I'M ON A TRAIN!

There's no need to shout the whole train can hear you.

Today's Train, Electric? Nope. Single Track, Yep.
7.5 Hours to Brizy

OK those ferverish awaiting my missives and wondering whether I sunk will be disapointed taht I didn't. If your wondering who so long with no blog....

1: Bed, warm, soft inshort a bed. On a floor not a boat. With springs etc. Not a bit of foam with three car batteries and a kareokee machine under it, strategicly placed to apmlify the primary and halyard winches, whilst gently vibrated by a 50 deisel engine 6 inches away. Bliss.

2: Telly. You've heard of Home and Away and Neighbours? Prisoner (cell block H). With apart from a few cheap game shows thats all they produce the rest is stamped "BBC". Good huh.

3: WiFi. Works in bed. Over night down loads, hell I even ran windows update. Didn't bloody work, but hey when the safter and bugs in you os can only be fixed by internet explorer, you can't expect much.

So no long days at sea, no watches. Insort better things to do.

"Ahhhhh"

Jacky has a large family. I was not so much invited as "assumed" into their house. Now if I get this straight. I was in Jacky's room, with a frankly scary number of pictures of Alan. Alan and Jackie where in Jacky's dad's room. After that I am confused. The "Ute", aussie for pickup me and Al used to raise jackals water line belonged to Jacky's brother Mike (who's abroad whereabouts unknown to me). Jacky's other brother is running a summer camp in the US. Alan's daughter is workning for Jacky's brother in the US. All the junk off the boat in in storage owned by Jackiy's other brother (the one with the ute). The cats are called Mischief and Patch (psycotic kitten of super-Nermal cuteness). Brenda, jacky's mum had to go off and look after Blakey Jacky's niece, not of the brothers, of the sister Andrea. Her husband, Gavin, is a locksmith who too about 30 seconds to open the boat when Al? Rember Al? forgot the key to the boat and breeth. Got that? Good there will be a test next period.

We made landfall in Coffs Harbour. Froze for 2 nights, since then is been balmy. Regretted not wearing shorts while working on the boat. Christain flew home from Coffs, leaving me and Al to take the boat 68 miles to Port Mcquarie. We were ordered to arrive at 3 PM, fortuntly that was high tide on the infamous bar. The joureny, begun at night was filled with whale worry. Lots of aussie fishermen in bar telling us about whale incedents. The dangers of the Hastings river (Port Mcquarie) etc. More of a real problem was no wind, we had to motor. We'd left early to leave plenty of time. However the engine controls spring is a bit keen. It sits in gear at idle but you have to push it to about 1500+ RPM or it springs back. idle + east Oz current = 3knts (late) 1500 revs = 5knts (early). Optimal 3pm arrival = 4knots.

My solution was to run at 1500 and chase whales rather than go the right way to compensate for the extra speed, and boy did we see wales. Humpbacks 3 large groups of them. None of them fortunatly dretly to windward. There are bad smells in this world, a fart in a drysuit will make your eyes water when you take it off, but nothing smells quite like a blow hole.......

"There she blows"

So here's me. My mask flippers and snorkel, gps, sailing gear and various bits of junk are in a cardboard box in Jacky's folks house. And I'm on a train to Brisbane. Queensland here I come. Backpackers booking and a copy "the Rough Guide to Austrailia". No I don't have a plan. I'm used to being able to navigate my self, charts lat long etc, share the communal shower gel on the boat. Most of the islands are to small to have to worry about getting back. So I'm out of my depth and on the train to Brisbane. Eta seven and a half hours. Austraila is BIG. I mean woa.

At least this time I've seen a Kangeroo, and a Koala Bear. Port Macuarie has NSW's only Koala hospital. Gotta be a TV series in that. Everybody say "aaaaaaahhhh".