Tuesday, 10th August 2010
07.00hrs We all got up, Mary's leg is still doing ok, but looks awful, ohhhhhh, Skipper is not good with these situations!
08.15hrs Jack and Chris arrive to complete their bits and pieces, ie change the oil in the H.P., water maker pump and install the PMU in the generator engine.
10.30hrs Everything is up and running, the water mater and the generator are purring like cats again, so lets hope that they keep going like that for the next few years. Phil arrived to connect the SSB, by midday, he was receiving and sending traffic on the unit, we could not hear it as it was very faint, but he seems happy it is working ok.
The girls toddled off to where ever, and Skipper and Niall remained to give a hand on the boat, and make sure that all is ready to go to sea if we get our navigation card for the RL80 C tomorrow.
Skipper cooked a spiced ox tongue, while Niall fiddled with the Skippers laptop all day. He was very good at sorting out the laptop and making it work properly for the boss. Later S & N walked down town, about 1.5 miles, and had fish and chips for lunch. It was very tasty.
15.00hrs We listened to the weather forecast on the SSB for the east coast of Australia, cripes, gale warnings all over the place. Not exactly what we want going north to Darwin...
One of the interesting things about this place is the amount of swallows. They are all over the marina, and spend all day taking off and landing on the boats, and we watched some of them go into yachts and motor launches through ventilation grills. They are so cute.
18.00hrs The girls returned from some wonderful shopping village they found (as only girls can do) and displayed the purchases of the day. Then we skyped phone calls, and video calls on the laptop. Jeeee is was terrific, we did N.Z. to Skipper's aunt Vera, and home to Ireland. Very impressive stuff, for us oldies anyway, this, of course would be a piece of cake to our grandchildren!
19.30hrs We all went to "Clippers" restaurant in the nearby hotel, and it certainly ranked high on the list of good food places we have been to since we arrived in Australia. We spent a few hours there talking about nothing, as you do after a few bottles of wine. The desserts were to die for, and Skipper's favorite "sticky toffee date pudding" was on the menu, yum, yum! The mains we had consisted of - rack of lamb - Chicken in Lemon Filo pastry - prawn tempura x 2 - but it was the way it was cooked and presented that impressed us most.
Then, it started to rain, and we have no brollies with us, why would we, its not supposed to rain when we go out. However, after a little voodoo dancing, it stopped and we toddled off back to the boat, and just arrived as the rain started again, and settled in for the night.
We had a small night cap, and crawled into the scratchers......................... zzzzzzz
That's it for now,
Signed :- Stephen Hyde (Skipper)