Sailing around the World ( Presently in Darwin , Australia )

A Lady
Stephen Hyde
Wed 1 Sep 2010 17:11
TUESDAY  31st   AUGUST   2010
 
A slow start today,
the weather was clear and hot.
We all walked to the Yacht Club to get our Customs Clearance as we are leaving Darwin for Bali tomorrow.
 
The crew for this leg are :-    Stephen Hyde    ( Skipper )
                                          Aileen Hyde     
                                          Neil Tritschler
 
We had to show our pass ports and have them stamped , all arranged for the World ARC yachts by WCC, This saved us all
a lot of time travelling to the custom house in town. queing up and generally being frustrated by red tape,
 
Once the customs guys were out of the way, we hired a taxi and off with us to do our shopping for the trip.
We drove to " Casuarina " shopping centre, and the place is huge, The chicken shop really took us totally in,
The variety of different chicken arrangments was great, Stuffed rolled chicken with cheese and nuts, stuffed legs of chicken,
Chicken snitzels, chicken meat balls, all sorts of chicken , hundreds of choices.
 
The main anchor tenant is Woolworths, and the range of goods on offer there was extrodinary so we slowly shopped ourselves to a standstill,
Oh , Aileen got her hair done, so Neill and Skipper did most of the shopping,  however, we wont get the credit for that...   such is life.
 
14.30 We had some oriental food for lunch, again the selection of restaurants in the Mall is awsome,
Darwin and its surrounding areas has a total population of approx 150,000 people, and yet it can support a venture like this,,
We got a taxi back to the boat and spent the next hour or so packing away all the stuff,
 
17.30hrs We went to the skippers briefing at the Yacht club,, Paul Tetlow and Susanne from Rally Control ( World ARC ) gave the talk,
basically outlining what to expect on route, the different options of avoiding all the Oil and Gas rigs, the reefs, etc.
what to expect when we arrive in Bali and so on,,
Neill and Skipper had to skip the end as the sailmaker was returning our geneo to the boat at 18.30  , of course the f****  was late.
however , we did eventually get the sail up and all ready for the trip. ( the stitching on the foot had just disintegrated from the sun.)
 
 
19.45 All three of us went to " Christo's Restaurant " for a feed of great fresh Fish and chips.  yum, yum,
 When finished, We met up with some of the other participants including the " Bubbly Bev " who informed us that she spent some of her childhood living in Bali, and still had friends there with a diving school and they would look out for us,,
Well done Bev.  we certainly look forward to that.
Bev is always great company, full of beans, and would light up the dullest of parties.
 
Later, we sat down in the boat and read all the emails from around the world,
We will get into these on some other blog,
 
Thats all for today.
 
Signed  :-    Stephen Hyde    ( Skipper )