THURSDAY 26TH JANUARY, 2006

Happy Australia Day!

Arrived for breakfast, and as per usual when we enter the Officers Mess where we dine, we read the daily menu that is posted on the wall. Would you believe it, “Australian Pepper Steak” for lunch! Can’t wait to see what this tastes like, and don’t think it will be like anything we get in Oz.

I shouldn’t be critical of the chef; his menus are varied and quite palatable. He mixes things up a bit, but boiled rice and boiled potatoes are very regular fillers. It must be difficult balancing the needs of a hard working crew and a few lazy passengers, and all the while working with what was ordered many months before by a different chef. Anyway, he is a little man, about 1.5m tall, and has a huge smile and a good laugh. I make it my duty to personally thank him for the “best lunch (breakfast/dinner) I have had today” as soon as I finish my meal, and he gets a chuckle every time. It really doesn’t matter what he cooks for us, we know he has done his best and we will certainly not starve.

Didn’t do much during the morning, we were too excited waiting for our lunch!

Well as I said earlier, I didn’t think The “Aussie Pepper steak” would be like anything we had experienced in Oz, and I was right. It was Oz in name only, and it was really stir fried beef strips with lots of pepper and stir fried veggies. It was pretty good though, and full marks go to the chef and steward for trying to make Australia Day special for us.

The afternoon was spent reading, and then gigging around the deck during our afternoon walk. We watched the crew going about their various jobs, but were fascinated by one gang of about 5 men who were set on doing some alteration to the front of the jib on one of the 320 tonne cranes. They had hooked a small metal box, about 1.2m square and 600mm high, to the smaller forward crane, and the Deck Fitter, Manuel, was strapping himself in to it so as not to fall out of the box when it was lifted (well only fall until the rope he was using took up slack!). When he was happy with his safety arrangements, he was lifted up to the level of the other crane jib, and he proceeded to use his oxy/acetylene cutting torch to remove the steel frame that provided protection to the wire lifting rope of the crane. Apparently it had been bent at some stage and it was a good idea to remove it. Just where this logic came from is hard to work out, as whilst slightly bent, it still served its purpose. Oh well, at least it provided a job for a handful of crew, and some entertainment for us.

This morning, the Captain had pointed out that one of our sister ships; the “Rickmers Seoul” was anchored about 500 meters away from us. Apparently this vessel was on its second visit to Shanghai this rotation, and only had a quick stop to unload some things before heading off again. Just like us though, it had to wait its turn for the Pilot, and who would know when that would be! Looking across the ocean at it was like looking into a mirror. As both ships are identical, we could see just what our own ship would look like if we were viewing it at sea.

We raised the anchor at 6pm, and headed off towards the Pilot Station. This is not really a station as such, just a point beyond the mouth of the Yangtze River where we would pick up our river pilot. It was a 2 hour sail from our anchorage to this point. Judy and I went to the bridge after dinner and seated ourselves on the 2 chairs situated at the top of the access stairway on the Port Side. It was so dark up there we wondered how they could see to navigate, but it soon became obvious that by being completely dark, that is except for the glow of the instruments, your eyes adjusted quite quickly to the darkness. The only lights on the bridge were behind a black curtained off area where the charts were spread out on a table. This was completely obscured from the rest of the bridge for obvious reasons. Well it wasn’t long before we realized that we were not where we were supposed to be. A noise behind us enlightened us to the fact that the Pilot was on board and was now entering the bridge. As soon as he addressed the Captain, we snuck away like two little kids caught doing something wrong.

We spent the rest of the evening watching a movie in our cabin, and when it was finished, we ventured up to the outside area of “E Deck” to take in the sights of the river banks. It was absolutely freezing, and very foggy. We lasted about 30 minutes out on deck, and then seated ourselves behind the Perspex windows of the function room also on “E Deck”. We watched for another 30 odd minutes, but the fog got too thick to see much so off to bed for us.


FRIADY 27TH JANUARY 2006

Well our day started early. We woke, at about 12.15am, to the thump of the tug boats pushing against the side of our ship, and into our berth in Shanghai. Too tired to venture out, we both rolled over and went straight back to sleep. NOT FOR LONG! 1.20am, and the phone in our cabin brought us back to the land of the living with a start. It was Ferdinand, the 3rd Officer, requesting our presence down on “A Deck” in the Conference Room ASAP. Apparently the Chinese Immigration Officer had to look at us and our passports now! Quickly up and dressed, we headed down for our command performance. It took all of a minute for him to see it was actually us and that we matched the photograph in our passport, sign the immigration arrival form, and then be dismissed to go. We were back in bed by 1.30am and sound asleep by 1.31am.

