Day 59, Year 3: Happy Birthday to Mark!
Date: Monday, July 7, 2008
Weather: Change in the Weather-Cloudy Day
Location: Fannie Bay, Darwin, Northern Territory, Australia
Mark celebrated his 66th birthday today. We went into Darwin and checked-in with Customs and applied for our Indonesian visa. We then bought a new Hewlett-Packard printer (our old one just bit the dust) and went to Go Sushi! for lunch. Mark enjoyed his sushi lunch with a Sapporo beer (brewed in Canada not Japan, we discovered) and then we headed back to the marina to meet with Lydia from Sail Indonesia. But we had a few extra minutes and made a stop in the Yacht Shop next to the Sailing Club. This was the birthday present stop. We bought a pair of dinghy wheels to help with the struggle of getting the dinghy to and from the water in places with huge tides that we are experiencing these days. The present I wanted to buy for Mark was an electric winch for raising the main sail, but that is just way too expensive. So I guess he will just have to keep building those muscles while raising that sail. We then went to the Sailing Club and got our information packet from Sail Indonesia. We talked with other cruisers and when Tim of Rendezvous Cay arrived, he broke into an impromptu “Happy Birthday” tune. It is the little things in life that make it so enjoyable and Tim’s little birthday tribute was much appreciated. When we got back to Windbird, Donna and Gerry of Scot Free II came over to bring Mark a birthday gift packet and a special candle that was supposed to sing “Happy Birthday.” The candle didn’t work, but again, it was the thought that was so much appreciated. After Donna and Gerry left, I checked email. There were birthday greetings from both of our kids and from my sister Patsy and our grandson Sam wrote his granddad a special email birthday message. Evidently Sam also sent some other messages today. He had always been obsessed with telephones and today he managed to call 911. It was early morning and Heather was out on the deck when a very large policeman knocked on the front door. He explained that there had been a 911 call from their address and then the phone was off the hook. Sure enough, Sam had managed to dial 911. Now what is the statistic for that one? We also got an email from a friend of our daughter-in-law Jo who lives here in Darwin. Her name is Jane and she is going to come meet us in the morning at the Sailing Club. So we are quickly becoming acquainted with Darwin and starting to think about exploring the Northern Territory beyond the Darwin borders.
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| 080707 Day 59 First Visit to Downtown Darwin |
