Ho Ho Ho and a Bottle of Rum

Another beautiful day in Cairns. Wednesday is WAGS day - Wednesday Afternoon Gentleman's Sail. Anyone with a boat and the time takes anyone who pays the fee ($5 for yacht club members, $15 for non) for a "friendly" race up and down the Cairns inlet. The price includes a sausage sizzle and beer or wine afterwards. You can actually be part of the crew or just sit and watch the scenery (ballast). I was ballast (as were 6 others) most of the time but next time I'm going to be part of the crew, it's more fun. I was on the most luxurious boat, Chalkies Chariot, a 42 foot Bavaria skippered by Rob aka Chalkie. The friendly race was soon down to 2 boats neck and neck vying for first place - tweaking and fine tuning the sails every 30 seconds. Was great fun zipping up and down the inlet, heeled way over except when I was caught lying down on deck, we tacked and I could easily have rolled right off the boat but the thought of crocs in the water was a great incentive to hang on for dear life until we straightened out - a very very long 20 minutes later. We won the race, just barely, our skipper really wanted first prize - a bottle of rum. I'll try to get a photo of the actual boat, found this one on the internet.

Fred and Ginger, Eat Your Heart Out

I seem to have gone from calloused hands to calloused feet in only 1 day. Ballroom dancing is harder than it looks, and not having the proper shoes doesn't help. Who knew that your shoes had to have suede bottoms? We're learning 2 dances I've never heard of, nor have ever seen danced - the names elude me as do a lot of the moves, but the 3rd dance is the cha cha which is at least vaguely familiar. Next week we start the waltz and I'm sure it won't be just a simple one, they'll throw all kinds of fancy steps in just to confuse us. My mission tomorrow is to find shoes that won't kill my feet and look good - mission impossible.

A Pleasant Sunday Arvo??? (Aussie for Afternoon)

Sunday; and another bright, sunny, cloudless day in Cairns……Just perfect for a sailboat race, as long as the wind decides to blow! We ‘rocked up’ (Aussie slang) to the Cairns Cruising Yacht Squadron in the hope of being crew in the latest edition of the fortnightly ‘white sail race’. Things were looking bleak (too many crew members, not enough skippers!) and the beach was beginning to sound like a good alternative until Simon made his entrance…..He’d taken the sailing course (that we were only half way through) sometime last year and this was only his fourth outing as a skipper, while it was our first time as white sails crew….what a combination. The blind leading the blind!!! Would we even finish the race by sundown???

Despite being a ‘newbie’ Simon was far from ‘simple’ and proved to be an able-bodied skipper. We soon had the sails hoisted and on our way, making steady progress in fourth place (out of four!) Due to the light winds a bigger Genoa sail was chosen in place of the standard jib, a seemingly wise choice as spinnakers were forbidden in the ‘friendly’ white sails races.

Simon

Chris and I had never even seen a Genoa let alone had to work with one and our greenness became more apparent as we struggled at first to haul it in quickly enough when we tacked…and tacked….and tacked again....and again….and again! Sore wrists and blisters are living proof of the punishment endured during a ‘pleasant’ Sunday afternoon sailing up and down the Cairns Inlet! However, we learned how to set the spinnaker pole to give the Genoa maximum effect as we sailed downwind and by the time the race was half over we’d established a certain amount of synchronicity but had lost too much ground and found ourselves still running in fourth position (still out of four!) We realized that if Chris did the hauling in and I stuck to the winching we formed a much more efficient team, until the winch handle ‘popped’ out and I hit him fair and square on the knee…. was a miracle he trusted me after that, but after his screams subsided the partnership was reformed and the race continued! So there we were, finally working like a well oiled machine (albeit, a bruised and battered one) when disaster struck! Suddenly we found ourselves being blown around in circles and a quick glance in Simon’s direction told the story. There he sat with a piece of broken wood (that used to be the tiller) in his hands and a forlorn look on his face. As quickly as possible Chris and I pulled the sails down while Simon started the outboard so we’d have a chance of controlling the runaway boat and not colliding with any of the surrounding ‘traffic’ in a busy Cairns harbour! After crudely lashing the tiller loosely back together we tentatively put the sails back up (minus the pole so as to restrict our speed) and slowly limped back to port. At least we now had a really good excuse for coming in a distant last (fourth!!!). LOL

Sailing, sailing and more sailing

Have been in sunny Cairns for 8 days and if this is winter I could get used to it. Average temp is mid to high 20s and lows of 16.





The Cairns Yacht Club offers free sailing lessons on Saturday afternoons and today was lesson #2. Smart ass instructor asked if perhaps 90 degrees was a different measurement in Canada when I failed to tack properly.

I can barely type, my wrists and hands are so sore from letting the sails in and out all afternoon. Had my turn on the tiller and by the end of the afternoon had pretty much stopped screaming when the boat heeled over and water started coming in. Every other Sunday they have races that you can sign on for so that's the plan for tomorrow. The boats are J24's (24 feet in length) and the instructors are determined to make racers out of all of us. On Fridays they have a BBQ and twilight sail and Wednesday afternoons there's a social sail so I'm bound to get my fill of sailing.

Southern Hemisphere Footy et al.

Back in Cairns - Chris has convinced me to return since I was laid off and "have nothing better to do."

It's Saturday night and I cannot believe I'm actually sitting here watching a rugby game. This game is almost as stupid as American football and for a brief moment I had more respect for these players since they don't have all that protective gear that the yanks need but then I found out what the name of the team is: Wallabies. If that isn't bad enough the soccer team is called the Socceroos and the other rugby league team is the Kangaroos, the women's field hockey team is the Hockeyroos and the mens is the Kookaburras. What madness. The Aussies are playing the New Zealand team called the All Blacks. Would you believe their basketball team is called the Tall Blacks? Rugby is much better to watch than football (if you need to watch one of them) because the game doesn't start and stop it continues even after the player has been tackled and the players don't look like idiots on steroids. And... you never know when someone shorts might get pulled down.

Footnote: Positions: the Hooker, the Prop, the Flanker, the 2nd Row, the half, the 5/8th, the 3/4, the wing and the number 8.

Cudworth Fun

Cudworth is not without its entertainment. One weekend there was Western Days which included a parade, tractor racing, demolition derby (this one didn't win) and a slow pitch tournament. The next weekend, just up the road One Arrow had a pow wow.

Hanging out in Cudworth

After 20+ years the funding for the IRR has run dry and I'm officially "retired." I will miss everyone I've gotten to know over the years at UW.

I've decided to go back west, way way west (and south) to Australia, stopping along the way in Saskatchewan to play with my beautiful granddaughter Abby, the sweetest baby on earth. How could she not be, being related to me????? I can hear you laughing, cut it out.