Everyone asks what our travel plan is.

Well…it involves travelling safely and comfortably so maybe we will have to stay in unexpected places for longer than would be on a planned itinerary….

Our first port of call will be Fortescue Bay on the first night, just around the corner really.  Then easy hops to Bicheno, Flinders Island, Deal Island, then Lakes Entrance in Victoria.  And then further north till we get to the Gold Coast area, where we MIGHT turn right and go to New Caledonia and further to other islands.  But…maybe not!

One of the lovely men at a jewellers shop in town told me a funny story about a very well known gay Hobart couple.  They sold up their business and their house and bought a luxurious boat, planning to sail the Seven Seas.  They got to Sydney and went to a party or two.  Then cruised around Pittwater and went to another party or two…then back to Sydney for Mardi Gras.  And a few more parties…  Two years on they are still gently pootling around Sydney and surrounds…

Today 2XS slid majestically off the slip and back into the Motor Yacht Club marina in Lindisfarne.  The gearbox is fixed; the antifouling looks fabulously blue; all is well!

We have had a few more not-farewells… 

On Saturday we had a BBQ in Old Farm Rd, at Katy and Jeff’s, with an assembled multitude of close family members.  The younger children had a beautiful brass bell for Pete, to install on the boat.  (We had learned in our Collision Regulations course that a bell is compulsory – to be rung in thick fog.  And also, we hope, to announce Gin & Tonic Time!)  They organised a treasure hunt for him – he had to skip around the garden looking for the source of the mysterious ringing sound.  When he found it, it was in the middle of a circle of eight cheery children including two fairy princesses….

I have moved out of my house and the power is being disconnected tomorrow… this is a very big deal for me… I love my little house…and it is looking so very warm and clean and empty.  And…did I say warm???  We have moved into the apartment Pete is renovating in South Hobart.  It is very nice; or rather it is going to be very nice.  But it isn’t warm or empty…it is a bit of a work-in-progress, and very very cold.  Never mind; what are doonas for, and puffer jackets, and ugg boots?  And the shower is lovely and warm.  I am enjoying being in a slightly different neighbourhood (2 ks from my house…not exactly alien territory) and walking along different streets.  All novel and interesting.  Departure Date is next Monday so it is good to have the opportunity to be in this place for a few days, and see whether or not the – ahem- washing machine leaks before Pete rents it out.

Yesterday was almost a blue-hand day but not quite…

Pete bought me latex gloves, a small pack – we feared they might come in bulk 100-packs and really…how many does a person need?  NOT that many, surely??  So I put a pair nicely in my jeans pocket at the Domain slip and Pete drove off to pick up the missing safety vest (compulsory on the slip and the cause of much cursing when it was found to be missing) and I started stirring paint and setting up roller trays etc etc in James’s overalls…which did NOT have a pair of latex gloves in the pocket.  So by the time Pete came back my hands were slightly blue.  But…we had turps with us and now I am only moderately grotty and mauve around the cuticle area.

We achieved a lot of blueness in appropriate places ie the bottom of 2XS and we hope it is now completely totally anti-fouled and ready to face the sea and to repel all of the small marine creatures which want to make this space their permanent home.  We also visited the 2XS gearbox in Flagstaff Gully, where Glenn, the wonderful mechanic, has garage full of gear-fixing equipment.  With a bit of luck, this very clean boat will be up and running SOON!

Farewells…oh dear…I have been trying to avoid farewells.  I love my Hobart life.  Everything about it!  I love the city; my friends, my habits, my darling family… I am not embarking on this adventure because I want to escape from anything at all… I am never bored with this Hobart life; it meets all of my needs, aesthetically and emotionally.  Not to mention all of the theatre, music, art and gossip!

For the past not-so-sure-how-many years – probably, we think, since 1998 - I have been going to the Republic in in North Hobart after work every Wednesday night, just for a couple of hours.  What a nice thing to do… It is a loose group of people – the most there has ever been was 25 (this included offspring and hangers-on) and the least has been…one… (yes, me…)  We do include men but men are not the core group… My pubgirl friends are wonderful; I couldn’t refuse an offer for a sort-of farewell at Pauline’s house last Wednesday although I really don’t want farewells… .It was just pubgirls, and I thought we should just go ahead with our usual Republic arrangement.  But my friends all rose to the occasion and served up a five course fabulous feast.  I was very glad I had walked up UP the hill to Pauline’s house to be able to justify eating such a lot of delicious fare…

And today I am having a family farewell in South Hobart at my daughter Katy’s… The good thing is – we aren’t really leaving for at least another week, so I can do a John Farnham and be at the Republic next week, and see my family next weekend….

