31st May extra

EXTRA Friday 31^st May

A photo of radiant Katy and Jeff – could they be any happier??

And a photo of the girl sitting next to Pete on the ferry, so cute, from Horn Island to Thursday Island (TI!!!) this afternoon…well a photo of her arm…  I actually meant the ferry was cute, not necessarily the girl, although she was very friendly, and indulging in Extreme Mating Behaviour with her boyfriend – much slapping, giggling, punching, tickling…

Accolades to Jeff we are SO PROUD!!!

I spoke to all of my daughters this morning – oh the luxury of being near Telstra towers and managing to achieve CONNECTON!!

Nicky and Claire were at Katy and Jeff’s, with all of the little ones, kidwrangling happily.  We had a debate of sorts as to the status of my crocodile sighting yesterday.  Is it one of the pivotal events of my life thus far?  Well no…the birth of each of my darling children takes precedence.  Apparently…And then the births of my grandchildren. Could we have a separate nature category, I suggested.  Well yes…but surely the most thrilling Attenborough Moment had to be when I saw a mother and baby whale in the Derwent, in the company of Claire??

Katy rang soon after, from the very sophisticated Sofitel in Melbourne, where they arrived with my slightly mouldy purple suitcase – I had swapped it for their newer, larger less smelly one at the last moment when I left in April… The porter didn’t think he needed to touch it, Katy said.  Jeff has been asked to make a speech and he is very nervous – the speech will be happening right about NOW.  Jeff is very happy, apart from his nervousness, because he was confronted, this morning, with the full glory of the Sofitel Breakfast Bar.  He ate yoghurt, salmon bagels, an omelette, muesli, a blueberry Danish, just for starters, and he drank juice, and coffee.  Blissikins!  Katy was entranced, watching him poised over the selection, little tongs at the ready.

From today's Mercury (Tas)

A TASMANIAN has been named one of the best 12 teachers in Australia.

Jeff Thomas has been recognised for creating the Magone program at Glenorchy's Dominic College.

It was designed for children who were disengaged or at risk of becoming disengaged from education.

Their self-contained classroom is their base until they reach goals they set at the start of their stay, which is usually for a year.

They take turns to prepare meals between classes, go on a daily run and even build furniture for the centre. Educational, social and emotional issues are addressed.

Mr Thomas is now doing a doctorate on alternative education.

"Our society is very good at writing people off instead of saying let's see what they are good at. If they're keen to do well, let them do well," he said.

Up to 10 children from years 7 to 10 take part in the program.

Student Jess Direen was full of praise for Mr Thomas and said her work was almost back to the standard she wanted to return to mainstream class.

"He's really nice and really funny. You can ask him something and he won't forget," Jess said.

Zane Cowen said: "He's good to talk to when you have any troubles."

The awards will be presented in Melbourne today.

30th May - Escape River to Thursday Island - pearl farm - crocodile

Thursday 30^th May

10 degrees of latitude

142 of longitude but we are now heading west, for the first time.

Thursday…and we are anchored just near Thursday Island!

We have made it up and around the tippytop of Australia.

This is Cape York:

Maybe not such a thrilling photo, but all very thrilling to us.  We left the Escape River at 12.00 and absolutely powered up the coast, caught on a tidal surge which gave us 10, and sometimes 12 knots.  So fortuitous!  Well not really…God management rather than good luck was in force.  Pete had spent a lot of time studying the wind, weather and tides, and he anticipated a bit of help from the tides.  But not this much!

When we got to the Albany Channel we were in a positive maelstrom of tossing waves going in every direction.  We were mildly alarmed; how would we negotiate this narrow passage in such turbulent sea?  Not a problem!  The water all flattened out, all but the ripping tide, which carried us swiftly and majestically through a very beautiful little part of the world.

