Thursday 17^th May

Absolutely glorious autumn weather in Hobart.  The trees seem to be hanging on to their leaves for longer this year.  Some years there is a fierce cold southerly wind which shakes all the leaves off in one fell swoop.  Much nicer to have a gentle drift of gold and red over the autumn weeks.

I catch little glimpses of it – working life is different to 2XS life…

Greg, as I have said, is on his way to Vanuatu, where they don’t have autumn leaves… He asked us about going to Tanna and maybe spending four months in Port Resolution.  Yes (gulp!) four MONTHS.  We loved Tanna and enjoyed Port Resolution, with its brave little yacht club, very much, but we were amazed when Bella and Derek (Pandanus) told us they had spent four weeks there after we left.  We had, I think four or five nights in this lovely anchorage…and we were quite happy to sail on, to Erromango, and then Port Vila.

But we did tell Greg than Tanna is a very wonderful island, and that he would be mightily impressed with the volcano.  He didn’t get it at all.  “You guys know that volcanoes are very dangerous, right?” he said, looking at us a bit anxiously.  (He was the same when talking about smoking.  People smoking, not volcanoes, that is.  “Why would anyone smoke?  They know it’s bad for their health, right?”  Well yes I do think this is common public knowledge…I don’t think any smoker is going to say, “Well golly and gosh, really?  It’s bad for my health?  I’ll stop right away then!”)