On the morning of the 14th at about 10am we left Dockside Marina to make our way downriver to the wharf where the Super Servant 4 was loading yachts for the trip across the Pacific to Mexico. We motored easily down the river with a 2k current pushing us at almost 8k at times and arrived at the mouth of the Brisbane River at about 11am, almost 2 hours early. We knew we would be early but we wanted to leave the slip during slack water – trying to maneuver in the current would have been dangerous. 

We broiled in the hot sun waiting our turn to load, which turned out to be quite a while since we were practically the last of 27 boats to load. Finally our turn came and the ship’s captain called our boat name and we slipped into the ship through the open bow and tied up along the inside wall of the partially submerged ship. 

We spent about 15 minutes putting things in order and got a ride into town with Kate and Paul from Kekaimalu who were on hand taking photos for an article they are doing for an Australian sailing mag. 

The only drama in the day came when we realized everyone else had removed their windvane steering gear from their sterns. Speaking with one of the other boat’s crew we learned that the company would assess a penalty if our boat took up more space in the ship then we told them, and so we decided the windvane had to come off. We hailed an inflatable dinghy that was in the area supervising the loading of a Riviera motor yacht and he pulled up to our stern and Jordan climbed down into the inflatable with tools and removed the Monitor in less then 10 minutes. 

We left the Queen Jane in the capable hands of the SS4’s crew and spent 2 days at a downtown hotel and then flew to Los Angeles thus ending the Australian leg of our journey.