Safe in Southport

I just wanted to let you know we left Dockside at 03:00 this morning, after enjoying two and a half weeks of Brisbane hospitality, sight-seeing, shopping, relaxation.....and even getting in some re-provisioning and small repairs too.

As we slipped quietly down the river I was reciting passages of one of the kid's books to myself. It is called the Night Pirates, by Peter Harris and illustrated by Deborah Allwright...

"Down, down, down the dark, dark street they came. Up, up, up the dark, dark house they climbed. Stealthy as shadows, quiet as mice. Only the moon was watching when they arrived. Only the moon was watching when they left. Only the moon & one little boy."

I'm not convinced anyone was watching, and it was overcast so I've got no idea if the moon was up or not, but it did feel very stealthy navigating down the river in the middle of the night...very nice not to worry about the City Cats zig-zagging across our path too!

We made it safely down to Southport by lunch-time today, and will hang out here until the wind turns to the east on Sunday (if the forecast is to be believed). I'll pop up a few details of our trip down through the channels soon. I'm so tired now I don't think I'll make sense.

Merry Christmas...

I was just sorting through photos this afternoon, and thinking about my favourite stops on this trip. I thought I'd pop a few up here while I was at it...in no particular order. Today's shot, Lady Musgrave Island...sigh! Definitely near the very top of the favourite stops list. :-)

Christmas Click n' Sniff

Thought I'd pop up a wee snap of our beautiful Lucey Blue Christmas tree. We have the full Christmas thing going on here...tree, decorations, lights, candles etc, and I love it. I've even been ramping up the iPod Christmas playlist most evenings. Nothing like a bit of Bing, Diana Krall, Michael Bublé and Kylie to add a festive touch to our evenings.

Wish it was a click n' sniff pic...because those candles have a heavenly peppermint scent that really make the whole boat smell, well....Christmassy! You'll have to use your imagination instead. What you can't see in the picture is all the blue tack holding the Christmas tree in place. It is only a light, wooden frame, and when the City Cats go racing past here they create considerable wake which results in us lurching about like one of those automated bull rides you see in the US. The whole tree took a dive off the table about 10 minutes after I'd put it together last week, but thankfully nothing broke...so now it is anchored in place with about half a pack of blue tack. Problem solved!

This next pic is NOT a click n' sniff candidate...

Our budding Palaeontologists really enjoyed inspecting this Fish Fossil, an awesome piece of riverside art by Christopher Trotter. They were intrigued about what parts had been used to make him. You may be pleased to know he looks most un-Mackerel-like, so we had no desire to eat him.

Still watching the weather here, and speculating about taking the channel route down to the Gold Coast some time this week. Hope that comes off...it is supposed to be a very nice trip.

Wibbly Wobbly LIghts

Extra points if you can tell where this wibbly wobbly pic was taken! Actually, take that back, I probably had the GPS on the camera on at the time, so it's most likely buried in the metadata somewhere anyway! It was taken from Lucey Blue, while anchored in The Pond, Mooloolaba. I like wibbly lights.

I also like itty bitty coloured dots...so do the kids...

This pic taken in Yayoi Kusama's The obliteration room 2002, one of the children's exhibits at the Gallery of Modern Art (GOMA) here in Brissy. Fun for the whole family...I enjoyed making little patterns with my dots.

Some Brissy curb-side art...is anyone else having Addams Family flashbacks? I was waiting for it to start scuttling towards me!

Have a great weekend.

A Christmas Prep Pitstop

I'm afraid our poor old blog has been passed over in the rush to prepare for Christmas on Lucey Blue, but I thought I should just pop on here and let you know we are still alive and well!

After a quick trip down the Sandy Straits (where I was completely mauled by Sandflies one morning) and a few lovely, quiet, sandfly-free days in Tin Can Bay (above) we travelled to Mooloolaba, and thence to Brissy, where we are currently berthed at the Dockside Marina.

Dockside is an excellent place to be based while in Brisbane. It is a quick ferry ride into the heart of Brisbane, where we have finished all of our Christmas shopping, seen a movie, watched the big Christmas Tree being lit, visited with friends and family, and even managed to acquire a lovely shot of the kids with Santa. I have taken Eric for a long walk every morning (he tends to wake at o'dark thirty-ish). We go along the cliffs walk to Southbank (along with every other man, woman, child, dog and bike in Brisbane it would seem), then we cross the Goodwill Bridge into the Botanic Gardens and walk to the Eagle Street Pier, catch a quick ferry ride across to Holman Street and finish up by walking back under the Storey Bridge to Dockside. Some mornings we swap bridges and walk up to the Victoria Bridge and then walk back down the Queen Street Mall to Eagle Street. I love being in the city, and we have loved our time in Brisbane so much that we are currently umming and ahhhing about when to leave. We still think we'll make it to Sydney before Christmas, weather permitting.

Other jobs happily accomplished in Brisbane include the repair of our screecher. As we were screeching down Moreton Bay towards the Brisbane River last Tuesday morning our new (second-hand) sail suddenly fell from the mast and plonked unceremoniously into the Bay. The webbing at the head of the sail had given way. Nick called Doyle Sails, Queensland as we entered the river and they offered to come by the marina and pick up the sail as soon as we'd docked. They also offered to drop me at the airport, where I needed to pick up a rental car! They fixed the sail and dropped it back to us at the marina in less than a week. I was surprised and delighted, to say the least. We can highly recommend Doyle Sails, Queensland for their excellent and friendly service!

Anyhoo...that's us in a nutshell! I have more pics of this and that to download, but they'll have to wait for another night.