Britannia

I have been pretty relaxed about my blog posting since we arrived. I think I thought I had little to say but the photos I have taken tell another story, so I will let them…

I’ve always been a pay it forward kind of guy. I love helping my friends out and I love to build community. Every once in a while I ask for help, and every time it’s hard. I don’t fully understand why, but I do know that I am distinctly averse to receiving generosity. This past week has been a learning experience for me. It started, I think, when the lights started to flicker. We nursed our failing batteries all the way across the South Pacific but when we got to Bundaberg we just let it go. By the time we arrived in Brisbane they were near dead. Then a few nights before Christmas, when Ceildyh was over for dinner they died for good. We were eating and making merry and the whole boat went dark and silent. I switched us over to the starter battery and we finished the night with light (but no music). The next morning Evan called to let me know that he could help out with some old (but hopefully not as dead as our batteries). Then the sink fell in… ...

Krister summed it up pretty perfectly over margaritas the other night, “This place is like a joke, it’s like they said let’s take all the money the US spends on the military and spend it on public services.” Nail, meet hammer. Brisbane has free museums, free multi-city-block-long-swimming-lagoon-with imported sand, free public transportation in and around the city center, free bikes to ride, reliable water fountains, tons of live music, and a government mandate that building owners provide public facing art installations. This place is like a joke, and I love the punchline. ...

As we made our way across the Pacific we were perpetually asking “can we spend a little more time here?” After ~10 years of putting off today’s desires in favor of tomorrow’s dream it was finally time to say “Yes, why not!” The down side to this was that we knew that every extra day we spent in today’s paradise would be borrowed from tomorrow’s. You can only defer for so long before the cyclone threat starts making your choices for you. ...

Today we helped cast off the bow lines of Britannia, Amanda and Krister’s Canadian Seacraft 36. They have begun their two year trip around the Pacific. On November 22 I wrote this, “Last night we had a great time laughing and comparing notes with Amanda and Krister from s/v Britannia. We’re making it a habit of meeting and befriending people that are about to sail to Mexico though. I’ll have to spend some time thinking about friendship among people on the move.” Little did I know then how much fun we were getting into. We snuck our friends though our forward companionway many many times after the kids were all snug in their berths for the night. We’ve shared margaritas, bottles of wine, cups of coffee and lots of long talks, laughter, and smiles so big that our cheeks hurt. ...

Krister & Amanda came over for coffee this morning and we decided to help each other with a bunch of boat chores in order to (hopefully) save some time for a sail in the afternoon. Krister hoisted me up the mast to retrieve the Christmas lights, and then headed back to Britannia while I put the kids down for nap. I followed him about 30 minutes later and helped figure some stuff out with the storm anchor, and life raft. After putting the headsail on I ran back to Convivia, helped Vick with the last of the stowing and preparing, and headed over to the pump out. ...