August 2000 - Australia

AUSTRALIA!!!!

We saw whales!!! Two of them. They came and circled our boat for 40 minutes. They showed us their white tummies and kept going away, and just as we were giving up hope that they will come again, they pop up. They were lovely to watch and I think that they were one of the big highlights of the trip.

It got really rough the next day. Hannah’s bed got wet in the night and she slept head-to-toe with Bean. I went to sleep on the saloon floor because a lot of water was coming and it was very damp. In the morning it was pouring with rain as well as rough waves so that everyone but the helmsman had to stay down below. That made me be sick four or five times and I wasn’t allowed to eat much.

Bean, Hannah and I made posters. In the calm before the roughness of course. What we did is fit three pieces of paper together and draw in the waves of the sea. Hannah had one piece, Bean had one piece and I had one piece. We each did our own underwater world. Then we put all the pieces together with cellotape. That gave us our BIG underwater picture. One of the posters was just under water and the other was a mermaid village. Bean did the castle and queen and Hannah and I did the daughters.

We are coming in to Australia! This is the finishing point of our one year round-the-world trip on Lazy Duck from Malta to here. I can’t believe it. In four weeks we are going to arrive in England! WOW! When we were coming in we saw a mother whale and her baby. The baby is REALLY cute. We didn’t see them for long because they dived but it was a real treat. We went alongside a really weird dock. The custom and quarantine people came. The custom say if you are allowed to stay in Australia. The quarantine take the food that will spread diseases in Australia. Then we went to Macki. In the evening Bean and I went to the showers to have a nice, hot, 20 minute shower. GREAT!! We celebrated being in Australia by going to eat at a Tai restaurant. YUM! We had rice, prawns, spring rolls, crab cakes, rice sauce etc etc. I tell you, I ate so much that I felt that I was going to pop, even the next morning. Then we sailed to Goldsmith Island which took three hours. It was lovely and we again celebrated by having our drinks. Not water and squash, but soft drinks. AAAHHH heaven! Next day we sailed to Whitehaven Beach. It is 6km of white, white sand. The only problem is, is that it is horrible weather. Bother!

ARRIVED!!!!

We started from Whitehaven bay to Laguna Quays. It was very bouncy and wet but it calmed down. Now we have arrived. When I say arrived, I mean arrived. Arrived in the port which is our final port. Tomorrow we are going into a hotel. Woweee! It is very sunny and is very blue sky. We have two days of hard work cleaning before we hand over to John-John.