The Voyage of Spectacle

The plan was to take off tomorrow to Airlie Beach, but when I called the Abel Point Marina to make a berth reservation, they specifically asked about our third-party liability insurance.  I hold AUS$1 million which is compliant with Australian law.  The insurance laws in Queensland have changed recently, but only for boats exceeding 50 feet in length so I haven’t been paying any attention.  This fact was easily confirmed by calling my insurance agent.  I called Abel Point again to get clarification, and the marina’s own internal policy requires AUS$10 million due to the “high costs associated with salvage services.”  Great.

I called my insurance agent again to request a rider to bump me up to AUS$10 million for one month.  Unfortunately, the actual insurer is Allianz UK which is located in London.  New Zealand is 11 hours ahead of London, and today is Thursday, so the rider cannot be processed before the weekend.

With this delay, I started looking into other possibilities.  I’m not willing to skip Airlie Beach as I want to see it … plus, our buddy James is there and we would like to spend some time with him. 

Hamilton Island is a playground for the rich and famous, but it’s a little closer and might be a good intermittent stop.  I called Hamilton Island Marina to make a berth reservation, but their computerized reservation system was down and they couldn’t confirm availability one way or the other.  This strikes me as totally ridiculous … can’t back up the computer with a white board like everybody else?  Don’t they even have a baseline understanding of the marina’s activity to predict availability?  On the upside, my insurance is good there.

In any event, it looks like Monday at the earliest … and there’s a front coming through.