27th December 2016 - Tas Christmas - Wild Oats 11 withdraws - Philippines typhoon

Tuesday 27^th December 2016

Christmas here in Tasmania was a happy, cheery occasion.

All four of my offspring together!

Last year Pete and I gave each other tickets to Cirque du Soleil.  No not a combined, sensible collaboration…I bought tickets in the most expensive section, quite close to the front.  He bought some a bit further back…We did not need four tickets for two bottoms!  (Claire and Jemima scored the extra tickets.)

This year we bought each other…a Bose bluetooth speaker to replace the one stolen in the Trobriand Islands.  Do we need two Bose speakers?  Well no…

I was about to launch into a paean of praise for Wild Oats 11, which was storming down the coast set to beat its own record for line honours in the Sydney-Hobart race.  My brother Chris is aboard and ABC radio has been full of enthusiasm – it looked to be a dead certainty that Wild Oats 11 would be crossing the finish line at 5am.  But…Wild Oats 11 has pulled out – hydraulic problems, nothing dangerous or ghastly.  But – bummer!!  We were all set to go out on the welcoming boat in the early hours to cheer and sing and clap!

I have been so thrilled with my small raised veggie/herb bed that I organised a similar set-up for Stuart, who was my Secret Santa recipient this year.  Instead of getting a small neatly wrapped present under the tree he got a thwacking great flatpack, six little pots of herbs, a bag of potting soil and a bag of mulch.

He took his set-up home and…

The guinea pigs are very happy!!

Some of our sailing friends are still in the Philippines.  I read on Claudie’s FB page that they had endured two hours of shrieking terror off Puerto Galeras.  They are OK, on Mystic Rhythm, but it must have been hideous.

We survived, we are fine. Really high winds, trees and other debris blowing onto us (or next to us).  Some ferry started drifting and lost control when his mooring broke and a line got stuck in his prop.  He then got tangled with another boat's mooring and both went dragging when the high winds hit.  He took almost every other boat in the anchorage with him and ran 2 sailboats to the reef, hit another and overturned a local boat!  He came so close to us!  This typhoon was 2 hours of sheer terror! I never want to go through something like that again, that's for sure!