Busy in “Brissy”

07. Jun. 2016
/
Australia
/
2 Comments

Author: Pete

Location: Brisbane, Australia

We’re back in “Brissy” for a fortnight to work on some fussy logistics that will be involved in selling the boat, moving continents twice in three weeks, and changing lifestyle from a tropical ocean drifter to a euro-alpine professional. Whiplash. When we fly back to the Great Lakes and summer is in full swing, we’ll have no motivation to do much aside from spend time with our long lost friends and family. Many little things in life get neglected when there are bilge pumps to fix, and it’s a welcome change to be in one spot to address them. Miranda and I rented a flat in downtown Brisbane within walking distance of the great parks, museums, and restaurants. The city is bustling. It’s a great vibe to be a part of and having our own little place for a couple weeks make us feel like we’re really living the hip lifestyle.

Living in a little apartment in the city is good for us. It’s helping to break us of the doomsday-stockpile mentality we’re now prone to as sailors when we find ourselves in a well-stocked grocery store. We remind ourselves that they’re not going to run out of lettuce in Brisbane, we don’t need to buy six pounds of butter all at once, and that there are several other stores within spitting distance, all which will reliably be open during “trading hours.” Paradoxically, it’s nice to have a huge refrigerator to fill up. Well… huge to us.

We do make it south to Coomera to see Tayrona here and there. She is in the show area of The Boat Works, standing proud in a line with her other gussied-up friends, smiling like they’re taking backyard pictures before prom in their suits and dresses. It’s nice to have her close for a while as we adjust to life ashore.

Miranda and I have been wanting to get swallow tattoos in commemoration of this adventure. Swallows tattoos are a tradition among sailors; one is generally worn for every five thousand miles sailed. We should be getting three, but we’ll show some humility and stick with only one lest our parents think we’ve gone off the deep end. (How could we go further off the deep end than quitting our jobs and sailing around the world?) The migratory birds come back to their same nesting grounds every year and so represent, among other things, the promise of homecoming to mariners the world around. We liked that idea, and have been looking into it since Fiji.

For me, the swallow represents freedom, agility, and fearlessness. Far out to sea we often found these little guys zipping about happily on their own, days and days from land, undaunted by their remote and hostile environment. The swallows’ slight silhouettes dancing over the unending ocean solidified their image in my mind as an icon of bravery, determination, and pluck. To emblazon one on my skin is to forever be reminded of the strength and growth that this adventure kindled within. Plus, I’ve always wanted a tattoo but never really felt like I did anything noteworthy enough to endorse such a irreversible act and my mom’s incurred wrath. So, in the spirit of zeal and courage I braved something that chills my spine more than thousands of miles of open ocean: needles. Ugh. Friggin’ hate needles. As always, Miranda is less squeamish than I am about that sort of thing. Tough lass.

There’s an amazing artist in Brisbane named Mat Fink, who came highly recommended. After studying Mat’s portfolio and tracking down his shop, we had to wait a whole week just for an appointment to discuss our ideas with the sought after artist. We met him and described our sailing adventure with no mention of the tattoos we wanted. Without pause he replied, “So you’ve earned yourselves some swallows, eh?” Mat’s a big, soft-spoken guy, with thoughtful eyes, and roiling artwork all over his body. He earned some swallows of this own in his ten years at sea with the Australian navy and has been all over the world working as a tattoo artist. Seems like our man. We showed Mat some examples of the style we were looking for, and a few days later he had his own designs for us drawn up for us.

As you’d imagine, Mat has a quirky sense of humor and a gift with his medium. We got on fabulously. He blocked off the whole day just for the two of us. Just to be safe, I sent Miranda in first to make sure everything was kosher before I jumped in the hot seat.

Miranda, as is well documented, is impervious to pain like a Toydarian is to Jedi mind tricks. I’d like to say that I did fairly well for my first inking and the whole thing looked like this…

…but in reality it was probably more like this instead.

But now it’s a done deal! Unblemished skin? That’s for the birds! And now when Miranda or I are asked if the trip has changed us, we can unequivocally say, “Yes!”

Mat worked late to get our ink done and it was dark when we left the shop. He recommended several ways to care for a new tattoo, one of which involved cold beer immediately upon leaving the shop. Miranda and I were famished after several hours of ab-clenching apiece so that worked for us. We stumbled upon an authentic Asian place with people waiting in a line out the door for their Vietnamese soup. We took the big pho que as a good sign, and jumped in to celebrate our new tattoos!

Sydney, Australia

24. May. 2016
/
Australia
/
No Comments

Author: Pete

Location: Sydney, Australia

We all flew down to Sydney for a couple days’ city fix before my folks headed back to the northern hemisphere. It felt a bit sacrilegious to be flying into one of the most spectacular harbor cities in the world with a perfectly good boat just a few (hundred) miles up the coast. But, better to see the city by land then not at all though.

Sydney is a stunning city, perfect for a couple days of nose-following. There are landmarks, topography, and waterfront to keep one’s orientation. Most of our time was spent finding new places to eat! You’d think we’d been on a diet of fish and coconut for years!

