We arrived in Cairns and Tony jumped off the boat to get to the airport. We had timed things quite well having to wait about two hours for daylight to enter the marina. We decided that we would not go in at night given that Cairns is a rather large shipping center. We were quite excited to see so many World Arc boats at the marina. We also were approached quite quickly by a man asking if we were really from Wickford, RI. We indeed confirmed that we were and he told us that Wickford was his home port. We were amazed that half way around the world we would meet someone from Wickford. Then, it got even better. He asked us what marina we were from and we soon discovered we were from the same marina. We actually took Michael's slip at Wickford Marina when he left to sail around the world. We told him that several of our mutual acquaintances at the marina told us that it must be the slip because Michael and we had occupied the slip and then left to sail around the world. How amazing is that!!!!!

While at Marlin Marina, we also ran into another Island Packet boat. I don't think we had seen another Island Packet since the Caribbean. Dimitry and Artie are on an Island Packet 485 called Artimus V. We quite enjoyed talking with them as they were beginning their around the world adventure, being from Sydney. We discussed some of the joys and frustrations of our boats. It was great to compare notes.

We spent much of our time in Cairns working on the boat. Having taken almost two weeks off to sail the Whit Sundays we had a bit of work to do. We also were thrilled to have Britt and Shadow (S/V Zoe) join us in Cairns. They were traveling inland visiting friends for several weeks and the timing worked out for them to have us take them to Darwin as Zoe had already left Cairns. We are leaving Cairns a bit later than the rest of the fleet but two other boats, Brizo and Bronwyn, are also leaving at the same time. We will skip the stopover in Thursday Island and proceeded directly to Darwin. It should be about an eight day sail there. We will be going on the inside of the reef and will often be in the shipping lane. It should be another interesting trip.