Day 199, Year 2: Wonderful Surprise–A Sunny Day
Date: Friday, November 9, 2007
Weather: Warm and Sunny
Location: Bundaberg Port Marina, Australia
How do things just disappear on a boat? Mark spent the better part of today looking for a faucet he bought in the Galapagos. It was bought to put in an outside fresh water shower, but we have long since abandoned that idea. We now need it to replace the sea water faucet in our anchor locker as the one there has seen better days. He searched through every cabinet and every storage box, but he came up empty handed. Since boats are so small compared to a house, it seems that things should be easy
to find, but the opposite is true. I know I saw the faucet recently when looking for something else, but I simply cannot recall where. Oh well, tomorrow is another day and the search will begin again.
We made an early morning Skype call to our daughter today. We have wireless internet inside the boat. This works fine for most things, but the strength is low and it doesn’t work for Skype. So I took the computer out in the cockpit where the signal is excellent. It was late in the evening, but that grandbaby was still up and active. It is so much fun to watch him play. He is entering the toddler stage and wants to stand and move by holding on to things. It was a great way to start the day.
When we return home on November 27, we will be home only one day before we fly south to Charlotte, North Carolina for my sister’s 50th wedding anniversary. Heather, Jed, and Sam are planning to go with us and we needed to talk this morning about purchasing the tickets. After the conversation, we got online and found that ticket prices that were reasonable just a few days ago are now about $100 per person more expensive. We searched and searched and every time the price was right, the timing was
terrible. We sent what we found to Heather and Jed for their input. I’m sure we’ll come up with something, but that will be the number one priority for tomorrow.
Boat work continues. Mark installed the new solar panel that we bought at the boat “yard sale” this past weekend and I continued cleaning and organizing inside the boat. The big surprise for the day was the beautiful weather. It came a day or so earlier than predicted and allowed me to sand and get another coat of varnish on the cockpit cap rail. That will be a daily occurrence for the next week, weather permitting.
Paul and Marie of Ranger bought a car today and took us into town this evening to have dinner with Gerry and Donna of Scot Free II. Gerry and Donna moved their boat up the river to the Midtown Marina in Bundaberg yesterday and they leave Tuesday on a train trip across Australia. They won’t be back until sometime in December. Paul and Marie might not be here then, and we certainly won’t, so this was a farewell dinner. We will be sailing with Scot Free in the Sail Indonesia Rally next season, so
we will see them then. But there are many people leaving this week, headed further south to Brisbane and Sydney. Others are cleaning out their boats and putting them up for sale. So in the next couple of weeks there are going to be many farewells.
