28th January 2016 - Townsville croc - 2XS in Hamilton Island marina

Saturday 28^th January 2016

Pete is back from Queensland and maybe he can have some peaceful time at home.

Maybe!

2XS is safely in the marina on Hamilton Island, with both motors working.

Antifouling in the Philippines

Away from the crocodiles!  When I had left Townsville in November, Pete decided to get into the water to scrub the bottom on the boat.  It is very dirty, encrusted with marine life.  The anti-foul, done so painstakingly in Ocean View marina (Philippines) last year April) is obviously a dud.  It promotes rather than discourages marine organisms!!  I didn’t want Pete to get into the water.  What could possibly go wrong??

Apparently (*cough*) I was being over-cautious.  Various long-term inhabitants of the marina told him there hadn’t ever been a crocodile anywhere near Breakwater.  So in he hopped, scrubbing away industriously.  No crocs in sight, no probs!

Recently he paid Dale, who lives in the marina, to get in and scrub yet again.  Dale does this for a living.  He was in the water for nearly two hours, and when he came out he said, casually, that it was all safe now because…The Crocodile (the non-existent crocodile???) is dead!  Apparently just a few days after Pete left Townsville in December, not long after his underboat labours, a waterski boat ran into a large underwater object… A three and a half metre crocodile, which had been living , peacefully and calmly, in around around Breakwater.  (The croc didn’t survive this encounter.)

7th January - 2XS $$$ woes - engine all fixed and ready to go - Deloraine - Moths (Derwent)

Saturday 7th January 2017

2XS now has a perfectly restored starboard engine.  It should go like the clappers for many years.  Captain Pete, on the other hand, is suffering a bit of a decline…the bill was steep!  The mechanic, honest and hard-working as he undoubtedly is, had quoted $8,000.  Maybe a bit more.  But the reckoning, when it came, was $16,000.  The  Volvo Penta parts were fearfully expensive.  So Pete is wandering around his house with a slightly stunned expression…

He will need to open his Christmas (Josef Chromy!) wine...

Onto a more cheery topic:

Deloraine is so beautiful.  Nestled in a valley with a sleepy river, dramatic mountains, limestone caves, stately homes.  (Never mind that it gets beastly cold and fogy in winter…that is why we have insulation, puffer jackets, doonas!) 

Calstock

Pete and I loved our morning being tourists in our own backyard.  We went to the little museum and were enthralled.  I loved it because it was all very quirky and interesting and not TMI (Too Much Information.)  Pete added the museum to George and Ute’s already overloaded itinerary…

Jimmy Possum chair at the museum - I loved these chairs!  Indestructible and comfortable!!)

The little Moths are out on the river, darting about on their foils, looking so very pretty in the sparkling sunlight.  I am very relieved that Hobart has put on delightful weather for the championship…It is hot, clear, glorious.  (It could very well have been sleety, cold, grey…our climate is VERY changeable.  And you will never – I hope – hear a word of complaint from me about it.  I love it all, the hot, the cold, the sleet, the wind, the unpredictable nature of things.  I loved my years in the tropics, having 2XS adventures, but a hot unvaried climate isn’t my natural happy place…Bring on the weird four-seasons-in-one-day theme!)

A Pete Harmsen photo

5th January 2017 - Happy New Year! - Subaru Impreza - Hobart at the end of the year

Thursday 5^th January 2017

Lots of good things happened in 2016; lots of good things will undoubtedly also happen in 2017.  For example – Giant Pandas are off the endangered species list!  So are green sea turtles!

I have begun the year by taking a giant leap – my first car since 2003…

Pride And Joy!!

Impressing the South Hobart boys (Callan Reuben Paddy Leo)

For the last few days we have had George and Ute staying with us.  They have sold their beautiful yacht Miami (so-named because George’s surname is Weiss…)  We met them in Ocean View marina (Mindanao) last year, and became FB friends.  On Wednesday night I received a plaintive call from Ute – they were booked on the plane on Thursday and had no accommodation – Tasmania is FULL!  So of course they came to Pete’s house and we totally exhausted them  They had barely set foot on solid ground and it was off and away on John’s lovely old boat, Macdavid, to see Sydney Hobart boats coming in.  Then dinner here with many...(including BrotherChris, quite sanguine re his recent experience on Wild Oats 11)

MONA

Then off to MONA the next day, followed by a walk through West Hobart and Battery Point to Shippies to catch up with Chas from Tas; then Taste of Tasmania…

At MONA

New Years Eve we mercifully left them alone…but New Years Day it was all GO again!  They must have been quite relieved when we vanished on the 2^nd, to go to Deloraine for another family celebration!  They have rented a motorhome and are now peacefully chuffing around Tasmania, with a very detailed itinerary constructed for them by Pete.  They have sold Miami, after sixteen years at sea, and they seem quite happy to be doing a bit of land travel.

At Dara and Danny's in Deloraine - all of my mother's fourteen great grandchildren!

Our News Years Eve was very beautiful, on Cam and Liz’s boat, Montego Bay.  He drove us right under the fireworks at midnight and it was fabulous to be in amongst what Michael, when he was two, called the Screaming Clouds.

We had a great time in Deloraine.  BIG family reunion!  Michael hadn’t seen his cousins Dara and Leah for many years; he had never met Dara’s Danny and Leah’s Mark and he stayed behind to loll in the spa and drink beers and tell LOTS of very funny stories (many of them about Pete and Marguerite on 2XS…)

He was just a bit shabby in the back of the car the next day…

But he rallied when we visited Mum and Marcel so all is well!