This morning we had an unexpected invitation to morning tea at the Escape River pearl farm.  We met up with our Yacht Forty-Two

friends, Karsten and Mercedes (from Hamburg) and anchored just off the farm jetty.  Rusty and Bronwyn

were extremely hospitable and full of chat and information.  And…best of all…I actually got to see a wild crocodile!  O frabjous day!!  Bronwyn told me that there are lots of crocs in this river.  A very big one, further down from where we were anchored overnight, which likes to LEAP.  Recently it leapt out of the water and tore a high-flying flag off a gently bobbing yacht, causing great consternation all around.  There is another large one which lolls about on the sandbank near where we had been.  “Oh yes,” said both Karsten and Pete.  We saw a large log.  Which moved.”  But I did NOT see it!!  And just near the pearl farm buildings, said Bronwyn, there is a cute smaller croc, barely two metres, which is often visible.  When we left – there it was, as cute as a croc can be!  It was sitting in the shallows, but as we left in the laden dinghy it was thrashing about very happily, causing great consternation amongst the small silver fish which hurled themselves out of the water with a resounding splishysplash.

Bronwyn also told us that this river is teeming with life  Dugongs, turtles, crocs big and small, groupers, mackerel, barramundi, and…sharks.  Big ones!  Bull sharks and tiger sharks and hammerheads.  SO glad I wasn’t in the least tempted to swim!

We will have a few days here, around Thursday Island (known to those in the know as TI…) and we will greatly enjoy being able to buy some more food, and to be connected to cyberworld.

Oh and I forgot to mention…my beautiful beanbag, as An Asset To 2XS…(Pete is in the (temporary...) tarpaulin breezeway

And here are some of the Blue Thong Walk path markers:

and another one:

Wednesday 29th May

Wednesday 29th May

Getting closer to the very tippytop end of Australia…

We have made it into the Escape River, which is full of rafts of black buoys, from the big pearl farm at the mouth of the river. Our trip up here was very speedy, with both wind and waves in our favour. WHEEE!!!

Yacht Forty-Two is here as well, such a brave little boat, bouncing its way across the sea. When we came into the river we received a radio call from a genial man at the pearl farm, who directed us through the buoys, past a sand bank, away from the shallow bits, and into a nice anchorage where, he said, we could rest peacefully. We thanked him and told him that a smaller monohull yacht would be following within the hour. He said, laconically, “And I bet you are thankful every single day that you bought a cat.” Yes indeed! Karsten, from Forty-Two, says, for example, of his anchorage at Portland Roads, “It was OK at first but then…we started dancing.” And that is what monohulls do, they dance, they rock and they roll, whereas catamarans sit stolidly, rising and falling with the waves but not actually dancing.

A small contemplation of some of the things which have been successful on the boat so far:

Our bikes have been beautifully cleaned, serviced and fixed at Ken Self’s in Hobart. My gear lever had broken off completely and it has all been macguyvered to good-as-new. Mind you a bike is NOT really necessary in the mangroves, jungles and sandbanks of this very remote part of the world but when we get to Darwin, watch out! We will be happily mobile again.

Our satellite connection WORKS! This is very good; I am thrilled to bits. We can only do a few limited things, eg send brief emails, no pictures or attachments, but this is a vast improvement on NOTHING. We can’t access the internet, or our gmail/hotmail accounts, but we are very thankful for our little bit of connection to the world. Katy is very kindly transferring these blogbits from my emails onto the sailing2xs site, so I don’t feel as isolated as I did last time we went away when I often couldn’t send or receive anything at all.

Pete has a new computer navigation system, OpenCPN, which seems to be working, as a backup to the Raymarine charts. 

The SodaStream is providing us with tonic water, very nicely thank you.

Pete’s sourdough breadmaking efforts are continuing; his loaves are gradually getting higher and less, ummm, dense, and this is making him HAPPY. 

The tarpaulin shade screen Pete has devised is wonderful. It provides us with a cool breezeway, and stops us getting cooked to death when we are at the helm. (But…not when it is windy…)

And what is not working??