Whilst having breakfast, we had agreed to meet the other 2 passengers at the head of the gang plank at 9.00am so as to share a taxi into Shanghai. Off we went on our adventure, Judy and I taking a few things with us as we had decided to stay in Shanghai city for the night. An uneventful taxi ride ensued, well that is if you can call any journey by road in china un-eventful, and we arrived at the corner of “The Bund and Nanjing Rd” in Shanghai City. We all went our separate ways here, with Don off chasing an internet café, book shops and DVD shops. Cam was just off to see everything, and if true to form, photograph all and sundry.

Judy and I headed straight into the Peace Hotel, were we had stayed once before. We knew we would be able to get a map and some of the latest tourism news here. Armed with this, we headed off up Nanjing Road for a look at what, if any changes had occurred in the last 2 years since we last visited. We were shocked! Where once there were quaint shops and street stalls, Gucci, Louis Vitton and Chanel had taken over. The whole scene had changed from one that was typical of most Chinese cities, to one more akin to the “Top end of Collins St” for those of you attune with Melbourne. What a shame, western culture is spoiling (our opinion only) the true roots of these other fine cultures. Oh well, in the name of progress they say!

We wandered for an hour or two, and then decided to travel under the Huang Pu River in the newly constructed scenic carriages. Typical Chinese attempt at western ideas, they just don’t get some things right. It would have been alright in Disneyland or Dream world, but bright flashing strobe lights depicting lava flows and meteor showers just don’t seem to fit with a trip under this almighty river. Enough knocking it, it was a bit of a laugh really. We had purchased a combined ticket that included the tunnel trip, an aquarium and fishing exhibition, a music and sound experience, and an exhibition depicting Chinese sexual practices and history over many hundreds of years. Knowing how conservative the Chinese are, this expo was completely out of the norm from what we had come to expect. We just had to go.

Well I told you about the tunnel trip, and all I can add to that is that the carriages and the technology that drove them through the tunnel were very interesting. The Aquarium was drab and generally uninteresting; with only about 10 tanks of various live fish, and a few static fishing boat and net displays. I guess if you consider that this was meant more as an educational theme, particularly the fishing part of it, it wasn’t all that bad. Judy didn’t mind it, but I thought a bit more color and artistic flair could have been used in setting it up. The music and sound expo consisted of a room about 10 meters long and 4 meters wide containing a great big long table with chairs on either side. On the table top were head phones at each seating position. As the lady operating the expo spoke no English, we just played follow the leader, sat down and put the head phones on, and waited. Low and behold, the room plunged into complete darkness! Then it started, the sound of foot steps going from one side of our head to another. This was followed by what we assumed was someone filling a teacup with tea. Then the sound of crockery etc shaking and breaking, then it was all over. We can only assume this is what we are to expect if we ever encounter an earthquake in a Chinese house. Crap!

The sex expo was probably a bit better than we had imagined, especially when comparing to what we had just witnessed at the other 3 places. The Chinese as we well know have been around a long time, so it stands to reason that they just may know a little bit about procreation of the species. Well they sure liked to keep records of their comings and goings through the years, and the porcelain vases, bowls, figurines, phallic symbols, and paintings sure put a new slant on a healthy sex life. I guess the act and the process of the act hasn’t changed since Adam tried the fruit thing on Eve, but this Chinese mob had a certain slant on things (for want of a better word!) that seems to touch on taboos in this day and age. This is probably not true for all of our races and ethnic and religious creeds, but certainly for the majority of the western world. Just how do you keep up with so many women so many different ways, and it certainly proves that the Chinese had Viagra or something similar long before we did. All in all this expo was enlightening to say the least. It was in no way crude or rude when taken in the context it was meant to be portrayed to the viewing public, and in fact was quite entertaining.

