The first thing I must say is what a great crew we have here in the sailing section of the Seabreeze forum.
Everybody is so supportive of each others endeavors, giving advice and keeping us all up to date with the latest ideas and where the best deals are. It is just great.
Also I must give special thanks to Larry "Lazzarae" and Gordon "Lmy" for their logistical help while I was at the Lake and finally to Gary "HaveFun" and John "Morning Bird" who helped me sail the yacht back to Queensland. Finer shipmates than these are hard to find.
Much of what follows is just my way and my opinions. It may be right or wrong but it works for me.
So I have bought and paid for the yacht late last month without having her hauled out or surveyed. I had confidence in the yacht and the previous owner's maintenance of her. We took her out on the Lake for a short motor around, did not put the sails up as there was no wind and I said yes I will have her and paid for her that or the next day.
A quick trip to Sydney spending two nights and a day with HaveFun including the Wednesday twilight race from CYCA aboard the SailAbility yacht and buying an Avon Redcrest inflatable off Gumtree from the south side of Sydney. I needed this as the boat did not come with a dinghy and the one on offer was not suitable. Then it was straight back to the Lake to do some prep work on the yacht for 3 or 4 days before I had to be back in Bundaberg for my son's tonsilectomy and subsequent care period and to get rid of the car.
The Avon was in excellent condition and came with an older but very good Mercury 4 hp outboard but no seat, no pump and no oars. The Mercury is too heavy for that boat but at $300 for the lot I figured I got a good little outboard for $300 and the dinghy for nix. The seat was easy with a 1200 mm length of 150 x 20 mm meranti, four holes drilled through it and some line to tie it to the loops in the floor and the oars I bought from Tackle World are the aluminium tubes with plastic blades for $70.
The pump was the hard one to get. I went all over Belmont and Warner's Bay before I bought a Coleman 12 volt one with the right nozzle from BCF. This all took 2 days of mucking around which of course meant I could not get out to the boat and had to stay at the Gunyah Hotel. What a great pub. Nice air con room for $70/night and the bistro does a great feed.
This is the dinghy when finally set up.
This is my first approach to my new yacht and where I had a bit of a wet moment in my pants.
Finally I get to spend a couple of days on the boat. My method is to go through the whole boat from stem to stern, looking in every locker to see what is there and what is not and make a list of what is needed. Then I rearrange everything into my sense of logical placement.
That done I then check all the systems on board eg. sea cocks, water, fuel, engine, electrical and of course bilge pumping. Doing this I discover the float switch on the bilge pump is not working and not likely to ever work again and I am about to leave the yacht for up to a month. The yacht does not leak rain water and the hull and fittings are sound so the only scource of water ingress is the stern gland.
With the stern gland tightened I can confidently leave the yacht to look after itself on the mooring for up to 6 months as the previous owner did when he would spend half of his year in Germany.
Confident?? I wish. I go 1,000 miles back to Queensland and in less than a week I am fretting and freaking so much about my boat not having her Daddy on board, I am ringing the broker saying "Maaate, when you are zooming on the Lake next can you whizz past my boat and make sure she is still floating???" 
Of course there was nothing to worry about and the boat was fine because I had done the best preparation.
Tune in to this channel for the next exciting episode of "Second Wind sails North". 
It is all coming. I am out of town for a couple of days. Watch up around Wednesday.
