A tribute to Rachel

Rachel has flown back to Tasmania.  She will be back at work on Wednesday, in lovely Fullers Bookshop.  While she was with us, she taught me how to use Twitter – oh what fun! – and I have just seen that our new friend Kerrie, from Mary Who Bookshop, picked her up from the Magnetic Island ferry terminal and took her to the airport.  As Kerrie would say – Tweet Success!  (Kerrie quoted many instances of Twitter being helpful with book sales, connections, friendships, discoveries, when Rachel and I were lurking around her beautiful shop.)

We so enjoyed having Rachel on 2XS.  She was always helpful and cheerful, was able to entertain herself or entertain us (well me in particular…I do love talking about books etc etc…)  If she ever wants to crew on another boat, I know Pete will write her a most glowing reference.

She stayed on the boat while we were in Mission Beach, and then took herself off to a backpackers hostel on Magnetic Island.  She was a bit dubious about this; the advertisements for the hostel had lots of beach babes in bikinis frolicking on a giant plastic pillow.  Not really Rachel’s sort of thing…We came home to a sparklingly clean boat with a new bottle of gin, a big bottle of tonic, and two limes awaiting us in the galley.

On our last day together, Pete did some serious work re-connecting with his cyberspace obligations while Rachel and I played with water ie scrubbed the decks, galley, bathroom.  Great fun when fresh water is available through a hose and not out of our precious tank supply.  Rachel spent ages scrubbing the outdoors carpets, which were particularly horrid, covered with bird poo and bird vomit from a dear little hitchhiker bird who spent the night recuperating on deck before flying off into the moonlight, somewhere near Willis Island.  Rachel did such a good job, down on hands and knees with a scrubbing brush.  She hung the big heavy carpet over the rail to get more of a hosing, and then a bit of sunlight to dry it off.

Some hours later I wandered around the deck and said, “Rachel do you think we should put the carpets back down now?”  Well yes, great idea. But…where was the big mat?  She looked at me in some horror and said, “You are joking aren’t; you?  Not a funny joke, mind you.”  Well no this isn’t what I would consider a funny joke either… Our big carpet had slithered silently down into the muddy waters of the marina… We peered anxiously over the side, but visibility is nil.  Pete took it all very well and said that the next morning he would get the power dive thingy out and would go down to hunt for it.  He didn’t think we would find it; it could have floated around quite some distance before sinking out of sight.

The next morning, bright and early, there was Rachel, moving purposefully around the deck looking for my wetsuit, her mask, flippers.  She was going in, no matter what!  Yuckerella…not such a pleasant task.  She dived down a few times and felt her away around the surface of the mud, unable to see anything.  The mud is very deep here.  Some of the workmen on a boat in the marina told us, encouragingly, that usually things which fall overboard are gone forever, down down into the depths of the silt.

But Rachel was on a mission.  She went forwards and backwards, swimming blind and feeling the unpleasant mud with her dear little pink fingers until – Eureka! She came to the surfaced clutching a corner of the big, heavy, muddy carpet.  Success!  We were all thrilled to bits.  The carpet got another big scrub and clean and then was immediately put back where it belongs and where there is no danger of escape overboard.

Thank you Rachel!  You are welcome aboard 2XS any time.