Well…our fridge situation is still very dicey. We turn the Engel on and off at random times, to make sure it is cold enough, and not freezing too much. And the other spare fridge also gets turned on and off, for much the same sort of reason, while the kitchen fridge, newly scrubbed and disinfected, sits empty and happy, with a small packet of sultanas gaffertaped inside the door to stop it from closing and letting the interior get festy, as fridges so easily do.

And I am very sad to report that my food drying efforts have been less than successful. Every now and then I open yet another bag of slimy something or another and feed it to the happy fish and crocs swimming underneath 2XS. The drying probably worked reasonably well, what didn’t work was my fabulous (NOT) new vacuum sealing air sucker thingy, with the special (expensive!) specially designed bags. They do not remain sealed for very long and very soon air has seeped it, and moisture from the air, and my carefully dried mushrooms etc are reduced to ghastly slime.

Tomorrow – another 40 nautical miles and we will be at Thursday Island! Right at the tippytop… 

Monday 27th May

Monday 27th May

Pathway of Blue Thongs

This morning we went in to shore in the little dinghy. We tied it to a large mangrove tree and let it bob about prettily in the shallows while we went for our Blue Thong Adventure.

There is a track from the end of the Margaret Bay beach through to the other side of Cape Grenville. It is marked, most thoughtfully and whimsically, by carefully placed blue thongs, amongst other things, with a predominant theme of blue-ness. Other things being…a child’s potty; a watering can; various bits of rope; bottles; a kitchen tidy – that sort of thing. Inexplicably marking the path…

It was a beautiful walk, if prickly. (We got prickled by various vines and branches, and stung by a wide variety of ants and flies.) We were very grateful for the blue markers and occasionally shuddered at the thought of somehow wandering off track into the boggy mangrove swamp at one side of the path. 

We were following footprints. Not human ones. It took us a while to work out they were piggy feet. There must be a lot of wild pigs on this cape. We came across lots of places where they had wallowed around, either in dry dirt, or, for a different sensation, in muddy hollows. They must be very wary of humans; we didn’t catch sight of so much as a whisker, although Pete did hear a bit of a rustle in the bushes at one stage.

It took us about an hour to make our way though to Indian Bay on the other side. I had been trying to work out how everyone knew to bring a bit of blue plastic crap to mark the path, but all was explained when we arrived. The shallow beach there is covered with detritus, mostly plastic crap. I was able to find four very blue things to leave hooked onto branches on the way back, and so the tradition continues and the path keeps getting renewed with blue plastic crap.

A few years ago I saw a docudrama about some young blokes (maybe World War II, either US or UK,) who survived a plane crash on a beach somewhere up in this area. They walked back to the nearest inhabited place and had all sorts of terrifying encounters, especially with crocodiles which surprised and terrified the living daylights out of them when they finally came to a cool clear river and leapt in for a swim. Last night Rosemary told us there is a plane wreck on the beach here at Margaret Bay, WWII vintage, and that it was on its way to Portland Roads when it ran out of fuel. It must be the same story, surely?? We tried to find the plane but the tide was right in and we couldn’t walk along the beach. And we did NOT want to walk through the mangroves…

Tomorrow I think we are going north, to the Escape River.

Sunday 26th May

Sunday 26th May

Portland Roads to Cape Grenville

Pete is on the phone to Rosemary, by satellite, asking…Where is the path paved with blue thongs?? All will be revealed no doubt…(Our kindly Cairns friends Rosemary, John and Bill gave us lots of notes on Things To Do in the islands of Far North Qld.)

Obviously we did leave Portland Roads. It was still very windy and wild, but going NORTH instead of EAST meant that we had a very pleasant, if brisk, trip up the coast. No battling against huge waves, no uncalled for gybing and sad looks on Captain Pete’s face… 

We missed Forbes Islet and a chance to swim, and the Olive River, with the chance to see huge crocs. The wind, the tricky reefs and the waves just didn’t allow either of these treats.