And last night was – the Royal Wedding!  Last time I watched a wedding with my family it was Diana and Charles…  Nicky was 7, Claire 5, Katy 3, Michael not born yet… Poor Katy fell asleep and woke the next morning to say, “I saw Diana in her cart; what happened next??

A very auspicious day – Pete’s birthday…he is a bit horrified.  How could he possibly be 65??  Not long ago, if he heard somebody had died at this age, he would have said, “Oh well, they had a good innings, didn’t they?”  And now, here he is, feeling very much in the first, or maybe second, flush of youth…and 65…nowhere near ready to cash in his chips and say, “Oh well I had a good innings.”

And auspicious for me – my second day of NOTworking… yesterday my old workfriend Kerrie came to visit, on her way to an appointment.  She arrived at 9am and we sat and drank coffee very happily on the couch for an hour – oh the luxury of not being in the office from 9-5…She retired over a year ago so it isn’t such a novelty to her, but for me it was quite extraordinary!

We got up early and set off to anti-foul 2XS, jauntily perched up UP on the Domain slip.  On the way we called in to see Martin, Pete’s son, busily working on the South Hobart renovation project.  He looked at me quizzically – “Is that what you’re wearing, to paint the boat?  Ummm…no.  take these!”  He handed me his brother James’s sturdy blue work overalls so I didn’t have to work wearing lemon yellow faux merino…

The boat looks huge up on the slip.  A great area of underbelly exposed to the world.  We got out our rollers and pans and had the whole thing covered with cobalt blue antifoul paint within about four hours.  It was an absolutely beautiful day, neither hot nor cold, brilliantly sunny, and it was really very pleasant work.  The Windeward Bound (sailtraining tall ship) was on the slip next to us, looking absolutely enormous out of the water.  The volunteer crew were certainly having a much harder job cleaning this boat than we were with 2XS.  They had to have scaffold put up, and were noisily scraping horrid rusty bits off with small spatulas.  I think Pete had the hard part of the job yesterday, cleaning all the grey grunge off.  We had company on 2XS – a lovely young marine electrician, Ben, who scampered knowledgeably up and down the big metal ladder to get on and off the boat with various mysterious tools.  We also had two lots of visitors, who had been driving across the bridge and had seen us down below.  Aha!  WHAT is going on?  Very nice to see Richard M with Larry and Bart, and then Richard D, but we couldn’t stop and talk at all because the paint starts going all hard if you don’t keep using it as fast as possible.

Eventually it was all as blue as could be.  Pete was still finding little bits to patch up, but I had finished all of my pots and scrapings so it was time to – oh no – examine my very blue, rapidly drying hands.  Time to wash off all of this paint.  Ofcourse you can already foresee what happens when you try to wash off antifoul boat paint with water…nothing!  It is totally impervious to water, as it should be.  I walked around whimpering faintly to myself – I very strongly disliked having dry blue painty hands.  Maybe the crew on the Windeward Boudn would have some useful product for dissolving all of this increasingly yucky blueness.  The scaffold builder was very friendly, and very sympathetic to my plight, and he asked some of the volunteers if they could help.  They were all very beautiful young people, backpackers from Sweden and the like.  One of them strolled up to me with a handful of product…delicately scented apricot scrub from the Body Shop.  This made my hands just as blue but sweeter smelling.  Ben the electrician gave me some acetone- yes ofcourse what I needed was POISON - and this smeared the blue into a different sort of all-encompassing paste.  Eventually Pete finished his patching and painting and we went and found a big bottle of turpentine, which did the trick, more or less.  We still have bright blue cuticles and knuckles… - lovely for our dinner at Shippies…

Tomorrow we do a second coat; I think I will buy some latex gloves….

The boat is finally UP on the Domain slip.  It took some judicious swearing from Pete to get it there – a few fraught moments… - and now it is up in the air, alongside Windeward Bound.  Tomorrow we are going to anti-foul it (details to follow; I can’t imagine how good an anti-fouler I will prove to be.)  A wonderful, reliable mechanic, Glenn, is fixing the gear-box – a shambles, according to Pete, - as we speak. 

Pete got home last night and was totally grey.  Hands, head, clothes, all covered with a fine grey sludgy substance.  I had dismantled my bed to put a new white skirt arrangement (yes I do now know this has a proper name – valance!) over the mattress and I needed his help but we looked at the bed, the man, the bed again and decided nothing at all should be done until a long hot shower with lots of soap.

Coff’s Harbour 2010

We spent a night last year at the marina in Coff’s Harbour.  It was the shabbiest marina yet, v tickytacky, with shabby old boats which would not dare show their pointy noses on the Gold Coast.  But it had a lovely amenities block and, best of all, CALM water…we had had a rough time at sea.  And I was able to do special treat things like scouring out the mat in the shower base with salty water – it was so unbelievably scummy it was actually a pleasure, to change it from slimy brown to pristine grey.