We followed the expos with another trip under the river in the scenic carriages, and returned to the Bund and Nanjing Road. We walked back up through the crowd, 1 million people walk in Nanjing road every day, and booked into a nice hotel right near all the action. After a bite of lunch and a coffee, we got the door man to get us a taxi to take us to one of the “Carrefour” shopping centers that are located throughout the city. We had shopped in a Carrefour in many other countries so we knew we could get almost anything we wanted in the one shop. Added to this, if you want to see how the general folk of an area shop, these are the places to go. As we well knew, this shopping expedition would be no exception, and we expected and got more than what we bargained for. We did the push through crowd thingy and got lots of bits and pieces to make life onboard easier. We got cereal for when we sleep in or don’t want to go down to the mess for breakfast. We got long-johns to help us survive the near freezing temperatures we were going to experience in parts of China, Korea and Japan. We got DVD’s to copy some of the photographs that Cam had taken and were worth us keeping. We got too many bags of chocolates and lollies to help us through the late nights waiting for the Pilots to board or for the ship to berth. But best of all, we got a bonus fireworks display as we were waiting in a huge queue at the taxi rank. It was unreal, and right beside us. Sparks and burning paper fell at our feet we were so close. One fellow was complaining to the security from the shopping centre as it appeared he was hit by some of the fireworks. We shouldn’t have, but we laughed and labeled him a sook for not “sucking it up” and enjoying the spectacular display that was being put on for all and sundry. Bloody wimp, gee it wouldn’t burn for long, and he did have another eye! Crackers, rockets and mortars, we got the lot. Loud and colorful, and we reckon, just for us. How did they know these two special Aussies were going to be at this shopping centre at this time? All too early, it was our turn for the taxi, and we loaded up the back seat and headed back to our hotel.

We got back to the hotel, unloaded our bits and pieces, and then hit Nanjing Road again. Two years ago there were pedestrian overpasses linking all 4 corners of an intersection and the shops that stood on same said corners. Now there is an underpass with escalators linking the same corners, and on one corner now begins a huge people’s park. When it happens in China, it happens fast!

We walked and window shopped, and walked and people shopped. There were so many people out and about, shopping, and enjoying the night before Chinese New Year. Everybody was stocking up on food and a gift for their family, as this is just about the biggest day of the year for them. Crowded would not do justice to Nanjing Road tonight, it was a sight to behold.

Back to the hotel for the best Chinese meal you could want for. Isn’t it funny how well the Chinese cook Chinese food? You would think they are naturals! The food was so scrumptious and plentiful, it was a shame to leave so much on the table, but that is what we had to do. Then the bar called, and we partook of a couple of Irish Coffees and a Cognac or two, while we listened to a guy and girl making music for our enjoyment. Well it had to be for us, there was no one else there!

Booze in, bed called.


SATURDAY 28TH JANUARY 2006

A new day dawned in Shanghai, and after a huge American breakfast, we hit the streets. Walked around Shanghai for a while just looking at whatever we came across. I wanted to buy a few T-Shirts to wear on the ship. It is a bit grubby out on deck, the soot from the engine seems to rain down on, and stick to everything. So I thought a few cheap shirts would do the trick as I could throw them out when they got grease or soot stains. Every other time we have been in Shanghai (6 times) we could just about trip over the souvenir shop and T-shirt shop vendors. Not now, we searched and searched all to no avail. Finally found a small stall on the 4th floor of a building that had 3 styles of T-shirt and a few souvenirs. Had to pay 65yuan each for 2 shirts and that is about $11 Australian each. Normally I would have paid about 5-6 Yuan ($1) for each shirt, my how things change. Maybe next time here I will find the right vendors in some obscure back street.

We returned to the hotel and checked out about 1pm. Got a taxi from the front door, and the doorman showed the driver the address of the ship and explained it to him AOK. Well not quite! One and a half hours later, every possible port in Shanghai including the passenger ferry terminal which is probably 10k past where we wanted to go, and we finally got back to our ship. It was comical really, he couldn’t speak English and we couldn’t speak Chinese, but he knew we were getting the S***S when every time he stopped at a port gate I shoved the note in his face (which was written in Chinese for us by the port agent!) and said NO! Any way we finally arrived at a gate and our man turned off the meter and said he was sorry. While this was happening Judy had got out of the taxi and was showing the note to a guard in the gate house. He came over to the taxi and told the driver to turn around and go back a bit further to another gate. In the ensuing confusion, the security guy stopped our taxi as it was about to drive away and hopped in the front seat, and redirected our man into the gate we were at. I don’t know who was more confused at this stage, our driver, us or the new bloke. Well he was spot on, and we drove about a kilometer along the wharf, dodging cranes and trucks all along the way, and there it was, HOME, the Rickmers Jakarta! When I had last looked at the taxi meter, some 20 minutes ago, it read 84yuan, god knows what it would have been up too by now as both he and I knew he had turned it off at the gate anyway. A rough guess would put the meter fare at 100-120 Yuan, but no way was he getting this from Judy. She gave him 50yuan and got out, leaving a quite perplexed driver looking at the note in his hand, a receipt he had mysteriously produced from the machine that was also obviously for much more than 50 Yuan, and 2 disappearing Aussies! So much for Oz v China relations. As a guide, when we went in to Shanghai the day before, it had cost us 40 Yuan, and took about 15 to 20 minutes. We were the winners really, as we got a grand tour of parts of Shanghai we would never have seen if it wasn’t for the incompetence of our taxi driver.

