That year it was not so convenient to get back since the boat was in the Society Islands, and French Polynesia's visa requirements obligated us to stay out of the country a full six months. Little did we know it at the time, but that was the beginning of the end for us. Not only did we allow our hearts to get all entangled with the newest member of the family, but the extended circumstances seduced us into buying the motor home to be our land base. Now with one foot on the boat and one onshore, we have been dividing our time ever since.

No one needs an explanation for why we didn't make the trip this year. The distance is long, travel costs are high, money is tight, and the boat is for sale. In theory, when Tackless II has a new owner, we will no longer have to make the murderous commute, so, the family has granted us a dispensation this year.

Which is not to say we haven't missed being there! But thanks to video Skype we have not only talked with everyone in both families, but we were able, by getting up at midnight on the 26th, to actually watch Kai open his presents Christmas morning in Florida!

As for Christmas in Oz, it is a very different experience. Mooloolaba, being a resort community, has filled up to the gills, and its beach and restaurants are packed. Traffic crawls, and should you think to do errands by car, you will have to wait until nightfall to find another parking place! Even here on the dock, the slips around us have filled with boats that come here annually for the holiday week, including slip owners who only actually use the slip themselves this one month! Most of the boats have sported some sort of Christmas decoration, and the docks have been teeming with kids and grandkids. Fortunately, our marina did host a Christmas party early on which allowed us to finally meet a bunch of our neighbors, so we have not been totally left out of all the festivities.

After our busy and somewhat extravagant week in Sydney, we didn't actually have much planned here. On Christmas Eve the "Yacht Club" at the other marina hosted an orphan's dinner with a BYO-everything BBQ. Since we have several acquaintances there, including, of course, our buddies Tricky and Jane and the fast growing Dudley, it made for a nice evening even though the sky threatened rain.

The next morning dawned bright and clear, and we got up around five to meet Sandi and Peter of Otama Song on the beach for champagne. What Peter didn't really make clear was that they had whole big breakfast planned. By the time we arrived, they had not only staked out a table and a grill, but had cooked up a huge stack of meat, sausagesm bacon, grilled tomatoes and toast.



Sandra, the lady skipper of the 70' Plum, also joined us and brought the prawns that no Aussie Christmas is right without. Caught a bit short, we made a couple of trips back and forth to the boat to augment supplies as they got low.



With all this and more goodies that Sandi had stashed in her Esky (Aussie for cooler), we ended up eating, drinking and swimming until nearly noon! What we should have guessed is that this is not merely an Otama Song tradition, it is an Aussie tradition. Every grill, table and bench was in use, and latecomers brought their own grills, tables and chairs!

Boxing Day (the day after Christmas) is also a big deal here in Oz, especially for sailors because it is the start of the Sydney Hobart Race. Randy and Sheri reportedly climbed the trail to north head from Manly to watch the start from there, but we had to make do with watching it on TV. Thinking we were smart, we and Peter and Sandi went over to the The Wharf Pub, a sort of sports and gambling bar at the other end of the docks, to watch the coverage on their giant screen TVs. That part worked out well, but unfortunately, management wouldn't turn off the Muzak and turn up the sound! Still, the kind of shots that airborne cameras can get can't be matched! It was truly wild to see the race boats trying to tack their way out of the harbor across the wakes of the hundreds if not thousands of spectator boats trying to keep up!

We decided to lay relatively low for New Year's Eve. Mooloolaba's Council was hosting a big do on the beach, with not one but two fireworks shows planned: one at 8pm for families with children and another one at midnight. It's always been a tenet of mine that if someone is going to fire off all that money into thin air, I owe it to them to be there. Thanks to portable fencing and a ban on parking, the whole Esplanade was turned into a controlled, alcohol and drug free zone for the night, with the exception, we presume, of the actual restaurants! This is not to say there weren't plenty of potted people about, but at least they had to exit the area to refuel.

Against all odds, we managed to find our way up there for both shows. We found a good spot in the sand with our backs against the seawall. We had imagined that the fireworks might originate from a boat off the beach or maybe even from one of the breakwaters across the bay at the harbor entrance, but in the end it was not quite that grand. The launch point turned out to be the beach just beyond the Surf Club, and although the pyrotechnics came at a fast and furious rate, they never gained a whole lot of altitude. Both shows were exactly the same, but we found the early crowd more appreciative.

Once again it turns out the place to be was Sydney. My sister back in North Carolina evidently watched the Sydney display on TV, and of course Randy and Sheri did it truly right by booking places on one of the Harbor's New Year's Eve dinner cruises. They said it was the most spectacular display they had ever seen!

