T.I. Arrival
My Way
Mike Kopman
Mon 24 Nov 2008 00:33
Gidday All,
It's Monday and we're in Thursday... Island. After battling nasty counter currents in the Torres
Straits and tacking up and down to preserve our last few drops of diesel (fortunately the wind came
up when we really needed it, even if it was from the wrong direction) we finally made it to tiny
Thursday Island and dropped the hook off the town. Pretty soon we got a friendly call on the VHF
radio and Andrew told us to look over our right shoulder and there was he and Linda waving to us
from the beach a few hundred meters away. It's really cool arriving somewhere with friendly faces to
welcome you.
We just cleared customs and quarantine - nice bunch of guys and very accomodating. Those difficult clowns in Fiji could take an example from them.
We've got quite a bit to do here now: service all engines (they got a bit more use over the last three
legs from French Polynesia than we were expecting), fuel up, fill the gas bottles, repair the
watermaker... not to mention catch up on a bit of sleep. It'll be bliss sleeping for more than 3
hours at a stretch again!
Apart from Andrew and Linda we'll also be joined here by Dave and Jackie, our crew from the Panama -
Marquesas trip earlier this year, who are arriving from Cairns in a couple of days. The six of us
will be sailing to Indonesia together.
Well that's it for now. We won't be posting any more daily updates here until we're underway again,
towards the end of the week.
Lots of love from Down Under, Mike & Sarah