As we promenaded along the wharves one of the days we passed a floating building which turned out to be the cruise ship Carnival Spirit. It’s the enormous white monster in the picture that’s the as big as the Harbor Bridge. That was the same ship that almost ran us down at night in the Tasman Sea on our crossing! Okay, okay. He was four miles away, lit up like a Vegas Christmas, and very courteous on the radio. Still, I really wanted to knock on the hull and see if I could meet their radio officer. Thought that might not go over so well. Move along, small fry.

Another day we walked the Harbor Bridge with its sweeping views of the iconic Sydney Harbor. Ferries muscle through the waters throwing heavy wake and turning the protected bays into chop even on the windless day. I didn’t want to sail into the harbor anyway, says the fox of the grapes…

In our wanderings we met many of the white, feathered locals gathering to picnic in the parks around the city. These rambunctious cockatoos seemed to always congregate near dusk. Apparently people bring snacks for them often enough that the birds will alight on your shoulders or head looking for munchies. Cockatoos love munchies. Who doesn’t?

We happened to be in town when a David Bowe tribute was going on at the Sydney Opera House and got tickets to see the show. The Sydney Philharmonic was playing behind a rock band with ostentatious vocalists. I’m not sure if the professional orchestra musicians were incensed to be performing behind the oppressive screech of rock music (“Ugh. Really? Three notes in the whole song?”) or loved the novelty of it (“Yes! So sick of Chopin!“). Some got really into it, like the timpani player, hammering away on the kettle drums and the sax player who got to rip out on a screeching, jazzy solo. How often does he get to do that? Others, like the bassoonist, sat stock still, even through his solo. Bowe loved a good bassoon solo! Who doesn’t?

We also went to our first rugby match! It was very exciting to watch, something like a guessing game of what the rules might be. Despite our ignorance, it was a gorgeous evening to witness head injuries. Plus, Miranda loves the short shorts and huge legs on rugby guys. Who doesn’t?

And then it was time to head out! Back to the states for my folks, back to Brisbane keep working on selling the boat for us! Ciao Sydney! Thank you, and goodnight!

Keppel Island Road Trip, Australia

19. May. 2016
/
Australia
/
1 Comment

Author: Pete

Location: Queensland, Australia

Miranda and I made sure Tayrona was being looked after and then flew north to Rockhampton to meet up with my parents. With favorable winds the trip would’ve taken us just under a week of day-sailing to get up there, but we made it in an hour and a half. God bless jet engines. Then next morning we took a speedy ferry ten miles offshore to Great Keppel Island for a couple of days on the beach, decompressing from our whirlwind week. Finally got to meet an Australian possum face to face. Where North American opossums look like shaggy, overfed rats, these svelte tree-dwellers might be the love-child of a house cat and a chinchilla. Inquisitive critters…

Great Keppel Island is a sleepy, sandy spit with gorgeous beaches interconnected with trails through the wooded interior. We spent a couple of days exploring the reefs off several of the beaches. The snorkeling was pretty good, the coral was pretty good, and the water clarity was pretty good. Geeze, what aquatic snobs we’ve become, pooh-poohing the Great Barrier Reef. The fish, though, were fat and plentiful, with walls of silver fingerlings, rays, and turtles.

There was some coral dieback that we’ve been hearing about, but nothing too bad. On the topic of dying marine life, it appears that my wetsuit has contracted leprosy or is dating Edward Scissor-Hands. Or both. Man, salt and sun is an evil combination! This’ll undoubtedly be its swan song trip.

After a few days crisping on Keppel’s beaches we headed slowly south back to Brisbane, stopping in little towns along the way. We passed through Montville with steep, shady streets and pressed on to nearby Mary Cairncross Scenic Reserve which has a great rainforest hike with oozing vines, rowdy bats, and pademelons nosing about. Pademelons are tiny wallabies, which in turn are tiny kangaroos. So pademelons are tiny-tiny kangaroos. We even saw one with a joey sticking out of her pouch! Joeys are not only baby kangaroos, but any baby marsupial, including koalas, wombats, possums, opossums, bandicoots, and Tasmanian devils. Okay, fine, I’ll stop nerding-out now.

I shouldn’t speak for the group, but I got a good gravitational hiding the next day hiking Mount Ngungun. It’s one of the volcanic plugs popping out of the flatlands that makes up the Glasshouse Mountains. It’s a great trek to the top and a killer view of all the other mesa-like monoliths and the Tasman sea beyond.

The eco-lodge we stayed in that night recycles rain water, grows its own fruit, and is accessed through fields of pineapples. We made sure to erase any benefits of our day’s physical exertion by playing cards, mowing pizza, and smoking Cuban cigars just for good measure.

Also along the way south, Eumundi’s busy market was a hit, as well as Noosa Head’s riverside park in the evening as the bats streaked overhead. Eventually we made it back to Brisbane. Miranda and I shanghaied the car to check on Tayrona in Coomera before we headed to Sydney the following day.

We found her with ‘flash’ new bottom paint and buffed out hull so shiny it reflected the jealously of the other boats in the yard. It’s odd to find your boat in a different spot from where you left it. After doing some work on Tay-Tay, The Boat Works guys had placed her in a prime location in the show yard, ready to be scooped up by a good sailor looking for a worthy vessel.