Seablog: A night out with Bob

It was bound to happen before too long, wasn’t it? There I was thinking that my daily run of songs was keeping the wind gods happy and in good spirits, but perhaps they weren’t so fond of today’s medley. For earlier this evening we happened upon some huge cloud banks (the sky covering sort) which brought both rain and a wind shift to the party. Unfortunately the wind shift isn’t quite what we had hoped for and we are being blown back towards the Australian side of the 91st degree. So, having tried to row against it, across it, over it, under it, through it and around it with no Westward progress and only tiring myself out, I cracked open the para-anchor. The idea of this nifty contraption ( a parachute on the end of a long line, ‘flown’ out the bows of the boat) is to minimise the backwards drift.

Now it is times like this that my bounce could very well up and leave for it is frustrating to lose hard won miles. However:
1) It is 24 days since I called upon Bob’s services (Bob is the para-anchor) so we have already been super lucky with the weather.
2) Because of the aforementioned, I had a moment or two of ‘brain mush’ when rigging it up and found this senile moment very funny.
3) Bluey (the big blue fish who joined us earlier in the crossing) appeared out of nowhere, and all the Tweedle crowd swam out to say hello, too. Sure fire way to make a biologist’s day -simply show her some pretty fish. While I was eating my still-not-fully-rehydrated-‘chilli’, Bluey swam up and down the length of the boat. He is a bit of a looker, for sure. Apart from being (I think) in the Scombroid family I don’t know what he is – fish ID guide very hard to come by in Freo.
4) I found the charger and spare battery for my handheld video recorder – thought we’d left it in Freo. Not as stupid as I thought I was.
5) Rain excellent for my latest sprouting lentil crop.
6) All crew safe and well -and very happy to have read the latest from the blog followers. Thank you folks!
7) It’s Friday night, it’s the weekend, it’s the end of Day 45 -meaning I made the four lines of the latest tally into a five-bar gate. Five more until the half century…Wohoo!
8) There’s nothing I can do about it, (apart from practicing a new batch of songs) therefore ‘NO WORRIES MATE!’

So while it’s not my favourite past-time to be drifting back from whence we have thithered, I am in good enough spirits and stocked up with bounce to be treating our evening out with Bob with a smile. Nothing lasts forever so hopefully we’ll be trotting West again soon.

Happy weekending,
Outey toot toot x

PS

Linda Morison – I am so with you on the ‘do what you have to do’ ethos. You never know when you might not be able to, so you have to get out there while you can. Say hello to your folks!
Mikey – Indeed I do remember. We should add that to our scuba list… Well done on your promo. Proud lil’ sister 🙂
Marcel -Did they manage to get the dodo back on the islet? Hehe. Would love to visit it when I’m there.
Pete – Tell your daughter she is a sensible girl – if only they taught the ‘green line method’ in navigation school.

PPS Where are these SlowAngels then?! Hehe. Joking. Great to see the girls opening the can of whoop ass on the gents.