dock, we pulled into the marina and went to get lunch. Eric wanted to go to a Mexican restaurant in town. Christi just doesn’t understand why he does this to himself, but she agreed to go. The food was closer to what we get at home in San Diego than anything else we have tried yet, but it still wasn’t like home. The fajitas came with sour cream, but no salsa or guacamole. The fajitas had a lot of carrots and very few bell peppers (capsicum). We also ordered seafood enchiladas and got a small amount of beans wrapped in a corn tortilla with melted cheese on top. We asked about our enchiladas and were told they had given us bean enchiladas by mistake. And no, enchiladas don’t come with enchilada sauce here. Yet another disappointing Mexican meal. Christi thinks Eric should just give up.

Eric headed back to the boat and loosened all the fittings in the stuffing box to let more water through, figuring that would solve the problem. Christi headed off to the farmer’s market that was going on today to seek out new fruits. She was specifically looking for black sapote, which supposedly tastes like chocolate. No luck there. She was surprised to find that cantaloupe is called rock fruit and honeydews are fluorescent yellow.

She came back with three new fruits to try. The rolinia is spiky, but surprisingly soft when you pick it up. When you cut into it, it is similar to a custard apple (AKA soursop and cherimoya), in that it has a white, very soft meat. It has a light, almost lemony taste to it. The star apple looks like a purple racquet ball and feels like a nectarine when you pick it up. We definitely like the star apple the best. It tastes a little like a peach. Last, but not least, is the longan, which are the size and feel of large grapes. The meat is translucent. It doesn’t have a strong flavor, and it isn’t really sweet. It almost tastes more like a vegetable than a fruit. Here are the fruits:

We got to work washing the boat. Much to our dismay, some of black spots didn’t come off with plain soap. We scrubbed and scrubbed and scrubbed some more with little success. While Kosmos did look much better once we were done, she is still going to need some more work. Sigh.

On a side note, we haven’t mentioned that since Monday we have been eaten alive by sand flies, which are tiny little flies that can get through the screens and are hard to see. Poor little Koby is just covered in bites. At first we thought the bug problem was only at the boat yard, but we are being attacked here at the marina, too. Someone told us that they become a problem when the wind dies down, which explains why they weren’t an issue for us before Monday.