I had another treat – a delicious glass of water the previous day… There was a glass in the sink, so I rinsed it out carelessly, filled it from the cold tap, and skulled it.  Oh yuck… something wrong … I said to Pete, in some consternation, that the water we had just filled up the huge water tanks with must be contaminated.  Oh no, he said cheerily.  He had used that glass to measure out a dose of diesel to check his filters… I made some sort of choked reply indicating HORROR and he said, with wrinkled brow, “But a bit of diesel won’t hurt you!”  Exactly the same tone as when Angus said soothingly to Nicky, “Don’t be afraid of a shark, Mummy!” at Whitehaven Beach.

The boat is going up on the slip tomorrow for one last fix-everything session – bottom scrubbed, the works.  And my house is receiving similar treatment…

Here’s another bit from last year….in anticipation of this year

Hervey Bay 2010

We cruised back down (up?) the river in Bundaberg (begins with B… Burnett!!!…) the next morning with no mishaps, reversing the dogleg, admiring the mangroves, sugarcane, fallen-down-wharf etc.

Next stop was Urangan marina, in Hervey Bay. One reason for gong there was that Pete had told me that whales would be more than abundant in Hervey Bay.  In fact I might even get bored with the flapping of their tails, the launching of their bodies from the water.  So from the moment we left Bundaberg until we arrived in Urangan – not a solitary single bit of wildlife did we see!  Barely even a bird… but the whole of the Hervey Bay area is dedicated to whales . There are tour boats all along the coast, waiting to take you out in a big/small/fast/cosy boat to commune with nature and admire whales. There are theme shops, cafes, museums,

dedicated to The Whale…

So where were they???

Negotiating our way through the Sandy Straits between Fraser Island and the mainland was an eye-popping experience.  There is a trail of markers – yes, red and green – each within sight of the last. But only just… it was overcast and visibility not all that good.  Sometimes I would find the next RED marker and we would cruise happily towards it only to find that – oops – I had missed one or two along the way and we suddenly had to swerve quite dramatically to stop from running aground.  Or worse… (no I don’t know what WORSE would be…crocodiles, maybe??)

Attenborough moments: one osprey, sitting in a tree, and one sea turtle, moving purposefully down the channel.

On the way down the coast we admired the Glasshouse Mountains, how amazing they are, and told each other stories about how we had been there….

We left Urangan the next morning and set off through whale-less Hervey Bay, to arrive at Moolooloobah in the late afternoon. No we didn’t go and rush about the streets of Moolooloobah…all this sailing is very exhausting! But we did admire the mansions lining the canals, and we both thoroughly enjoyed the hot showers at the Wharf Marina – now there’s a travelogue for you!

We left Moolooloobah the next morning and sailed – ummmm - alongside the Glasshouse Mountains… “How lucky we are,” said Pete, “to be able to admire them TWICE!”

As soon as we were well and truly away from Hervey Bay, we were in Whale World.  They splished and splashed and leapt most athletically and energetically.  When we were getting to a tricky bit of navigation, we were suddenly in the midst of quite a large pod – maybe five were on the surface at any one time, all outdoing each other, showing off with huge leaps, tail slapping, enormous spouts.

It is Easter in Hobart and we are very nearly ready to go…

Pete has been scrubbing and re-organising his garage in West Hobart; I have been scrubbing this and that, emptying drawers, entertaining family & friends, and cleaning the oven.  Guess which was more fun?? Oh what a tricky question…I love family and fires, do NOT love scrubbing…

The boat is to go up on the Domain slip on Tuesday, so our departure date depends on the results of activities from then on.

I hope I have solved the Prose Poem Problem...Nobody has leapt aboard my blog to help so maybe nobody is reading and nobody has noticed how very peculiar it looked yesterday...

Bars 2010

We crossed one bar, I think when we were coming out of Urangan (Hervey Bay.) I found it very thrilling but I think Pete was white with dread…BIG waves, a big swell and uncertain exit route. We were very happy to find a fishing boat ahead of us and we followed it faithfully. Then we overtook it and I watched it behind us while Pete steered – “They are turning sharply to the left NOW!!!” And we got over into calm water on the other side.

Pete has a friend in Port Macquarie, Andrew. We had another difficult bar to negotiate, so he very kindly went to the marine rescue office and rang on Pete’s phone to guide us through the bar. It was quite hair raising coming over the bar – huge surf, a narrow entrance – we had to rush in on the waves heading straight for the little beach… I thought it was just great – wee HEEE – but Pete was rigid with tension. He did very well. I spoke to Andrew on the phone and relayed the info to Pete on the wheel. Easy peasy…for me…