So what did we see??? The sea, the sea, the beautiful sea… And lots of islands. One of them, near our anchorage at Margaret Bay, off Cape Grenville, has a resort – Hicks Island. It must be the most remote resort you can think of…on a funny low island with a ridge of startled palms running all the way along it. And a few birds…and one lone dolphin.

Tomorrow we will take the dinghy in to shore and see if we can find the path paved with blue thongs and yes all will be revealed…

Portland Roads has a bit of reception!!

Saturday 18^th May

We arrived at beautiful Lizard Island at 2.00 yesterday after a beautiful sail up the coast, with bouncy 1-metre waves and a nice 20-ish knot wind.  It was quite overcast so not too hot, and not so much need to be shrouded in saris and sarongs to keep the searing sun off my beleaguered skin.

Pete spent most of the morning downstairs, constructing chicken stock out of our remaining bits and pieces, and making a most delicious chicken noodle soup for lunch and a curry for dinner.  I stayed at the helm and listed to Life Matters.  I learned about:

Living with multiple sclerosis (MS) l

Living with cystic fibrosis (CF)

Living with skin diseases

How hard it is being a woman in prison and then coming out of prison. 

The effect of pornography on young people and their expectations when they start relationships

Many many problems.

I felt quite happy, when Pete arrived with my bowl of soup, not to have any of the abovementioned problems.

I took a few photos, just to show what it is like on the boat when we are on the move.

One from the front, to show how steady the boat is as it bounces lightly across the waves.  In the distance there are two low flat islands.  Australians can be very unimaginative when naming landmarks.  These are called, lyrically, Two Islands.  A bit further south there is a low flat island with some trees.  It is called Low Wooded Island.  And on the north and south of Lizard Island are two starkly beautiful little island called…North Island and South Island.  I reckon Lizard Island is so named because Captain Cook saw a lizard there and noted it in his diary.

One from the back.  I sometimes sit on the back steps with my feet dangling in the water – instant foot spa, very nice!

It was very breezy and not especially warm when we got to Lizard but I was very VERY keen to go for a swim no matter what.  But as we were dropping the anchor…up swam a dear little shark, with a friend, circling the boat.  Not a big one, just about one metre, and very cute, with its black and white fin.  But I sighed deeply and did not get in. 

I said pointedly to Pete that I would swim if I had someone to go with. He looked around and said, Well I wonder who we could find to go with you?  And retreated to zzzz happily on the couch with his book.

This morning we did a bit of research re swimming and snorkeling in Watsons Bay.  A few people from the five star resort in the next little bay were happily swimming around on the reef, and everyone we talked to said it was fine.  The little sharks are no bother at all.

Our first mission was to go for a walk, however, on beautiful Lizard Island.  There is a very well presented track, with interpretative signs explaining the flora, fauna, and history from this bay to the next, so we gently pootled along, learning:

* About poor ill-fated Mary Watson, adrift in an iron tub with her baby and one surviving Chinese servant, Ah Sam:

This is not her cottage…but it might well have been…and in fact I gather for a long time common wisdom had this firmly established as her domicile.  Recently archeologists have come along and dug around and said No, it’s too big, or too small, or whatever.  So Mary is homeless.

* About trees:

This one is Corymbia Tessellaris – such fascinating bark!

This is a pandani grove, sacred to the aborigines – it is possible that Mr and Wrs Watson didn’t treat the area with the respect required which is is Mary was cast adrift in the aforementioned tub while her husband was off fishing for beche de mer…

* About green ants:

They make nifty nests in the trees.

* And about…lizards!  Indeed I was correct, Captain Cook, in 1770 said, a bit despondently, that there were no animals at all on this island. Only lizards.  Great big sand monitors, to be exact.  I was thrilled to bits to see not one but two!!

Number #1:

Number #2

Almost impossible to see under this tree – this one is a Where’s Wally puzzle…

On the way back over the top of the headland, after a disappointing visit to the Marlin Bar at the resort…disappointing because…it was closed; Happy Hour is obviously not 11.30am…we stopped to take a Scenery Shot.