The next big bonus for today was arriving back at our ship to see the Rickmers Seoul, the sister ship that I mentioned was anchored near us before we came in to berth, was now berthed right astern of our own vessel. What a sight to see so close, just a mirror image of ourselves. It had apparently arrived after we left for our city sojourn yesterday, and was now all but finished loading. I took a few photographs and a short video of the Seoul as a reminder for when we get home.

As it was Chinese New Year tonight, we expected to see a massive amount of fireworks light up the sky on both sides of the river near our ship. Just before dark, about 5.30pm, they started. Crackers then sky rockets and mortars just kept going off continually every where we looked. It was a sight to see for sure. At about 11.45pm, the Seoul was caressed by a pair of tug boats, and it was her turn to depart the berth. We stood on E Deck, all be it just 1°C outside, and watched the majestic movements of the 2 tugs turn the Seoul around mid stream and send her on her way to the river mouth. What made it more enjoyable, almost at midnight the sky erupted with fireworks exploding everywhere. Some close and others as far away as the eye could see. A sight neither of us will probably ever see again, but one we will never forget.

12.30am saw us sound asleep; it had been a great day.


SUNDAY 29TH JANUARY 2006

We spent the morning outside, on E-Deck. It was great to watch the action ashore, as there were stevedores unloading our ship and loading the newly arrived ship behind us. They were all over the wharf, and all over both vessels. I counted 7 mobile cranes loading pipes and boxes on to trailers being towed by small aircraft tug style tractors. These in turn delivered the goods to the base of one of the 5 large wharf cranes that traversed the rails adjacent to each ship. Such organized chaos, and in the long run they appeared to know what they were doing. I spoke to the Captain later, and he informed me that the Shanghai stevedores are amongst the, if not the best we will come across. I reckon that is a pretty good rap for them.

We departed about 12.15pm. Just like the Seoul we had the two tugs turn us around mid stream, and we also were on our way. Judy and I spent an hour or so watching the goings on along the river as we sailed downstream. I decided to go to the bridge and observe from there. The Pilot was going from side to side and kept referring to a small, what I assumed was a GPS or similar thing he had in his hand. Every so often he would come over to the table near me where he had his laptop computer set up, and an open rolodex type file. I assumed he was getting co-ordinates from each and loading them in to what ever he was carrying. It was good to watch, so much activity inside our bridge and so much activity outside all around us on the river. The Captain came over to me quite often and pointed out various things of interest. Gee he makes the whole experience so much more pleasurable, what with his learned snippets of info, and his wealth of knowledge of all other things happening on and around his ship.

We traveled until 4.30pm with the pilot aboard. He departed via small boat to a much larger vessel stationed outside amongst the anchorages; obviously this is where the pilots wait for their return rides. Once the pilot had gone, we upped speed and headed for Dalian via the Yellow Sea. We expected to sail for 28 hours from Shanghai to Dalian, so it was book, sudoku and movie time in the Kimber cabin. We did spend a while after dinner on the bridge with Eduardo, the Chief Officer and the Captain. It was pitch black on a cloudy night, so there was very little to see outside. They did, as usual, show us all the operating charts marked with our present position and our destination. It is really rewarding to be able to spend time with these people while they stand in control of this massive ship. They make it seem such an enjoyable work place, and they certainly seem to welcome all of our questions. It seems they like the opportunity to pass on some maritime knowledge to us, and as I said, we love it as well.

