Spring

Only one thing to notice about this picture, really.  The hatch is open, letting in some wholesome fresh air.

Five months ago I put plastic insulation over all the hatches to keep winter condensation at bay.

Now it's warm enough that we've taken the insulation off the hatch in the saloon.  All the others are soon to follow, I'm sure.

In May we also laid pieces of carpet over the sole.  It kept the boat nice and warm when the water temperature dropped.

It takes the water longer to warm up in the spring time than it does the air, of course.  So we'll keep the carpet for another week or two.

So far we've only gotten rid of one piece from our cabin.  But that had to do with Elias coming back in the middle of the night to use our head.  He was still asleep enough that he just stood in the head and emptied his bladder into his pajamas, then walked out without realizing that anything was wrong.

The carpet wasn't worth saving after that.

The really welcome sign that spring has arrived is that the never-ending chest colds that kept Elias and Eric barking through the nights of winter have finally left us.

The not-so-welcome bit is that the chest colds have been replaced by fevers and diarrhea.  Childhood is not for wimps!

It's all just the normal run of things, of course.  But Eric, who has been particularly hard-hit by the fever, has responded by waking up screaming bloody murder three or six or eight times a night.  Which has been a little tough on the parents involved.

Remember when you were so young that the most comfortable position for sleeping was on your knees with your bum in the air?

~~~

Peace, Out - Galactic.

The Last Raffle

I flew up to Queensland last weekend to speak at the annual literary lunch for the Ipswich Friends of the Library.  All in all it was a good time - there was a good turnout, I got to visit with some of the Queensland family, I was able to remind myself what it's like to wear the Australian uniform of board shorts and thongs, and I met a reader of the blog.

Going up to Ipswich to talk about South From Alaska was also a bit of a homecoming for me, as my Dad's family is from Ipswich - if he'll forgive me, I'll share a photo of him from a few years back as an Ipswich school boy.

 

So, going up to give this talk reminded me that it's time for the fourth, and last, giveaway of a copy of South From Alaska.  As before, all you have to do is email galactic.seas@gmail.com and put the word "book" in the subject line.  I'll choose the winner randomly one week from today - that's the 23rd of October, Hobart time.  Postage is on me, anywhere in the world!

(And, I'll close by mentioning that someone told me the price of the book on the US Amazon site has dropped from the ridiculous levels it was at, so if you don't win this last time, you might have to break down and buy a copy!)

What We Always Do

When we were out sailing over the school holidays, Alisa and I got to talking about the things that we always do when we're on the boat.  Pretty simple stuff, really, but these things have become part of our routine afloat.  

We always:

...show a light when we're at anchor...

...put a snubber on the anchor chain (regardless of how calm the anchorage is)...

...hang our dinghy from a halyard at night rather than leaving it tied up off the stern where it can get into mischief...

...lock up the outboard (had to learn that lesson twice!)...

...put life jackets on our kids when they're in the dinghy (though we got a bit slack about that in the tropics)...

...put harnesses and tethers on the kids when they're out of the cockpit...

...leave channel 16 on when we're sailing...

...stay on the windward side of a passage and well away from lee shores.

All those things are either required by the rules of the road, or just good seamanship, so they're not really remarkable in a sense.  But they can also all be optional in one situation or another,  but we've found that it's easier, and safer, to do them every time rather than wondering if they're required or not on a particular day.

And there are a few items that you might expect to be on the list, like always keeping a lookout, or always checking the weather forecast if one is available, that we cheerfully admit to skipping now and then.

Meanwhile, good news on the planning front for the upcoming season.  Australian Customs has given us permission to keep Galactic in the country until February, the best month for crossing the Tasman Sea to New Zealand.  So that allows us to plan to head out for Port Davey as soon as school ends on December 20th, then come back to town in late January to start waiting for good weather to make the crossing...