2XS is there, at the back of the boats, looking very pretty in this gloriously little bay.

By the time we got back, well after 1.00, I was desperate for a swim.  It all looked so fabulously inviting.  I had spread out my new toys for their Photo Opportunity – fabulous new PINK snork and flip from Cairns, and new and as yet untested underwater camera from Hobart:

Wee hee!!

Pete came with me and not on single solitary shark did we see.  What we did see was giant clams!!  Dozens of them!  We had seen one or two before, in far-flung Pacific islands, but here, on the northern end of the bay, there was a positive profusion of clams of all sizes.  I took a photo of a gang of pretty little ones first up:

So pretty!!  I took about ten photos of the big ones…some of them are very blurry.  And there is no scale…I should have got Pete’s foot, or my flipper, in the picture.  But just imagine that they would weigh about 40-50 kilos – they are huge!  And so fabulous!!

Update on this information…after our visit to the research Station we discovered that e had greatly underestimated the size of our speccy clams.  They can weigh up to 150 kilos!!  And they live till they are about seventy years old…

Sunday 19^th May

It is raining on beautiful Lizard Island…

So we have no choice but to lie on the couches reading and drinking cups of coffee after an ENORMOUS breakfast which should last us well and truly until dinnertime. 

We are going to the Marlin Bar, which apparently is open Sunday nights, and only then, with the other five boatloads of people in Watsons Bay.  Last night we all met on the beach for sundowners and chat.  All but one boat is heading for the Indonesian Rally; wee hee!!

Our one big event of the morning was – a few moments of phone reception.  Oh and a visit from a very formal Customs boat, with officials, friendly but firm, asking us a few pertinent questions.

And my big event of the day was another very nice swim, over another part of the reef.  More giant clams, and one timid little reef shark which swept by, giving me a very wide berth.

Monday 20^th May

The Marlin Bar was…closed.  So we had drinks on Settlement, a lovely big cat from Mackay, also on its way to the Indonesian Rally, with hospitable Andrew and Sue aboard.

This morning we walked to the Research Station, about three kilometres away from the (closed) Marlin Bar.  All of the people from the five boats anchored in Watsons Bay walked across, through the beautiful low forest.

The presentation was great, and no it did not go on too long.  We learned all manner of things.  For example, the giant clams don’t eat little fish, as I had always thought.  They photosynthesise from sunlight, and they feed on particulates in the sea.  And crown of thorns starfish are not, as I had thought, a ghastly foreign invasion.  They are native to the Barrier Reef, and they present the greatest present danger.  They are phenomenally efficient at reproduction, and at destroying coral, and they also have very poisonous spines which can cause great pain (but not death.)  I loved all of this info, and could have listened to Lile, the director of the station, for hours longer.

Pete and I had taken a picnic lunch to the other side of the island, where the station is situation, on a glorious lagoon.  The other eight people had assured us that that was the plan, man, and that we would all have sandwiches and then a swim in the lagoon.  But as it turned out they had all failed in the sandwich making area and we were the only ones with food…We sat happily enough, with one lone teenage seagull, and admired the lagoon while the others went back to their boats for lunch.

We are leaving tomorrow morning so I was very keen to have one last swim on the reef.  Yesterday my underwater photos were a dismal, blurry failure, and included lots (too many…) photos of my intrusive fingers.  But today – success!  I got several photos of some of my very favourite darling little anemone fish…peering up at the camera with great interest.

Tomorrow we are leaving for Howick Island, on our way to the Flinders Group.  I think there will be no swimming for quite a while so I will have to gaze regularly and fondly at the dear little fishy faces.

Tuesday 21^st May

Howick Island – lots of mangroves, possible crocs, no swimming…

Some of our friends have joined us here – Settlement (Andrew and Sue) and Tiare Taporo III (Jim and Gina.)

No phone reception. No internet connection.  I am very disappointed…never mind…