After my rampant enthusiasm last week, I hit a few hurdles with the projects I was working on... and... well... I... procrastinated! (yes, the dreaded 'p' word).
Instead of working on the boat or learning Adobe Flash, I wasted hours online looking at watches in online stores. My trusty flik flak that I've had since I was in grade 4 died the day we left Brisbane (symbolic huh!). Instead of paying to get it fixed I decided that it was time to get a "grown-up" watch. Well. It turns out there are billions of cool watch designs out there! I narrowed my search to about 15 Swatch watches and 10 flik flaks. I knew I was being really bad - wasting so much time - Rene reminded I was being silly - but I just kept going back to those websites and looking at watches! Wasting time on time devices designed to make you keep better time!
I eventually settled on a very simple watch and will hopefully receive it in the mail soon. As soon as I had purchased it online, I felt renewed energy to tackle the jobs I'd been putting off because they'd become "too hard". The watch had really become a symbol for me being stuck. I finished working on the rusty spots, painted them multiple times and insulated them, I finished insulating more storage holds and have just vacuum-packed all of our warm gear for storage. Rene has moved our engine battery to a new spot under the floorboards but is yet to wire it all back together. The fridge stopped working last week because it had leaked out all of its gas :( A local retired fridgee (who is a real character!) has come around the last two nights to re-gas it, and things are getting a little cooler but there's no ice yet!
As for learning Flash, well, I worked through more video tutorials but the tutor is focusing more and more on Action Script (using code to get the website to work) rather than using the timeline to animate it with a little bit of simple code. I've decided to try out making a basic website in a way I'm comfortable with before moving on to the really geeky stuff!
This week one of the boats we've got to know while living here at the marina left on their shakedown cruise. Marathon Lady and her crew have been in Townsville for many years and seeing them off really gave me a case of the itchy feet syndrome!! The weather is so clear and warm at the moment and the water looks gorgeous! aaaaagh! Hopefully we'll get to sail over to Maggie Island again very soon so it feels like we're free again. We hope to meet with Marathon Lady again in the Sail Indonesia Rally next July.
There's been a fair bit of hype in the media about this year being forecast to have a particularly severe cyclone season. It's a La Niña year so the QLD coast is potentially going to be hit by up to around 6 cyclones (much more than usual!). We have decided to stay here in northern QLD - despite these predictions. The locals here say not to worry because every year the media tries to drum up fear about cyclones being bad this year. The main reason we don't want to turn around and sail all the way back to Brisbane is that it took us nearly 5 months to get this far! It feels like we've achieved a step towards our dream of further travel. To simply turn around would go against our feeling (possibly delusional!) that even though we're not currently travelling, we are still in the cruising mentality as we are on our slow journey. Cruising is about waiting for good weather - we have to wait for the La Niña summer to finish so we can head north next winter. I really hope we don't come to regret our decision to stay here - please weather Gods - be gentle!!! If there is a cyclone in Townsville, the marina should be safe enough if it's a category 3 or below. The only danger here is that the storm surge will go higher than the pontoons allow - and so all the boats would end up in the park I guess (:s). If there is a cyclone forecast to hit that is category 4 or 5, we will try to get up to Hinchinbrook Island to tie up in one of the many mangrove creeks. This is a tried and tested method of cyclone survival for boats. We will be monitoring the weather closely in any case - we don't want to take any risks.
We have had some progress in the ongoing renaming yacht saga - we've gone through dozens and dozens of names since I last mentioned it in the blog. The current favourites are:
Ani
I really like Ani because it's simple, easy to remember/pronounce and it also is a type of bird!!
Any thoughts / suggestions will be gladly accepted.
And finally, a bit of glitz and glam in our lives as Rene's boss paid for us to go out to dinner somewhere nice. We're normally very frugal and don't go out to dinner so this was a real treat. He had a crazy week of work with many late late nights so it was a lovely for his boss to acknowledge all the hard work Rene's been putting in.
Instead of working on the boat or learning Adobe Flash, I wasted hours online looking at watches in online stores. My trusty flik flak that I've had since I was in grade 4 died the day we left Brisbane (symbolic huh!). Instead of paying to get it fixed I decided that it was time to get a "grown-up" watch. Well. It turns out there are billions of cool watch designs out there! I narrowed my search to about 15 Swatch watches and 10 flik flaks. I knew I was being really bad - wasting so much time - Rene reminded I was being silly - but I just kept going back to those websites and looking at watches! Wasting time on time devices designed to make you keep better time!
 |
| They call me the Rusta Busta! yo |
As for learning Flash, well, I worked through more video tutorials but the tutor is focusing more and more on Action Script (using code to get the website to work) rather than using the timeline to animate it with a little bit of simple code. I've decided to try out making a basic website in a way I'm comfortable with before moving on to the really geeky stuff!
 |
| Marathon Lady setting off on their cruise. |
There's been a fair bit of hype in the media about this year being forecast to have a particularly severe cyclone season. It's a La Niña year so the QLD coast is potentially going to be hit by up to around 6 cyclones (much more than usual!). We have decided to stay here in northern QLD - despite these predictions. The locals here say not to worry because every year the media tries to drum up fear about cyclones being bad this year. The main reason we don't want to turn around and sail all the way back to Brisbane is that it took us nearly 5 months to get this far! It feels like we've achieved a step towards our dream of further travel. To simply turn around would go against our feeling (possibly delusional!) that even though we're not currently travelling, we are still in the cruising mentality as we are on our slow journey. Cruising is about waiting for good weather - we have to wait for the La Niña summer to finish so we can head north next winter. I really hope we don't come to regret our decision to stay here - please weather Gods - be gentle!!! If there is a cyclone in Townsville, the marina should be safe enough if it's a category 3 or below. The only danger here is that the storm surge will go higher than the pontoons allow - and so all the boats would end up in the park I guess (:s). If there is a cyclone forecast to hit that is category 4 or 5, we will try to get up to Hinchinbrook Island to tie up in one of the many mangrove creeks. This is a tried and tested method of cyclone survival for boats. We will be monitoring the weather closely in any case - we don't want to take any risks.
We have had some progress in the ongoing renaming yacht saga - we've gone through dozens and dozens of names since I last mentioned it in the blog. The current favourites are:
 |
| Out to dinner thanks to Rene's boss :D |
Anew
Anicca
Anywhere
Anyroad
I really like Ani because it's simple, easy to remember/pronounce and it also is a type of bird!!
Any thoughts / suggestions will be gladly accepted.
And finally, a bit of glitz and glam in our lives as Rene's boss paid for us to go out to dinner somewhere nice. We're normally very frugal and don't go out to dinner so this was a real treat. He had a crazy week of work with many late late nights so it was a lovely for his boss to acknowledge all the hard work Rene's been putting in.
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