Friday  28th  June, Inside the Great Barrier Reef (in case you might have been concerned!) , South Pacific Ocean  20:10.5S  151:17E 

Today’s Second Blog by Terry (Time zone BST +9.00; UTC +10.00)

A short account of trivia en-route Mackay:

As previously mentioned we had a bit of a gloomy start to our trip across the South Pacific to Mackay. In fact, for the first four days we didn’t see the sun, but saw more of the moon!   The moon was full on Sunday and through breaks in the cloud provided some welcome illumination; as well as later in the week some spectacular moonrises on Tuesday and Wednesday as the weather improved.

On Wednesday, Lenie was reading her book when she asked us all what “rutabagas” meant, as it was in her book and she had never heard of this word. Well were all somewhat at a loss to explain this one, so thanks to the “Blockbusters” (and Scrabble) dictionary for finding us the answer.  

Ah yes, BTW the Scrabble championship continues, games 4 and 5 were on Wednesday and Thursday, with afternoon tea on the cockpit table. Challenges against the dictionary are regular, the competition fierce and no outright leader so far.

Thursday afternoon entertainment saw the crew making paper aeroplanes and launching them off the back of the boat. This was followed by an exhibition of origami, as Lenie constructed and launched two paper boats. One was still afloat as it disappeared in our wake.

As we were getting closer to Ted’s homeland, he was getting excited and decided to show off his dressmaking skills, as the “Watch Frog” (worn by the crew member on watch) got a new outfit.

Ted searching for Australia                                                                         The frog with new outfit

Followed by tea and scrabble……………

Thursday evening as the sun was setting, the boat was visited by a pair of “Boobies”. As I am sure you all know Boobies are sea birds which are very similar to the gannets seen in UK waters; but with a dark coloured back, a blue beak and some rather fetching blue footwear. They are not known for their high intelligence. These boobies circled Serendipity, then made several landing attempts, eventually successfully perching on the jumper strut. [NB: the jumper strut is the small rectangular structure towards the top of the mast, this assists in the integrity of the mast].By the time these two had landed another two had turned up; so the circus continued.   As darkness fell there were four boobies perched on the mast and one still circling. I apologise for the lack of pictures here, but the light was fading.

Later that night, after a call from Ted, I struggled to wake for my 0200-0500 shift. I obviously managed to disturb Lenie as 30 minutes later her head appeared at the top of the cockpit stairs saying : “I can’t sleep - do you think I should make David a scarecrow?” I said “Yes, good idea” assuming that she would go back to bed and dream about it.

But no, construction started straight away. Ted, who had just come off watch and was trying to sleep, couldn’t figure out what was going on. There is a bit of a tradition of making dummies in Holland, and so an hour later “Sara Scarecrow” was complete and rested in the forepeak until the morning.

At 1000, Friday morning David complained: “Those bloomin’ boobies have left a mess all over the deck!” Lenie nodded to me so I went to get Sara, brought her into the cockpit and said to David: “ I think we may have a solution to the bird problem”  Sara, was immediately accepted as a vital part of the crew, as you can see from the photos below.

Sara relaxing on deck                                                                            Sara and Ted stop for coffee

Sara and Lenie study the chart                                                               Sara and Terry fill in the log book

And yes, one more thing, Ted was reading his book on Wednesday, a few hours after Lenie had found her mystery word.  “Rutabagas! It’s here in my book too! What’s the chances of that, never heard of the bloody word before!” 

Thanks again to the red Blockbusters book (the Concise Oxford Dictionary):   Rutabaga : n  swede, turnip  [f. Sw. dial. rotabagge]

See you in Australia.

Terry