Friday 22nd February

Friday 22^nd February

Our Prince of Wales Bay marina neighbours, Harry and Suzie, were nestled amongst a whole range of boats in Victoria Dock at the Wooden Boat Show.  Their boat, Salamander, is a nifty trimaran, which looks very delicate but which is capable of flying across the water at – well, at a great rate of knots…

They are very sociable and had a lovely time camping on their boat right in the middle of the festivities.  In fact they slept extremely well in their little rocking cradle because on the second morning they awoke to find a great looming shadow – Voyager of the Seas, or Vollendam, – a huge great cruise liner which had come in, with much tooting of horns at 6am and which was tied up to the wharf not many metres from Salamander.

The many boats in the show were lined up with great precision, with ropes going here and there, planks, ladders, embarking arrangements all delicately contrived and coordinated.  We saw Harry and Suzie around lunchtime on the last day, and they said they had to be at the ready to leave their position very soon because if they missed their turn the whole system would collapse – the intricate network of ropes and attachments only worked if boats came in and left in the same order.  I am so impressed with the organisation of this show…by 3pm Salamander was flying up the river, back to its home in the marina, with no entanglements or difficulties at all.

Darwin (Rina) 2008

I was travelling Light-Saver, ie with just my daypack.  Tricky but possible, and so much easier - no waiting around carousels, just on and off planes.  I had been very careful with packing my toiletries - yes thank you Mum and Pappie for the useful little bottles, invaluable! - but when it came time to go through the security check, they made me empty out all of my toiletries into a big clear plastic bag.  Well some of my toiletries were embarrassing (no I won’t go into details.)  So I was just a teeny bit embarrassed.  A very nice attractive blonde woman was just ahead of me, also emptying out her toiletries and muttering faintly to herself.  I said, “I won’t look at yours if you don’t look at mine,” and we went through in sisterly solidarity.  There was an hour or more until the plane left for Vietnam, so I wandered around vaguely poking at things in Duty Free.  I was just going through the check-out buying a large bottle of gin for Pete (Well for Pete, Kerry, Rina and me…) when an announcement came over the PA, saying that the boarding gate had closed and it was now too late.  Or so I thought… What they actually said was that check-in had closed.  I flew into a panic and ran around like a bee in a bottle, trying not to cry.  I rushed up to the security man and clutched his arm, saying, “I’ve missed the plane!  What can I do?”  He was SO kind to me, he deserves a medal.  He patted my hand gently and said, in benign tones, “No, no we won’t let you miss the plane!  Go and buy a drink and sit down over there!” 

So I did just that, and never was a VB more happily received and imbibed.  I sat where I could watch the people coming in, because I was waiting to meet Rina.  I had a description of her from Kerry, and from Pete, but nobody was there answering that description.  Wait…what about my friend from the security check-in??  That must have been Rina!  She too had been buying gin… for Kerry, Pete, Marguerite and herself!!  We were very happy to meet up just as the plane was boarding.  It was a great flight because we had three seats each - unheard of - and could stretch out and nap after we had spent a few cosy hours chatting over a glass of champagne.  (Life is good!!)  Did I say nap?  Well we were able to stretch out, as were most of the passengers, but there was a party of about twelve young blokes who were off on holiday and who were SO excited to see one another.  They wandered up and down the aisle, shouting and banging each other on the back, oblivious to the people sleeping all around them.  Rina and I both found this very amusing but maybe not everyone was as tolerant… But maybe not everyone had had a lovely glass of champagne, and had met a lovely new friend!