We’re in Cairns (pronounced Cans, but with a drawn-out a) and are a pretty happy lot right now. Two boats full of friends are here as well, so the kids have a pack to run around town with. They spend their days wandering off to the mall, down the esplanade, to Macca’s for Icees, or to a board game shop where they can spend the whole day playing games for just five bucks Australian (basically free in US$). They’re all enjoying the freedom of this small city life.
Dinner, at least every other night, is on the barbies. Ali enjoys a little respite from cooking on the boat, and I enjoy getting credit for doing nothing more than flipping meat over once or twice on a hot surface.
Met some other cruisers and got to share in their 11th birthday celebration, too.
The Italian Festival went all out with the fireworks display.
The monthly market at the Botanical Gardens.
Lowe and I play soccer on the front of the boat. Field is a little smaller than regulation, and errant kicks end up in the ocean requiring dinghy rescues, but other than that it’s pretty normal.
When I say we’ve been making meals up at the grills a lot, I really do mean A LOT. Breakfast on the grill anyone?
We’ve had one Garmin chartplotter that never worked (never even turned on), and another that had just died. As much as I hate to do it, I’ve decided to replace them both with more Garmin crap. Once a boat is covered in one brand of electronics it’s tough to switch. I considered a number of alternatives, mainly revolving around just continuing to use the iPad for all our navigation needs, like we have for the past couple decades, but decided the easiest path was just to plop in a couple new chartplotters.
We’ve been cruising since shortly after we left Fiji without any depth instruments (the depth is on the chartplotter only). Surprisingly, this hasn’t really been a problem at all. Charts in Vanuatu were quite accurate. Unfortunately, the new chartplotters don’t much care for our transducer, apparently, and aren’t spitting out our depth reading either. The replacement transducer I need isn’t available for at least a couple of weeks here in Australia, so for now it looks like we’ll be sailing the Great Barrier Reef without depth as well. I like to make things as challenging as possible.
On a happier note, the radar is working again. That had conked out on us back on the Pacific crossing. I had assumed it was the radar, but I guess that was chartplotter related as well.
Having chartplotters also means we can use AIS. Will wonders never cease?
Australian Sidewalk Handball, which is sort of like ping-pong on a sidewalk with a ball that’s very similar to a racquetball. The kids play non-stop. It’s awesome because all you need is a ball and two sidewalk squares to play. I’d been told this was an Australian staple, but I wasn’t convinced until a random ten year old kid walked up to me and Lowe one day and asked if he could play. He immediately started hammering trick shots. Not only that, but his mom rotated in as well.
Sunset on the Cairns Esplanade.
10 Comments on “Cans, Caaaans”
LOVE the photos, and news. Wishing you all continued safe and enjoyable travels!
That shot with the bikes and the bird. Just an amazing shot. Who else would have gotten that but you guys. Did Ali want to bring the bird home?
haha, that was Ali that took the photo. And yes, she was concerned it wasn’t feeling well, so she talked to it for a while before determining it was okay and we wouldn’t have to adopt it.
Good to see that things are going pretty well (almost) Stay safe and keeping having fun…..Marilyn
Love the bird guarding the motorcycles. “I may look friendly, but don’t mess with these bikes.” 🙂
IPad was all I used as well.
If you need a break from cooking on the barbie, I really recommend this place:
https://www.bayvillage.com.au/bayleaf-balinese-restaurant/
A bit pricey but plentiful portions & amazingly authentic Indonesian flavors!
Such beautiful pix! Makes me miss Cairns…..looking forward to your dive photos!
We saw some great critters but the corals looked sad….
Saw this reddit post of two bubble rings colliding and thought of Bumfuzzle!
https://www.reddit.com/r/oddlysatisfying/comments/1f1l6b7/when_two_bubble_rings_collide_in_the_ocean/
A month + of no news. I hope you are all well and healthy…
Hi Peter, yes August just disappeared. All is good – I am currently visiting family in the States (solo), while Pat continued up the Australia’s Top End with the kids. We are all meeting up in Darwin in a few days, where I will lock Pat up in a cabin to get caught up on this website. 🙂