So, here we are in 2009. We are hopeful things will get a little more back to normal next week. We have managed to pry out from our agent the news that customs has accepted our valuation for importing Tackless II. That will be a big step in the process of getting her sold. Don has made huge inroads on the interior varnish with very little help from me, and once quarantine has signed off on us we will finish a few woodwork repairs. All in all, I can't imagine how anyone could resist her!

By the way, Santa did not totally overlook the two captains. He brought us a tent with which to do some camping and a 1990 Toyota Camry to carry it around in. Just think of it as a poor man's RV! We are hopeful that, so equipped, we will be able to take off in a couple of weeks and see a little of this huge and beautiful country before we have to depart.

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There wasn't even a flicker of recognition here in Australia that November 27 was a major US Holiday, although I did see a snap of President Bush holding up a naked turkey body, which was an odd photo to show with the story of him giving the annual gobbler pardons. However, I am fairly sure that photo was on US Yahoo.

I was determined not to let the day slide by and had been searching for a turkey to roast. I finally found a 3.5 kilo bird on the bottom shelf in the frozen food section, but I wasn't quite sure which day I would roast it – Thursday, by the calendar, or Friday, when everybody back home would be celebrating.

In the end I didn't roast it either day. Thursday morning, just as we got back to the boat from our now regular morning walk, we got a call from Randy and Sheri of Procyon. "We are anchored in the river right where it goes through downtown Brisbane and it is so cool. You should get on the train and come down!"

And so we did. Just like that! We threw tooth brushes and a change of clothes into the backpack and then stepped out of the marina to the corner where we caught the 615 bus that carried us to Landsborough Station, from where we easily hopped on the connecting trains to downtown Brisbane's Central Station. It took just two and half hours to make the trip, and as, we popped out into the sunlight, Randy and Sheri were waiting for us!

Talk about culture shock! From laid back Bundaberg, to sophisticated Mooloolaba, to supercharged downtown Brissie!


We emerged from Central Station at the corner of Edward and Ann streets (Brisbane's streets are named after British kings and queens – queens go one way, and kings go the other!) and gazed downhill at an urban landscape of ultra-modern buildings mixed most satisfyingly with beautifully preserved old stone ones from the 1800s.

Eight miles up the Brisbane River from Moreton Bay (another wedge of water trapped between the mainland and an offshore island), the city of Brisbane started life, like so much of Australia, as a penal colony, specifically one for difficult convicts from the Botany Bay colony farther south in New South Wales. But eighteen years later it was opened to free settlers, and in recent decades it has become one of the most popular places in Oz to live.

The city center is caught in a couple of deep loops of the river, and Procyon was anchored in the main stretch between the Story and Captain Cook bridges, right off the beautiful City Botanical Gardens. On the opposite side of the river the steep red Kangaroo Point cliffs rise above a long strip of parkland. The cliffs are spotlighted at night, so with the cityscape on the one hand and the cliffs on the other and bracketed by the two bridges, the anchorage was a very dramatic spot to sit.



At the foot of Edward Street is the city "marina" a string of parallel piles to which was moored a very motley assortment of long term liveaboards. Procyon, virtually the only cruiser anchored there, was definitely the classiest vessel in sight.

Upon our arrival, we had a delicious lunch in the Pig & Whistle café in the middle of pedestrian-only Queen Street, and then spent an hour or two wandering the streets, poking our noses in a few stores, generally agog at all the glitz of full-bore civilization. Preparations were underway for various Christmas events, including the lighting of the city Christmas tree and a carol concert in a few days. As the feet and energy wore down, we found our way to the dinghy dock along George Street which borders the Botanic Gardens on one side and opulent buildings of old stone or new glass on the other.

The views from Procyon were stunning, especially as dusk approached and the city lit herself up. We enjoyed a few relaxing beers in the cockpit, watching kayakers from the Riverlife Adventure Center drop two dozen kayaks into the river for a slack-tide paddle before the current of the changing tide pulled them back and turned Procyon right around. There is regular ferry service up and down the river by fast power cats creating occasional wakes, and the river water, I'm regretful to say, was not pretty. We all agreed it was about the color of Fijian kava, which is to say milky brown. This was especially aggravated by the unusual spate of rain the region has had the past few weeks.

We dined that evening at the Café Mondial, not so much out of choice, but because many of the restaurants we checked out were closed for private parties! Early Christmas parties? I guess when you don't have the Thanksgiving barrier, you can start celebrating as early in November as you want!

