Day 62, Year 3: Communication Issues
Date: Thursday, July 10, 2008
Weather: Back to Beautiful Weather
Location: Fannie Bay, Darwin, Northern Territory, Australia
We have been well prepared for sloooooow internet connections in Indonesia, but that is not what we expected here. The Sailing Club wireless connection is very slow and it just can’t handle Skype calls with the web cam. Even without the web cam, the connection comes and goes, so tomorrow we go to town and try a hard-wired connection at an internet café. We have some business calls to the US that we have to make and at some point, we have loads of photos to upload, so we really hope to find a faster
connection. But regardless, we were so glad to be able to talk with both of our kids. Of course, grand baby Sam was the star of the day. As soon as he saw us on the screen, he started blowing. We thought that was a little strange, but he was blowing kisses. He loves to blow kisses and kiss the computer screen. It was bath time for Sam, so we got to watch him playing in the bathtub. His little head would disappear for a minute and he would come up smiling. He was blowing bubbles in the water.
So now Granddad, who had already been blowing kisses back to Sam and kissing our computer screen, started making sounds like he was blowing bubbles in a bathtub. The other people in the Sailing Club turned and stared at us at this point. They all had a big laugh when we told them we were talking to our grand child and imitating his actions. I’m sure they were relieved that we were not crazy!
After talking with Heather, Jed, and Sam, we called Jo and Justin. We skipped the web cam and just called their home phone. Again, we could hear only about half of what was being said, but it was good to hear their voices regardless. I thanked Jo for connecting us with her friend Jane in Darwin. Jane sent us a very long email this morning outlining all of the free things to do here. We also wished Jo a very belated birthday. It was on June 21st, but we didn’t have that written down and just
didn’t remember. So happy belated birthday to Jo and happy birthday to my sister Patsy. Her birthday is July 10th, so I’m on time for that one.
After finishing up our phone calls we spent two very frustrating hours trying to get some other internet work done. We finally gave up and hopped on a bus to the huge shopping center east of here. The Casuarina Center is a huge mall. We really went just for the ride to see the countryside and to buy a few food supplies. I figure if we bring four bags of food back with us every time we go out, we’ll have our provisioning done without having to make one big run. I heard another cruiser talking
about shopping by locker, meaning that you look in one cabinet or locker and go shopping just for the things you need to replenish that locker. Then on another day, you open another cabinet and go shopping for those things. I think I like this approach. Once back on Windbird, I worked on labeling photos and Mark did a number of small chores and made a new snubber. The snubber is a piece of heavy rope that serves as a sort of shock absorber when the anchor chain pulls tight and it prevents the
chain from rubbing on the bow roller making a terrible noise. Our current snubber is really shabby looking and the line is almost worn through. That is because the leather sleeves where the line goes through the chocks are in shreds. I think this piece of boat gear gets more of a workout than many other things on Windbird. This is the third time we have had to replace it. But now we have a new one that should get us through this season.
We have been here five full days and we haven’t made a dent in the work list or the shopping list. And we haven’t even thought about going out and about in the Northern Territory sight seeing. So tomorrow morning we will make our lists and get into a higher gear. After a couple of hours of planning we will head to town to pick up our Indonesian visas, go to the internet café, and if time permits, we will do a little downtown sightseeing before returning to the Sailing Club for Friday night Happy
Hour. We haven’t been in for a few nights and lots of boats have come in this week. We need to say hello to friends who have arrived.
