SMS from Christopher: “Clack! is out now!”

This is meaningless unless you know that Clack! is the iPhone game that Christopher has been working on for some time, and is the FIRST GAME of his to be released by Apple globally. You can find out more about it and his next games at www.elegiacdesign.com!

Of course we bought it straight away, as we now do for ALL Jeanette’s apps that she’s releasing at www.greatoutdoorsapps.com!

Yes, our kids are way out in front of us, but that’s OK ‘cos we just stand back and applaud them:-)

The people at my Rotary club really know how to have a good time – this is some of them enjoying the “Blessing of the Rotary Fleet”, ie the power boats that some of my fellow members own, by our very own reverend John Shepperd.

Looks like ordinary blisters on my finger pads…they are actually the remains of second-degree burns from our sailing trip back from Jurien Bay!

Almost the worst anchorage we’ve ever been in made our candle-ia that we use to eat dinner by fall over. Silly me tried to catch it…caught it but got very burnt in the process. The pain was excruciating, but straight into the ice until my fingers hurt from the cold, then do strong self control until the double dose of pain killers kicked in.

That was over a week ago and look at them now! New skin including my signature finger prints has grown under the dead skin, then the dead skin sloughed off to reveal the shiny new skin.

Amazing!

Today and tomorrow morning, we are getting to know Thea better. My aunt Judy says that the best way she had to get to know her nieces and nephews was either to babysit them, or have them to stay at her place. So when an opportunity came to have Thea and/or Tom comes up we say “Yes!” if at all possible.

In this picture Thea has set herself up with her pillow and blanket on her favourite couch in our lounge room to watch her favourite video – “Blue Man” or Monsters Inc. to the rest of us. This is a time-honoured tradition begun by her Dad Tristan and his 2 big sisters:-)

Later today she was bored while I did the ironing so I got a tray and my glass “buttons” as she calls them and she made a very intricate pattern that she was very proud of.

Yesterday arvo, as part of getting back from a tough, 10-day sailing trip, we took Blaine and the kiddliwinks to the “Blue Park” (Tom’s name because it has a blue slide) to play with the frisbees she’d just bought for them on her first time to herself since we’d left on Easter Friday.

Despite Rob’s urging, Tom was not careful enough and his frisbee sailed into the lake! The breeze wafted it towards the island in the middle of the lake as they both watched, absolutely convinced that Pa would get it out for Tom.

And Pa did!

Sadly the next morning Tom managed to get it into the lake again, in the middle, and there was no breeze to blow it to the edge, so we had to leave without it:-(

Today, still moored in Jurien Bay Marina, Rob mixed, kneaded and baked his first loaf of bread on Dusky Dolphin, because when we travel we can’t find bread that he really likes. OK he did have a practise bake at home before we left (see loaf in inset pic), but this was the first time on the boat.

And it was delicious!

Last night we were anchored in Dusky Dolphin in an extremely rough and rolly anchorage, Green Head just north of Jurien Bay. As there were threatening thunder clouds around (Why do we do this? !!!) we put the vital pieces of equipment into a supposedly lightening-proof “cage” – the oven! So there was a good reason for the spare GPS and my mobile and my MacBook to be in the boat oven:-)

Today we sailed south again back to Jurien Bay Marina, and gave up plans to ever sail north along our coast. What with this plus my badly burnt fingers from a particularly big wave knocking over the candle light and me trying to catch it, plus our previous bad experiences here, we decided it’s time to make different plans for our sailing!

Looks like an ordinary sunset, doesn’t it?

Rob and I are sailing Dusky Dolphin north from Fremantle to Jurien. We left Freo after lunch to day and expect to arrive in Jurien about lunch-time tomorrow. We’ll be sailing all night, and with only the two of us on board that means interrupted sleep.

Last time we tried to do this we got through the night OK but got the ropes from a cray pot tangled around our propellor and rudder at dawn so were disabled in one foul swoop. It was scary and we had to wait in increasingly rough seas, being washed offshore, until a cray boat came and cut us free about 9:30am.

This time we are determined to do better. I’ve steeled myself to do a long watch from about 11 or so for at least 4 hours so Rob can get some sleep. he takes a while to get to sleep so that will be the only block of time he will get for shut-eye.

Didn’t know it then but a sea-mist would come in around 3am, which made things a little more interesting that I wanted. But at least the full Easter moon helped to light the way:-)

This morning I’m missing my weekly yoga class, because it’s the only time that Rob and I can give up a half day to spend at the bank at the same time, setting up our new super fund accounts!

It’s strange getting back to yoga. I did it for a while about 40 years ago, but was not ready for it then. Once I took myself off the remedial list for my knees and thigh muscles in January, I started working out what would be a good ongoing regime for my best health. I remembered yoga, and had a few one-on-one sessions to remember what it was all about. Now I can mostly keep up during the beginners’ classes and feel sooooo much better afterwards. So it was a tough decision to miss this mornings session, because we’ll be away next week for 3 weeks so I won’t be able to do a class until early May. Oh well, that’s the breaks.

So it’s just one session at the gym a week now, walking 4-5 times a week, and 1 pilates session that I get refunded from our health insurance. And pilates is really good for my balance and my understanding of what muscles really work in standing and sitting well. So that keeps the cost down and the synergy between gym, yoga and pilates works really well for me. It’s interesting the different levels of physical and spiritual that they touch, yoga being the most spiritual and gym the least, but somehow the blend is great. I’ll miss it while we sail but at least I now have enough practice at the 3 things to keep up some semblance of skill.

AND I can go away knowing that the new bank accounts will be working by the time we get back and we HAVE to do that ASAP!

This morning, as part of getting Dusky Dolphin ready for a planned 3-week sailing trip north along our coast, we set up the world’s most beautiful cross trees.

When we bought Dusky Dolphin from Peter Bielby in 2000, the crossed pieces of timber (called “cross trees”) that support the boom while we are in harbour were even then quite old and faded. Lately they’ve begun to split apart, so we asked Tristan the woodworking guru what we should do about this. After he’d laughed and asked if they were trees that were cross and so needed anger management, he said that he and Blaine would be very happy to make some new ones out of West Australian jarrah.

Here’s the result, all sanded and varnished and complete with white dolphins painted by Blaine.