Beez Neez now Chy Whella - NTL Jobs and Plan

NTL Jobs and Plan

Beez Neez now Chy Whella

Big Bear and Pepe Millard

Sat 26 Mar 2016 23:57

Jobs and Planning

Very pleased to see one of our working girl friends moving off her dock, not so sure about the black smoke.

A brisk start to the week. Can you come and advise on the sail. No problem. Not sure how I ended up doing it, but I did help. Yes, dear......... OK, together we checked the sacrificial strip on the genoa and stuck a few bits of special tape on a few ‘thin bits’, then I sewed a couple of small panels on bits that looked a little rubbed............ As the sewing machine had had a little canter around the deck in the sunshine, well, might as well keep going. Three new panels in the back of the conservatory that had gone all opaque. The waterproofing paint must have run a bit in the very first, serious rain test, back in Opua, the plastic we replaced had not only gone ‘not see through’ but was really sticky. General cleaning and a great big stew later and here I am writing another blog. Time is going way too fast.

My beautiful assistant models our new tee shirts. White, with Beez on the back, black and grey with just our logo and job title on the front. We had confirmation this week that Beez Neez is one of twenty seven boats signed up for the rally going through Indonesia, leaving from Cairns and checking out of Australia from Thursday Island at the beginning of July. We have never been part of a rally, but we will certainly look smart at the first meeting at the end of June.

For some strange reason, a job that has always been somewhere in the dark recesses, has been covering our ‘security’ door with mossie netting. Bear had our stainless steel grid made in Guatemala. The plan was / is to put it in place and lock ourselves in if, by some rare (hopefully) chance, we happen to park or sail or generally feel we are in a dodgy area. Fresh air and no bugs with a substantial deterrent to unwanted visitors........ Today we sat each side of the table, listened to music, chatted and sewed, job done.

This week has been a short week for us as tonight we are off on the train to Sydney, fly to Adelaide, Ghan train to Alice Springs and a tour of Uluru. We couldn’t leave Australia without a visit to the sacred centre.

When we were young Alice Springs always seemed to be the best known name featuring on most BBC documentaries about Australia. At that time, we learned of Ayres Rock, named by William Gosse in 1873 after Sir Henry Ayers. The local Anangu, the Pitjantjatjara people named Uluru long before then.

Wiki says: In 1993, a dual naming policy was adopted that allowed official names that consist of both the traditional Aboriginal name and the English name. On 15 December 1993, it was renamed "Ayers Rock / Uluru" and became the first official dual-named feature in the Northern Territory. The order of the dual names was officially reversed to "Uluru / Ayers Rock" on 6 November 2002 following a request from the Regional Tourism Association in Alice Springs.

We are happy with just Uluru. The rock as some refer to it, was created over some six hundred million years, and the Aborigines have been in the area for the last 10,000 years. It originally sat at the bottom of a sea, but today stands 348 metres above ground. One of the most startling Uluru facts however, is that some 2.5 kilometres of its bulk is underground.