Passage Report: 85

Australia 2012-3

Sydney: "Dad, you didn't answer my email" - to meet at airport. Skipper taxi's to friends.

Harbour sails, blue, Bondi beach brown bodies, Skipper's lily white, iconic harbour, surf, sunshine - vitamin D.

Relief - a sense of belonging, vibrancy, a different culture, land. Fresh, new, aspiring, uncluttered - a people content, balanced, self deprecating, humourous, at peace within - unbent, relaxed, hospitable - different.

Through the door, friends are there - surprise birthday party by wonderful daughters..

A birthday ballad sung:

"Captain of the Sahula"

He's the captain of the Sahula

He sails the seven seas.

He hardly ever comes ashore

Unless there is no breeze.

Unless there is no breeze.

He did fierce environmental law

To save our heritage.

He fought the gallant fight for us

Then left on his voyage.

Then left on his voyage.

He usually sails solo

But in the Arab Sea

He joined a jolly convoy

To avoid the piracy.

To avoid the piracy.

He passed the beauteous Lorelei

She never looked at he.

So to the northern climes he sailed

To the placid Zuiderzee.

To the placid Zuiderzee.

Composers/ songsters: Ben and Jeanette.

--

Skipper's "English" whiteness contrasts iconic Bondi Beach, surfing brown and bikini daughters.

Soon after, the speeding stratosphere "cigar" shared with 3-400 fellow travellers provides the inevitable - two days - jetlagged, ill. Flying is for birds!

Skipper gratefully occupies friends "shed" unit and "house sits" their home. Friends art studio allows Skipper to create Norwegian pastels.

To Brisbane visit elder aunt, friends. Fairweather art exhibition rekindles interest in an iconic Australian artist.

 

 

To Newcastle and camping at Barrington Tops. Senses sharpened, pristine, a flash of parrot red, a bounce of looping wallaby- red grey, colour streaked snow gum, kookaburra laughter, sonorous butcher birds, black - white magpies, barbed echidna - an incompassing tapestry, a years passing, refreshed bush wonder.

To Mellbourne for daughter, family, children and art.

To Canberra for Swedish visa, friends and the Gallery.

In Sydney, family time, delight in aspirations. Life moves on - father becomes observer, seer to independence - careers in law, business, marketing - elder characteristics, carried forward, added to, moulded to new directions.

What moulded the father, moulded the son, moulds the daughters, et seq.

Friends, acquaintances marvel at Skipper's experiences. Skipper in turn wonders at such interest. What makes the fearless "doing"? A background of trekking, mountaineering, sailing resolves to pure adventure. Fear becomes caution.

City scapes, life swirls, ignored into i phones, apps. City sounds subsumed to i tunes, earphones. Cars sweep by harbour ferries - the mantra is speed. Humanity, community bends before individual aspiration.

Sahulian lifestyle stands apart, heightening the simpler life, time to look, hear, see, colour, create, appreciate beauty in the inert, natural and human.

Sahula is bound for St Petersburg participating in the Cruising Association rally of some 26 yachts.

Russian Consulate, Sydney imprints the month long visa. Sweden provides a 6 months Visitors Permit. Schengen 3 months is held at bay.

Three months ensures it is impossible to legally, adequately cruise the Baltic from England.

Skipper ponders the ANZAC contribution to WW II, a democratic Europe that earns the rejection of a mere three months.

"Dad, you need these!" Daughter selects a tube, a pot. Skipper, dutifully, pays. The "tube," in small print, reads "anti-aging" cream! Skipper is 66!

"Dad, you apply a few dabs, rub in, warm wash off, then apply lotion - twice a day." Utopia achieved, logic undone!

"See you at the Sea Bay - written up for dumplings." Hard walls bounce a cacaphony, dumping conversation.

Syrian city restaurant, three daughters - life is good.

Dental work calls. Skipper visits Sydney Dental Hospital. "Fill out the forms, sir - talk to lady in next window."

"You wish an appointment, Sir"

"Yes, when?"

"Two to three years, Sir, we will contact you!"

Sydney Symphony, "1812 Overture" - cannon booming - under clear, summer, night sky, friends, fills the city Domain.

Friends return from Antarctica - Skipper's Patagonian "dream" seems closer.

It is time to leave - farewell friends, daughters, family, iconic Sydney. Australian warmth.

Into the flying "cigar" crammed with mass travellers bound for Istanbul. Skipper visits Turkish friends in Istanbul, Izmir, Urdu, and Yagcilar village.

Izmir dentist does superb, professional repair - at a price half Australia's equivalent. Gift of travel.

London, to welcome friends home, family, Sahula in Ipswich.

 

 

"You brought the sunshine" - next day cold, overcast - autumn delayed - "Not like this last year" - March warmth.

Skipper aboard, snow 40cm on deck.

Sunday roast, weekend, with cruising friends.

Skipper is "home" - preparations begin for a Sweden, Finland and St Peterburg departure in April.

Next Report - Ipswich to Baltic.

Best,

David

sv Sahula

April, 2013