The next morning we took our walk through the Botanical Gardens and across the river via the Goodwill pedestrian bridge to the bottom of the South Bank Parklands, where, we understand is Streets Beach, a manmade swimming beach giving city residents a better option than that lovely river water! After breakfast on the boat, we went ashore intending to catch the mid-morning train back because we had invited Tricky and Jane for turkey Friday night, but a phone call from the Lionhearts advised us they were going to be tied up picking up their new van and their new puppy, so could we make it another night? So instead, we all went to the mid-morning show of the new Baz Luhrmann film "Australia" in a fancy downtown cinema. (Don was most impressed that they had reserved seats!)

According to the newspapers "Australia" has not done too well in its first week, and reviews are mixed. This is always painful after a huge publicity campaign. And the fact is the flick is more than a little hokey, particularly in the beginning. One wonders what Luhrmann was aiming for with the almost caricature performances from his leads in the opening scenes. This is not good in a three-hour movie! Fortunately, things seems to settle down after about the first third, and the whole thing is saved by the believable performances by the Aborigine actors, particularly the enchanting central character of Nullah, a mixed race child of great resources and connection to his Aboriginal heritage through his grandfather, the mystical and mysterious "King George." Watching hunky Hugh Jackman (especially after the ridiculous early scenes) is no chore, either. What's really surprising about the movie is that despite a fairly predictable script and some rather one-dimensional characters, the subject matter of Australia's historical racism is bluntly addressed. The absurdity of that racism and the grandeur of the landscape are the movie's two most successful messages. So all in all, we would say it is worth going to see on the big screen, with the proviso that you don't want to give up on it before the cattle drive starts!

From the movie we hopped back on the train, which was much more crowded on the ride north, being as it was Friday afternoon, than it had been on the way south. I must say that our train rides both ways were pleasant experiences thanks to friendly Aussies who were keen to chat us up. On the way down it was Dennis, a 30-year employee of the train company, who not only assured us we were going the right way and making the right connections, but shared with us a lot of information about the landscape we were passing through, (much of it dedicated to fruit production – ranging from pineapples to strawberries to lychees! – that all used to ship by train and now ship by truck,… tsk, tsk) not to mention all the side trips into the Sunshine Coast hinterland that we shouldn't miss.

One of the highlights from the train window are the unusual Glasshouse Mountains. In total there are sixteen of these shark's tooth-like crags that stick up abruptly from the flat green surrounds like rocks from the sea. Of ancient volcanic origin, they are what remains after millions of years of erosion. The train passes right by three or four of these, and Dennis assured us we could climb one we were sufficiently motivated. It looks to us to be more like rock climbing than a morning stroll.

Kangaroos, Ho!

On the bus link from Landsborough Station back to Mooloolaba I finally got my wish to see kangaroos in the wild…in the suburbs no less! The first sight was a head peaking up over the raised bank as the bus whizzed by. I exclaimed and Don glanced out over his should in time to see a whole pack of about eight in an open area under some power lines. Only moments later the bus turned into a university campus and we saw a large kangaroo sitting on his own in the middle of a playing field! Clearly late afternoon is the time to see them!

Christmas Boat Parade

Although the turkey was now thoroughly thawed in the fridge, I still couldn't cook it on Saturday because Saturday was the annual Mooloolaba Christmas Boat parade. Even though it is summer here, it does not stay light late on this coast because Queensland does not adopt daylight savings. We have observed that one big plus of this is that Queenslanders get up early to swim, surf, walk, jog, and kayak before work rather than after. However, another perk of the plan is that it is dark enough by 6:30pm for Christmas lights!

We watched the parade from Lionheart in its end berth at the Yacht Club Marina, giving us a great vantage point as the line of boats passed us several times. Our last boat parade was with Diane and Alex in Hernando Beach, FL where the temperature was in the forties! This was much warmer! The best boat by our vote was a neighbor from the Yacht Club who had turned his mast into a giant sparking candle with, somehow, a flame at the top. This would go "out" at intervals and a "match" would ascend and relight it. I have to assume this was some kind of commercially produced decoration, but it sure was perfect for a boat application.

Of course the other highlight of the evening was playing with Tricky and Jane's new two-month old puppy, Dudley. Dudley is a chunky white guinea pig of a pup whose Daddy was a Maltese and whose Mum was a Staffordshire Terrier (pit bull to us gringos). Clearly Daddy was a bold and brave fellow! Duddles, as I prefer to think of him, has Dad's wispy white hair, but he has Mum's more solid build with a bunch of black spots showing through his coat.. He is pretty cute…now.

