Saturday 21^st September  2013, Timor Sea,  North of Australia   11:24.0S  128:02.1.E  

Today's Second Blog by Terry (Time zone BST +8.50; UTC +9.5)

Three enthusiastic former golfers ventured out into the heat of a Northern Territory’s morning, to see if they could survive 18 holes at the Darwin Golf Club in the midday sun. Our taxi driver was full of tips….”Have you got water, hats, sunscreen?” while singing ‘Mad Dogs and Englishmen’ under his breath.

At the Pro-shop we were kitted out with all the necessary accoutrements (well, a half set of clubs, some tees and a few balls) thence off to the first tee for the “Serendipity Golf Day”. We teed off at 0915, there was a light breeze, some thin high clouds and temperature about 24C -  probably 33C by the time we finished.

The course presented a straight forward challenge:  par 72, a fairly flat open 6600 yard course with not too many hazards but which punished stray shots with trees and other obstructions.   We each confessed to being a little rusty;  in fact no one admitted playing in the last two years. So no records were expected – and none, it transpired,  were to be achieved!

It was  quiet - very quiet, was saw virtually no-one; millionaires’ golf.  The main spectators of our efforts were the many Magpie Geese, a few egrets, kites and some heckling from the ubiquitous and noisy Sulphur Crested Cockatoos:

Peter had the best of the front nine, closely followed by David.  The second half saw David controlling the scoring, with just occasional flashes of “potential” from yours truly. The resulting winner was first David, second Peter, then Terry.

But …. everything is relative; between us we managed just 5 pars, 4 bogies and a lot of disappointment. No great scoring then. in fact even our “three ball, better ball” score totalled a gigantic 106 – just 34 over par!  

But it was a good result, as everyone enjoyed playing, we all had a little bit of success, we each hit one or two good shots and we determined to play again.

So we already have our mind set on the next golf day out, possibly Bali or maybe Cocos Keeling Island, where there is an interesting sounding golf course winding around the runway.

Perhaps I should be practising my swing on the aft deck?

Terry