Off Season Cruising

klee wyck said:

Part of what struck me while we were there in this region was surely all of the things that the signs were saying were going to try to kill us from the stingers to the salties to the snakes and spiders.

The people were sure hospitable, even if the wild things aren't!

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Heh. I lived in Canberra for a while and my kids all learned bush safety in school. They'd occasionally spot big venomous snakes in the school yard, and my partner and I regularly encountered them on bike paths.

When I revealed I was Canadian people asked me if I was afraid of Grizzlies. I had to admit that I'd never come close to one. Even if I had, I don't imagine them to be more terrifying than a salt water crocodile.

My wife's aunt lives in Canberra in an old Queensland home on stilts. We've been fortunate to visit a couple of times. I hope to get back some time.

sunchaser said:

Keep up the log Keith. It is fun to read about the marathon you guys are doing. Will you be back at Ganges for the late May holiday?

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Tom
Our return home is scheduled for May 9, though Air Canada has already changed the time of departure from LHR more than once, so our arrival home will only be May 9 if all the right stars align. Then I will need to spend some time getting Retreat out of cold storage and ready to cross the Gulf before the end of May, so where we will be for the long weekend is quite uncertain. I will try to let you know when things become certain. It was nice having you visit last year, so I will look forward to a repeat, whenever it becomes possible.

Jeff F said:

Heh. I lived in Canberra for a while and my kids all learned bush safety in school. They'd occasionally spot big venomous snakes in the school yard, and my partner and I regularly encountered them on bike paths.

When I revealed I was Canadian people asked me if I was afraid of Grizzlies. I had to admit that I'd never come close to one. Even if I had, I don't imagine them to be more terrifying than a salt water crocodile.

My wife's aunt lives in Canberra in an old Queensland home on stilts. We've been fortunate to visit a couple of times. I hope to get back some time.

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Touring Canada we stopped on seeing black bears several times, but not grizzlies.
A "Queenslander"raised house in Canberra is somewhat unusual. They are built high, for ventilation underneath for the Queensland heat, and be above floodwater. Canberra often goes below zero centigrade in winter(despite the political hot air from Parliament) and it gets windy. Hot in summer though, a Queenslander might be good then.

Jeff F said:

Heh. I lived in Canberra for a while and my kids all learned bush safety in school. They'd occasionally spot big venomous snakes in the school yard, and my partner and I regularly encountered them on bike paths.

When I revealed I was Canadian people asked me if I was afraid of Grizzlies. I had to admit that I'd never come close to one. Even if I had, I don't imagine them to be more terrifying than a salt water crocodile.

My wife's aunt lives in Canberra in an old Queensland home on stilts. We've been fortunate to visit a couple of times. I hope to get back some time.

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The Aussies here talk a good line about everything that wants us for dinner, but act as though it will only be the visitors.
Same in Canada of course. I have been close to Grizzlys twice, both times on the Central Coast. Elsewhere usually Blacks, not so dangerous.

In Cairns we saw some Queensland style houses. They look so unique that they would really stand out in other places.

Internet issues

Since leaving the Hawaiian Islands, our internet on the ship has been slow, unreliable, or non-existent much of the time. This morning I had a conversation with the General Manager about this issue. He stated that in this part of the world Starlink is non-existent, though we were reliant upon it for the first part of the trip.
We have the V-Sat receivers, in one or more of the 3 giant balls up on the roof. Those have been supplying the internet that we have, but it has been dropping out frequently, and not providing enough continuous connectivity to do much, such as uploading pictures. His overnight email suggested a solution will be along soon, as the problem has been identified, but a few hours later, I am still not able to get photos to load, and more important, I have been unable to get into my banking site.
One of our lecturers, after Hawaii, talked about the Starlink network of satellites as if it was up and running, but clearly, with only around 10% of the 42,000 touted actually launched, and many, if not most of those being the first generation that are without laser interconnection, that reality has not arrived in this part of the globe.

Local travels in the Winter. I pulled in to this guest slip yesterday. 40 ft sailboat in the slip in front of me reportedly sank a few days ago.

The last pictures I was able to post were taken a few months ago when we were in Australia.
Since leaving Australia we have visited the following ports:
Thursday Island
Komodo
Bali
Semarang
Ho Chi Minh City
Koh Samui
Singapore
Kuala Lumpur
Langkawi
Georgetown
Phuket
Columbo
Coachin
Goa
Mumbai
Jedda
Aqaba
Safaga
Haifa
Rhodes
Kusadasi
and Istanbul.
Throughout those extensive travels I have had internet most of the time, though slow and frustrating most of the time, and devoid of the facility to upload photos.
In Mumbai, we were docked adjacent to the Navy Yard and learned that the Indian Navy has a "Cone of Silence", under which no electronic signals could reach or leave the ship. Not only internet, but the ship's routine sat phone communications with head office were blocked. This post is partly to test the phot uploading, and will be followed with some more photos.

Security of the ship itself occurred while transiting the Gulf of Aden, where piracy is still a threat. We saw a wrap of razor wire at the second deck level and a number of "Gorillas" supplementing our crew. They were unobtrusive, but the one posted on the aft deck had a reporting plan posted at his station, including a photo of a typical pirate vessel. Those measures disappeared as quickly as they had appeared once we were through the "unsafe" waters.

Photos:

Komodo dragon

On the beach in Bali

Visiting yachts in Bali

Bunker fuel coming to our ship in Semarang