Thanksgiving

The Turkey finally went in the oven midday Sunday, which turned out to be the right day because both Tricky and Jane and Peter and Sandy were able to join us. Don went to help Tricky build a bed in their new van, which left me alone on the boat all day to cook at a nice leisurely pace so both of us were pretty happy. Everyone (including Duddles) assembled on T2 at about five pm, Sandy bringing a salad and Jane bringing a cheesecake and berries for "pudding." There was wine, beer and bubbly to wash it all down, and I must tell you that there was not a crumb of anything left!

Despite the economic blues, despite that fact that we are putting the boat on the market, and despite the fact that we are still far from family at this holiday time, we still have a great deal to be thankful for. And we are.

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Our first week in Mooloolaba has been almost hectic. First thing, Don rented a local storage locker and we have been excavating our forepeak and stall shower from the mounds of stuff that have filled them these past years. Some of it will go with the boat when it is sold, some of it will get shipped home, and the rest…well, we definitely have to do some hardening of the hearts. We've got a list posted of some of the loose equipment, and hopefully we'll earn a little extra beer money from that!

It's been a surprisingly social time on top of all that. Peter had made dinner for us that first night, one of his wonderful fish curries. The next afternoon we spent almost entirely with Randy and Sheri, knowing that these good friends would be sailing onward, potentially right out of our lives, the next morning. We explored Mooloolaba's esplanade for the first time, and enjoyed an afternoon coffee at one of the dozen or so coffee bars, before making reservations for dinner. That evening we toasted the occasion with a nice meal as the full moon rose fat and orange from the black sea. Procyon was gone at first light the next morning.

We'd thought things might begin to slow down. Not hardly. Peter and Sandy invited us to go with them to a local farmer's market. Although I have been very fond of my island markets, I can't deny that it is nice to go to one with things like broccoli, avocados, patty pan squash, herbs, mushrooms, macadamia nuts, and even a stall selling assorted olives. Afterwards we went to check out Sandy's lab, and then, leaving her to work her seventh day of the week (the lab was just days away from certification), Peter took us to visit some friends of theirs who happen to have a Harley in the garage. I could see Don's pulse rate pick up, especially after Andy started it up with a rumble.

By the midday, we were back at the dock in time to assist Tricky and Jane Lionheart in coming in. Remember my last updates on the challenges of the Sandy Straits and the Wide Bay Bar? Well, Tricky and Jane, who had been off visiting Tricky's brother, finally got off from Bundaberg only to have yet another lousy weather forecast posted. So as not to get stuck in Garry's like we did, the intrepid Lionhearts made the whole trip from Midtown marina, down the Burnett River, down Hervey Bay, through the channels of the Straits, out over the bar AT NIGHT, and down the coast to Mooloolaba in about thirty hours straight! Yikes. At least they had calm conditions and motored most of the way, but they did have some unidentified something in their propulsion system "slip' while crossing Wide Bay Bar. Unsure as to whether the problem was in the transmission or the Max prop, they nursed the boat over the last leg in a state of suspense, hence our standing by in the dinghy to help them if there were a problem in maneuvering.

Wouldn't you know, just then we got a call from the broker informing us that our first two potential buyers were on their way! Panic stations. The excavated spaces had to be speed cleaned and the rest of the boat put to rights. And then they showed up EARLY! We actually had to ask them to give us an hour!

By late afternoon the sky started to grow dark and threatening to the southwest. By evening, when we met up with Tricky and Jane again for dinner at the excellent and affordable Thai restaurant, the sky was black, and an ominous frontal line like a lozenge of silver fuzz stretched from one side of the sky to the other. Neighbors warned us of the possibility of strong winds and hail (!!!), so we dropped our solar panels, furled our awnings, and zipped up the enclosure. In the end we got some doozey lightning and thunder (as well as a brief black out), but we were spared the record storm conditions that played havoc with Brisbane forty miles to the south.

It did rain. In fact, it rained a LOT over the following days, making it hard to remember the sparkling blue sky of Saturday! But even in the rain, we've been kept busy! Aussies Jim and Paula of Avior, of whom we lost track when they went home to their house ashore (where they have poor cell phone service), popped up Monday afternoon for tea which turned into an impromtu dinner as we caught up. The next day they came back for us with their son Shane and we all drove an hour south to Redcliffe where Paula's 1971 Toyota Corolla had been left sitting by their daughter after it broke down three months ago. It seems, like a few other families we could name, that it takes Dad to come home to deal with automotive crises. If we could have got it going, Jim and Paula planned to lend us the car! However, it was not the quick fix we hoped for.

