Cruising Sailing around Australia; This is Christmas.

25/12/2013  This is Christmas

Today we woke at the normal time for us. That is quite an unusual feeling for Christmas day.

On normal Christmas day our daughter Bree gets the whole house up bright and early to start festivities.

This year we had a Christmas celebration in October while our family was all together. Afterwards our son went back to work in Italy and our daughter went to Cairns to work with her boyfriend on a slug diving boat. In November we left Mandurah Marina on our epic adventure sailing around Australia.

So this Christmas was going to be anything but normal. It started by me diving on our anchor.  We got it snagged on a great big chain that is lying on the bottom of Two Peoples bay, yesterday. Not normal for me as it was only the second time  I had used a breathing apparatus and the first under water.

Again it was B1 and Marie to the rescue with an air hose and regulator and B2 supplied gloves and a weight belt. The anchor was caught underneath the chain so I had to spend enough time on the bottom to lift our chain to relieve the tension on it, then lift the anchor slightly and get it out from under the big chain.

We then repositioned Easy Tiger in beautiful turquoise water only about 50 metres from the beach. Hope the anchor holds or we will have an entirely new experience. It seemed Ok all day but the wind sounds stronger at night, the beach seems closer and those on board don't sleep for anxiety.

After our diving experience we headed to shore in an attempt to get phone cover. I managed to make a couple of calls to loved ones, by standing on a mound of grass that had a 2 foot high pole in the middle. I found that by standing on the pole and facing due North without moving we were able to get a call to connect. It was a bit frustrating to go to all that trouble and  only talking to  message bank.

We did manage to celebrate the day, in the normal way, as we had our sailing buddies aboard Easy Tiger for secret Santa’s and lunch after which everyone went back to their boats for the very traditional nanna nap.

During the day phone cover would be received for a minute or do here and there. It was a mad dash to the phone to read a text. It is very nice to think that we have friends that think of us.

While we are in another paradise here, we are now starting to look for the right weather for the next step in our sailing adventure. At this stage it looks likely to be at least five more days here in Two Peoples Bay. Really that will be five more days just like Christmas.

Leanne brought a little bit of Christmas on to our boat.

Our gang from left; Brian (I'm sailing with idiots) Oldfield, Leanne (nearly awesome) Eva (no rubbing) Oldfield, Marie (Dinghy Diva) Glover  and Secret Agent Lowe.... Brian Lowe.