3rd January - at a distance from 2XS

Friday 3^rd January

 For the next two weeks I will be sailing2xs* at a distance…

I am in Melbourne Airport, waiting for a flight to Hobart.

Pete is still in Rebak marina, where many of our kind friends are planning to cook delicious meals for him – it is roast lamb, on Settlement, tonight…

I will remember him like this, lying on the couch and earnestly planning where next to put a fan.  And I will miss him but…there is much fun and much love in Tasmania as well.

Pete just sent an email.  He took me to the Langkawai airport at 4 and then went to do some jobs – yes buying yet another fan… He missed the 6.30 ferry back to the marina by minutes and made his way, disconsolately, to the nearby Four Points by Sheraton resort.  We had heard that it was just foul - crumbling, dirty, run down, with yucky sheets and towels and nothing good about it at at all.  Pete’s description??  Absolutely beautiful, and Long Island Tea to die for. 

Last photo from our A19 berth at the marina

People, we have found, are so funny…so fussy, persnickety, critical…For example, the ablutions facility at the marina are fine.  A bit of grand marble; usually there is paper in the toilets; most of the showers have running water although some just trickle; everything is reasonably clean.  My main complaint is that the place is overrun by mosquitoes, happily waiting for their meals to arrive, as Irina (SV Footloose) would say.  But some of our friends are DISGUSTED and have written letters of complaint to the management.  (Good thing they didn’t see this particular toilet, hidden away in a forgotten corner of the complex…)

Many ants, which is, I suppose a better thing than many mosquitoes

* Yes I will still write every day, Telstra permitting