The day was not lost as we turned north and swung by the Scarborough Boat Harbor at the southern tip of Deception Bay, another popular stopping-over place for cruisers. The marina there is much bigger than the Wharf and perhaps even than the Yacht Club here, and the basin is shared by commercial fishing vessels. But the area lacks the charm and the recreation options that have so pleased us here in Mooloolaba. Our friends on Whisper were in the marina as well as Procyon, plus we discovered old friends Mike and Kathleen of Content, last seen in Tonga, in the next slip over.

The criss-crossing of courses and rediscovery of old acquaintances was demonstrated quite nicely the very next day when, taking our morning power walk along the promenade, a couple was stopped in their tracks at the sight of Don's Tackless II T-shirt. They turned out to be Peter and Margaret of Suwarro, one of the two boats we uplocked with in the Panama Canal. We had first met them in Cartegena -- and it was Peter that arranged our tour of the visiting British frigate there! – plus they had noodled with us in the San Blas islands. "Just when we think there could be no more boats we know coming through, up pops another!" After the Canal, Peter and Margaret had come straight on across the Pacific in 2001, completing their circumnavigation in Mooloolaba and returning to jobs they'd left nine years before!

Peter and Margaret introduced us that night to the weekly cruiser dinner orchestrated by a gal out of the Yacht Club Marina. Several of those attending were, like Peter and Margaret, cruisers who swallowed the anchor here some time ago. However there was quite a clutch of cruisers who had crossed the whole way from Panama this year! The general tone was a lot of complaint about the rough weather they'd all encountered! Well, duh! When you push that far that fast you can't wait out the bad stuff. There is absolutely nothing about a one-year crossing that appeals to us!

Things have finally slowed down to something approaching a routine. We get up early, do our walk, maybe indulge in a coffee and newspaper on the esplanade



, and spend the rest of the day puttering around the boat, with, maybe another walk to the grocery in the afternoon. Friday we braved the bus system to explore the commercial strip outside of town lucking into a patient driver who not only explained the ticketing system, but later stopped to pick us up when he saw us walking back along the highway!

I suspect this will pretty much be our routine for the foreseeable future, depending on the economy and how many people are keen to buy a cruising boat. We have fantasies of campervan or motorcycle travel, but with the economy the way it is, they may remain just that: fantasies.

PS: Check out my feature article on 'Circumnavigating Vanua Levu: Reflections on What Cruisers Seek" in the December Issue of Latitudes & Attitudes Magazine. It came out very nicely, and believe it or not, there are actually lots of pictures! You can read it online at http://viewer.zmags.com/showmag.php?magid=112881#/page60/

Labels: Marinas, Mooloolaba

Our slip is in the Wharf Marina, a small, friendly operation tucked right into the corner of town. Behind our slip is a small park, buffering the sound of traffic on the adjacent street; Underwater World, 'Queensland's largest oceanarium" is one block to the south; and a Hogsbreath Bar and Grill at the foot of our dock is part of a whole wharf of boutique stores, restaurants, dive and surf shops.

Surprisingly, the oceanfront that looked a bit forbidding on our approach has turned out to be exceptionally attractive. Starting just two blocks away, Mooloolaba's long curving beach is backed by a raised park-like boardwalk with play areas and free BBQ grills.




Well set back behind that strip is a 3-4 block-long esplanade of startlingly cosmopolitan cafes, restaurants, and shops all jumbled together in a street-level mall joining the various ten-story condo buildings. Behind that are several blocks of four and five-story condo complexes in beach colors, more shops and offices, the supermarket and, yes, a McDonald's. Everything looks fresh and modern and was, that first brilliant Saturday morning, jam-packed with people of all ages enjoying themselves. On the beach was some huge family event, having to do with the big Surf Club that anchors the end of the street. The beach and the club were packed with adorable children in bathing suits, evidently participating in swim races in the sea.

The fact that it is a seaside resort town with the above attractions means that it is crowded with people and cars on the weekends and holidays. So far the worst this means for us is the clamor of inebriated young people trying to find their ways home after the bars and clubs close down around 3am! During weekdays, it is much more laid back.

We chose Mooloolaba based on reports of cruisers in previous seasons – going way back friends aboard Maritime Express and Exit Only – as well as because several current friends were planning to be there this season. One of those friends is Peter and Sandi of Otama Song, whom we first got to know in Tonga. Earlier this season, Sandi, a lab pathologist by training, got a job offer to come back to Australia and set up a brand new independent laboratory. Sandi flew here and went to work, while Peter brought their boat to Vuda for work, renewing our friendship. Since the new lab is in nearby Buderim, berthing the boat in Mooloolaba became the obvious choice. Every morning Peter and Sandi get up at the crack of dawn to walk, swim and sip coffee by the beach. We have Peter to thank for making and holding on to our reservation at the Wharf.

Labels: Marinas, Mooloolaba