We were to be sailing all night, with an expected arrival at the anchorage at Dalian planned for 8.30pm tomorrow, so we headed off to bed. Little did we know that we would have Force 7 winds, and about 3 meters of swell. You guessed it, bumps and rolls again. Didn’t really worry us though, we slept on. This relaxing stuff makes you pretty tired. Actually Judy slept all right, and I had to deal with a double dose of the chefs cooked prawns. At dinner, Judy decided she didn’t like her prawns and dumped them on my plate. They had been cooked in the oven with butter, garlic, paprika, salt and pepper. Hot, spicy and very repetitive. They stayed down, but at times I thought they might surface for another day.


MONDAY 30TH JANUARY 2006

We awoke to the same roll we had during the night, but you could tell by looking outside that it might be a bit on the cold side. We were slack again and had breakfast in our cabin, the bowls and cereal we had purchased in Shanghai had proved to be a winner already.

We just read until lunch, then after eating headed to the Bridge again. It was time for an update on our ETA at Dalian, and nothing had changed, right on schedule at this stage. The wind was still force 7, and the swell was hitting us head on, so nothing looked like changing for a while. The Captain told me that we would have a course change a little later on, and then the swell would be on the Starboard side, as well as the wind. He suggested that my afternoon walk would be more comfortable on the Port side. He added that the outside temperature was about -2ºC, and the wind added to our forward speed meant I would be facing a 45 knot head wind at times on the deck. I must be mad, but that made it more of a challenge and off I went for 10 laps. Cold like you wouldn’t believe, and almost impossible to walk straight when a swell hit and the ship rolled.

We lazed around for the rest of the arvo, and headed down for dinner at 6pm. As soon as we ate, we once again headed to the Bridge to get the latest. As if right on queue, we reached our anchor point. We stayed on the Bridge for the whole process, and it isn’t as simple as you would expect. We dropped 6 shackles of anchor chain into the water, and this took about 30 minutes. With a ship now weighing around 30,000 tonnes, you don’t just stop. We had to almost come to a complete stop and then turn into the tide before slowly lowering the anchor and the first shackle of chain. This is slowly followed by another shackle and then another etc. to put it into perspective, the anchor weighs 6 tonnes. A shackle consists of 120 links of chain (well it does on this vessel, but varies on others), and is 27.5 meters long. Each link weighs 70 kgs. So do the math’s, and you should get 6x120x70=50400 kg or 50.4 tonne of chain, plus 6 tonne of anchor, and you will see we have put 56.4 tonne of anchor in the water to hold us tonight. A snippet for you to ponder and this will probably go against what you have always believed. It is not really the anchor that holds the ship; it is the chain laying on the sea floor that does most of the holding. You can also see that with such massive weight, you just can’t let it go over the side; the velocity gathered dropping to the bottom would be incredible. Just how would you stop the chain from ripping right out of the ship if this happened? Not possible really. It was hoped we could go straight into berth when we arrived, but the port authority said to anchor then make contact again. The Captain did this only to be told, you will stay at anchor tonight and may be able to proceed to your berth around noon tomorrow. Not really a concern for us, we would see more if we berthed during the day than at night. Just like Shanghai, the fireworks are still going off. We were entertained for ages with sky rockets and mortars going off all along the skyline of the bay we were in. It was our belief that the people of Dalian knew the Jakarta had arrived, and they were putting a show on for two special passengers. Believe that and you will believe anything!

Off to bed pretty early and the book won about 5 minutes of my lazy time before I couldn’t stay awake any more. At least I beat Judy, her book didn’t even get opened, and she was straight off to see Noddy!


TUESDAY 31ST JANUARY 2006

Well the day started with a sneak view of the sun, and a dead flat sea. We could see all of the shore line of the City of Dalian. Didn’t last long though, the fog rolled in and most of the view was lost. After breakfast, we had a stroll up on E deck, and this lasted about 2 minutes. Soooooo cold, you just couldn’t imagine how biting it was. We went to the Bridge next, and by now the fog had begun to lift a bit. The outside air temperature by the external thermometer on the Bridge Wing was -4.5ºC. I don’t think Ferdinand really liked me asking for the temperature, as it was him who was sent outside to get it by the Captain. I did ask the Captain what process the pilot had used to get us out of Shanghai on Sunday, and by that I meant could he explain the gadgetry the pilot was using at the time. Simple the Captain said, the pilot had a computer with the latest river charts, and they were much more accurate than the English charts we carried on board. I asked specifically about the thing that looked like a mobile phone, and he laughed. It was a mobile phone, and the pilot had spent the entire time on board text messaging in English to somebody! I guess that explained the rolodex too.

