Shipping

Well, it's official – kind of.    Our South Pacific adventures may actually come to an end in the next few months.  We have a contract to ship Oso back to the Seattle area from Brisbane, "loading between August 20 – 30".    However, arranging the shipping of yachts appears to be more of an art, than a science.

 

An old lumber buyer once told me that when they rounded up all the horse thieves in the old west, they all went into the lumber business.    From what I can tell, some of them escaped and became yacht shipping agents.    The boating world is full of stories of promised shipping dates, broken promises, boats shipped 6 months late, and worse.    But, our options are few and we are rolling the dice.    Like every gambler on the way to Vegas, we are going to win.

 

Our plan is to continue exploring here on the northern part of Australia's east coast, including the Great Barrier Reef,  until late July.   We will then start back on the 1200 nm return trip to Brisbane.    With any luck, all will go according to plan and we will load Oso for her month long "cruise" to Seattle on the deck of a freighter.    Once she is on her way, we intend to travel for a few weeks and then meet her in Seattle sometime in late September.  Our fall plans include trips back to Minnesota and North Carolina to see family before getting settled in Park City. 

 

If the shipping does not occur as planned, we will park Oso in Brisbane and wait for 'our ship to come in'.    If the delay is likely to be extended, we will return to the US and I will go back to Australia when loading occurs.

 

It ain't over 'til it's over.

 

Eric

Townsville Turtle Hospital by Bear

        Did you know that there is such thing as a turtle hospital? There is one in Townsville, Australia, which is connected to an aquarium. When we visited, there were five sick turtles.

            

        The reason turtles get sick is because they accidentally eat trash, such as plastic bags and fishing equipment. The trash compacts their guts and they can’t poop or let out gas. After that, all the gas gets stuck inside them and they float. When they float, they can’t dive to eat or get cleaned. So then they die of starvation or of pests like barnacles.

            

       Like I said earlier, they had five turtles: two were floating, one used to be starving to death, and two used to be floating and are over it. They are keeping them be sure they are okay. One of the floating turtles was huge, jumbo mumbo!

  

There are many types of turtles but they only had green turtles at the hospital. Some other turtles are: Leather Back, Hawks Bill, and Flat Back. The Leather Back is the biggest, and the Flat Back is the smallest.

           

         I thought it was really amazing that turtles can be saved! If you ever are in Townsville go and see it. I thought it was really worthwhile.

Plane Time by Bear

Have you ever been in a bi-plane? Dad and I went today. It was amazing! It was a bi-plane on floats called The Red Baron, like the Red Baron (the flying legend)!

The plane was a Grumann G-164 Agcat with a Pratt and Whitney 450 HP engine. It was built in America in 1964 then it was imported to Australia in 1970.  In Australia, it was converted into a sea-plane, next to a two passenger aircraft! After that, it was renamed a Grumann Sea-cat and it was even in a movie in 1996!

          When we took off you could feel wind pounding your face soooooo hard it almost hurt! We couldn’t hear a thing up there so we wore head-sets and radios to talk and to hear each other. From up there, you could see for miles and kilometers and miles and kilometers! The pilot did a maneuver called a wing over, just for fun. It is when you go sideways and pivot on your wing. It is a little breath-taking the first time, but you get used to it and have fun with it!

          It was vvvvveeeeerrrrryyyyy fun! I would highly recommend it. The flights are based from Townsville which is where we are now.