6th November - Tasmanian life - airport protocols

Thursday 6^th November

Beautiful Tasmania has provided us with a good close look at an echidna, which thought it was hiding …under a large twig.

And some glorious scarlet waratah.

Tasmanians are great travellers.  Our friends and relations have been scattered all over the world this year.  Alaska, Japan, India, Sardinia, Hawaii, Laos, USA, Scandinavia, Vietnam…EVERYWHERE!.

I have been collecting airport stories.

I most countries they confiscate water bottles if they have been opened.  This always makes me sad because as soon as my current bottle has been snatched from my grasp, I feel an enormous thirst and craving for delicious cool (or tepid…) water.  However, apparently in India they don’t take anything away.  What they do is say, yes you can take it on board, but we want to watch you have a swig of whatever liquid is in that container.  Sensible!

They are still confiscating random items which they consider might be used as weapons.

Tiny nail scissors

Equally tiny tweezers (fearful objects, both.)

A tube of toothpaste (well it MIGHT contain bomb-making ingredients!  What they should do is say, yes you can take it on board but we want to watch you brushing your teeth right now.)

Pete had an ancient roll of Elastoplast taken from him at Darwin airport.  It had been travelling the world with him since the late 60s and I can’t imagine it could have been used for any purpose at all, let alone a lethal one.

Is this keeping us safer?  Well…it is providing a whole lot of jobs for security officials…

Cascade Brewery in the chilly late afternoon light

4th November - 2XS is getting cleaner

Tuesday 4^th November

Toby has been cleaning the hull of 2XS.  He has encountered some very painful barnacles…I have every sympathy! 

No not Toby's arm but my barnacle wounds from an episode when I cleaned the propellors which were full of plastic crap after a sojourn in Danga Bay (Johor Baru)

Bernard (aka Dodong) is joining him in the cleaning process.  They are hoping to get rid of the yellow stain we acquired in Terengganu.  Pete and I have been battling with it for many months.  We have scrubbed with Jif, marinated in lime juice, scrubbed with green scouring pads – whatever we could think of.  Bernard will probably attack it with a noxious chemical product…better not to know!

My blue Oakley sunglasses are a thing of the past.  I loved them dearly and was very sad when the blue lenses got too scratched and cloudy to be any use at all.  I clicked in the new ones – a nasty pale brown colour.  And very soon they were all scratched and cloudy as well.  So I lugged the whole kit and caboodle back to the mothership – the Sunglasses Hut at the corner of Cat & Fiddle Arcade.  The gorgeous sales assistant, Absi

was very sympathetic.  She said Oakley would replace my glasses for 50% of the going price…if they were broken.  They aren’t broken.  But…she revealed to me that my Oakleys weren’t polarised – I was aghast!  I wouldn’t have bought them had I known this… So now I have some fabulous new Maui Jim glasses.  Not as pretty but VERY polarised with glistening shiny lenses, strong as can be!

The War Against Splinters continues…

It would seem splinters are winning at the moment...

This time it is poor darling Eva who has been speared by a large fearsome bit of wood.  The old and new boards are being sanded this weekend so these attacks will be a thing of the past!

3rd November - forms of address in the Philippines...

Monday 3rd November I sent Rosie an email saying how happy I am that she and Toby are enjoying their time on 2XS.  She wrote back as follows… Rosie on 2XS

"Yes ma'am we love it!!!so quite...I love the kitchen too!!!" She was very much looking forward to some quiet time.  Living in the middle of SeaDive was very noisy and distracting, and she didn’t have access to any kitchen.  She was hoping to catch lots of fish and to cook them straight from the sea.

As for calling me ma’am…sigh, yes she does this.  And she calls Pete… Sir.  As in, “Hello Ma’am; where is Sir?”  There is no chance of her changing this form of address.  I had a chastening conversation with her when we were having dinner together in the SeaDive restaurant.  I asked her if he had ever been overseas and she said no, but that she would love to.  Well maybe she (and Toby) could come and visit us in Tasmania, when we are settled back here.  She beamed with delight, “Oh yes ma’am!  I could come, and I would look after the children!”  No that was NOT my intention…I was inviting her as a guest, not as a nanny!

Very sad that we missed the Waddamana Open Day!   I gather it was a very cheery reunion.  

2nd November - 2XS in Coron (Philippines) - beautiful chilly Hobart

Sunday 2^nd November

Still so beautiful in Hobart.

And so wild and chilly!

We have had a bit more family time.  Always good…

And I went to the gym at the Chronic Centre (yes I do know it is called the Aquatic Centre but this is what the next generation call it) with aty and a gang of her friends to do a centergy class.  Centergy is a combination of yoga, pilates and aerobics.  I enjoyed it very much but was not very good at it.  At all.  And I found it very daunting to see myself in a full length mirror in the company of much younger, lither, fitter people… There was another woman in much the same condition as me; she too found it hard to stand on one leg like a stork.  Thank goodness!

2XS in Coron

All is well on 2XS.  Toby has sent us an email, saying how much he and Rosie and are enjoying life on “beautiful 2XS.”  No more problems with the toilet, the inverter, the generator, the engines…And no typhoons whistling their dreaded way across the sea to Coron.

Rosie

Quote from Toby plus photos

We'er lucky to have been entrusted to take care of this beautiful Yacht by two (2) wonderful people from Australia. Peter & Magerite. Well treat it like is our own. Take very good care of everything.

Owning a yacht takes a lot of work. It not just all fun and adventure.

Sunset from 2XS

1st November - School Fair Season

Saturday 1st November

This is School Fair Season in Tasmania.  A wild and unreliable season for anything.  It can be snowing, blisteringly hot, hailing, sleeting, violently windy or just mild and sunny.  The forecast for today was for snow and storms and sleet.  Oh goody…

Green grass, blue sky, cheery children

South Hobart Primary School gamely went ahead and…it was mild and sunny.  With occasional sharp gusts of icy wind, just to keep us on our toes.

Katy and I constructed useful hi-vis backpack covers for junior bike riders.  I left them in an untidy pile on a chair in the Thomas house and they value-added and made them look very nifty.  No wobbly seams to be seen…

I saw people I hadn’t seen for many many long months.  Some of them I recognised, others I didn’t.  Some recognised me, others didn’t.  Absence…

Right now it is seriously dark and drizzly; we are warm and cosy with the heat pump pumping.  So very different from our tropical life on 2XS…I walk down to the shop wearing my down coat, which could also double as a sleeping bag.  I have a scarf wound round my neck, shoes and socks and jeans and several layers of singlets and t-shirt type things.  On 2XS for the past year I have worn…as little as possible.  Ann-Marie describes all of my clothing as being a muumuu…