Latest news had us going in to berth around noon still. Around 11am, the pilot arrived on a tug boat, and we then knew we would not be far away from weighing anchor. We rugged up and went to E deck to watch the sights as we entered the port. I have never experienced cold so biting. With the forward movement of the ship, the wind chill was indescribable without the use of the strongest profanities. Let’s just say we could not stay in the wind for more than a minute as it was simply unbearable. We stood in the E deck Bar/Function room, and watched our arrival through the Perspex windows. We only ventured out to take a photo, or to get a clearer look at the surrounding shore line. It was awesome, huge ship building yards that were making all sorts of craft. We saw large freighters, small fishing boats, oil rig drilling platforms, and even an aircraft carrier nearing completion. There was a strong contingent of the Chinese Navy, and that comprised all sorts of vessels, of all shapes and sizes. The fishing fleet must have comprised 200 or more craft, and again, of all shapes and sizes. There were huge passenger ferries dockside, and also heading out to sea. Just terrific viewing all around us. One thing of note, as we berthed Cam, our fellow passenger, pointed out that parts of the harbor were FROZEN, no wonder we were so bloody cold! To add to this, as we caressed the dock, I noticed that some rail trucks full of rolls of steel sheeting were covered in snow. Just how cold will it be on shore today?

We were told at lunch that we would be able to go ashore as soon as immigration returned our passports, and that we would have to be back on board by midnight. We waited until around 1.30pm until we were given our documents, and then we had to move really fast so as to get a lift to the port gate by the agent’s driver. We rugged up big time, even as far as putting on the long johns we had got in Shanghai. We both had 2 pr of socks on, 2 shirts, a big thick coat, gloves, scarf and a beanie. Now with all that and the long johns we should survive. Only just I tell you! Worst part though was when we went into a heated underground shopping market (absolutely huge, at least 750 meters square) and all of the clothes made it unbearable. There was no hint that it was so big until you actually got down into it. On the surface it was just normal buildings and no give- away to what was below. We visited a couple of squares (actually circles as they had roundabouts in the middles) that we were told were places of interest. Our informant was spot on, and it was interesting to see the different buildings surrounding them. They had been influenced by the English, Americans, Japanese and Russians, and contained a mixture of many styles of architecture. We dined in a small open restaurant in a food hall. The meal was great, and the only trouble we had was the ordering. The menu was in Chinese writing, and nobody on the staff spoke English. With the help of a bit of finger pointing to various tables, and a bit of broken English from a phrase book a lady produced, we got an order through. Lots of fun was had by not just us, but the 6 staff members trying to help in taking our order as well.

We walked back through the squares, and by now they had been light up for the night. As it was still the Chinese New Year holiday, almost every building was colorfully lit in some way, and in a few cases this ran to computer directed lighting displays for about 20 stories of one side of the buildings. The rest of the streets and the centre area of the squares were just covered in lights and Chinese lanterns. It was oh so colorful. We got a taxi to go back to the ship around 9pm, and our driver took us via the scenic route again! Not to bad this time though, and he did show us the most amazing lighting displays imaginable in some of the other streets of the city. The New Year means so much to these people, and they certainly know how to put on a display to celebrate it.

We arrived back at the port only to find that the gate we had come out of was in total darkness. The man at the larger lit gate wasn’t having a bar of us going in this way, so our taxi driver headed off to find another gate with a more helpful guard. Success, and only a hundred or so meters further away for us to walk. Having said this, the walk was a bit more than a kilometer, and we were freezing by now. It was made all the better by, wait for it, another fireworks display. Yes and this one was on a ship just off the edge of the pier we were walking on. I tell you, they must know Judy and I are here.

After a passport check by the army bloke on the pier at the foot of the gang plank, we headed for the warm and a great big hot coffee. I went to the Bridge after I had got rid of the extra layers of clothes, but I had it too myself. I guess that means no go tonight; it will probably be at high tide, around 11am tomorrow, before we depart.

When I got back, Judy was heading to bed, and I was given instructions to get this blogger up to date before I thought about retiring for the day. Well it’s done now, and I’m off to bed too!