Wednesday 29^th August

Happy half birthday to Rose. 

Six months old and full of a new found joy – food!  Solid (well nearly solid…) food!  Oh joy!  I mentioned to Katy recently that Rose was developing her own distinct personality and she said, lovingly, “Well it is so far a fairly limited personality.  She has two moods – happy, or hungry.”  Very true.

Yesterday I had lunch in the new little café just two doors away from my workplace.  It is actually even closer to Liz’s office – she works two floors above.  Oh so tempting to pop down for a cappuccino and a delicious caramel slice… The café is run by a bevy of very enthusiastic young chaps who bump into each other in the confined area and get into a terrible muddle.  Liz and I sat with our sandwiches and coffee and watched them, faintly bemused, as one of them trotted around looking for a person who might have ordered a toasted croissant.  (It wasn’t hard.  There are only four tables…)

We had a very nice time catching up and discussing life, love, money, men.  We got into a very interesting discussion about the pros and cons of divorce (me) and widowhood (Liz.)  Too fascinating! 

Liz was also very interested to hear about our 2XS trip.  She particularly wanted to know about passages and how we kept watch through the night.  I told her that some people we met actually go to bed at night, and trust the autopilot to guide them across the ocean.  Pete and I never did this.  We always had someone at the helm, keeping a careful eye on the radar, the steering, the stars.  Liz agreed that this was a good idea and told me about an experience she had, many years ago, on one of the Bass Strait ferries.  The captain invited her and her husband up to the bridge late at night.  It was very dark and misty.  The captain asked Liz if she could see anything, out towards the horizon.  Well, no.  Just a faint line between sea and sky.  Look more closely… And yes, Liz could see a faint outline, about as big, she said, as a tennis court.  The captain said it was a shipping container, loosely bobbing about, mostly submerged.  If he hadn’t picked it up on the radar, and then with his keen eyes, it would have done damage to the ferry.  He said there are lots of containers in Bass Strait – traps indeed for unwary sailors!

We didn’t come across any shipping containers, but we did see lots of large logs and hazards, close in to shore after the floods in Australia last year.  The worst thing I saw, somewhere in the Solomon Islands, I think, was in broad daylight.  Pete was having a snooze on the couch and I was idly at the helm, listening to an audiobook and gazing out at the sparkling water.  And there, very close to the boat, and making my blood run cold, was a large floating bit of twisted metal floating on by, with great prongs of sharp steel above the water.  Goodness knows how big this was but if we had hit it, I think 2XS would have been ex-2XS!  I kept an even closer eye on what was ahead after seeing this monstrous thing…