No Cuff Too Tough.....

Jings, crivens and help ma boab!! where did the time go, never realised it was so long ago since I had written anything on here, safe to say, I haven't been doing much of the old sailing malarkey, the old ninja bastard virus continues to stuff mine, and the rest of the planets plans up, I am writing this from a hotel room in Perth, Australia where I am under compulsory government isolation for 14 days having recently returned from Portugal, I've kicked the sailing into touch till the end of the year, too many variables with lockdowns/restrictions and virus surges going on in Europe to stay, and due to all the Brexit nonsense, my visa ran out, still, not to worry, I'll go back very early in the new year when everyone is vaccinated and the pubs are open again, lets face it, if the pubs are closed, there's no point in going anyway eh!

Confidence having her bottom cleaned after coming out of the water in Lagos.

So the last time I was on here I was just about to come out of the water in Lagos, the boat is still there, what have I been up to?? I have spent most of my time working on the boat, Portugal has been in lockdown most of the time I have been there, starting to think I am some kind of Covid lockdown Jinx! I did however, have plenty to do to keep me busy on the boat, she has a new engine and gearbox, new and very very shiny propeller, a bit of an Internal paint job, and a million other wee jobs completed with, to be honest, another million I could do, your never left with nothing to do on a boat, especially one who is a little older than most of her neighbours.

Look no engine! Time to clean and paint.

New shiny engine in a box!

Here she comes........careful now boys!

Shiny, shiny.....all Installed

The original plan when I initially left New Zealand was to rock up in Girvan for my 50th birthday, I know, I hear you, 50? Bobby? no way, he looks so young! True enough though, so the big day was in October last year, all this Covid bollocks put paid to my big entrance sailing into Girvan Harbour as we were stuck in Portugal, I did however manage to fly there, and instead of sailing into town, to mark the occasion I decided it would be a great Idea to run a mile for every year on earth so far, so 50 miles, from Girvan to Glentrool and back, I'll tell you, at the halfway mark it didn't seem as good an Idea as it was at the start, still, survived, life in the old dog yet, not looking forward to my 60th though!!

Leaving Girvan early doors, yep, its Scotland so of course its dark and pishing doon!

Nearly at Glentrool, rain stopped thank goodness

Heading home down the nic o'the Balloch, about 40 miles in, running downhill wasn't that much fun by then :-)

Got a surprise with a welcome home team!

Managed to get Christmas in Scotland too and just got back into Portugal by the skin of my teeth before all the winter lockdowns kicked off and of course, Brexit, I only get a 90 days visa in Europe now so just need to be a bit more organised in terms of passage planning from now on.

Scotland at Christmas, Loch Bradden

Wae ma Maw and Charlie the Dug!

As I mentioned, Portugal has been in Lockdown, and still is at the time of writing this, really it just saved me money as all the pubs and restaurants are closed, you can still go out for food shopping and exercise is allowed so it didn't really stop me doing anything locally, it was a pity to not get a bit further afield to see the country but travel between municipalities was banned so maybe next year. I was lucky to be in Lagos though which is in a beautiful part of the Algarve.

Lagos at Sunrise

and again.......

and again!

Noticed this in the launderette, so how are you meant to clean your dog??

So now here we are, day 10 of 14 in compulsory government hotel quarantine, it was quite the journey to get here, for a start, Australia only lets in between four and six thousand people a week into the whole country, and only five hundred into Perth so just getting a flight is an epic, when I first started looking for flights at the start of February flights were 3000 - 7000 Euro, luckily prices came down at the start of March and I got on a Singapore Airlines flight from Lisbon via Paris and Singapore, I had one flight cancelled but done quite well compared to many other Australia bound travellers, some of which have been stuck overseas for a year.
Had to get a Covid test before I could fly which is fair enough but jeez! it's a bit of a stress fest waiting for the results as a positive result puts the kibosh on everything, Lisbon airport, like most public places has marks all over the floor to help you social distance, but then to get on the first plane to Paris, which was full, they jammed everyone onto buses out to the aircraft, packed in like sardines, ha! everyone looked quite anxious (underneath their masks of course).

The flight to Singapore couldn't have been any different, on a 256 seat aircraft there were 10 passengers in total, I was in the middle of the aircraft and there were only two of us in that section, so plenty of room to stretch out and sleep, the Singapore to Perth flight was similar with around 50 people on board.
Arriving in Australia, you can really see the difference with the Covid measures compared to Europe, they are uber strict, but they have very low (nearly zero) cases of Covid here so you can understand why, Normally when I am here I live in Sydney and work in Western Australia, but because the state governments close state borders and lock down at the drop of a hat (both Perth and Melbourne recently locked down for a week for 1 case!) I had to come to Perth as my work trips mobilise from here.
After going through Immigration and customs, we were put on buses, (only 12 to a bus) and had a police escort into the city, I am staying at the Intercontinental which is right in the city centre, the buses park up outside and they take one person at a time off the bus and into the hotel, as you can imagine this takes some time so whilst waiting, and remember this is a Saturday evening, we marveled at all the people in restaurants and bars, and just walking around together with no masks, pure pre-covid stuff, seems so bizarre, it's amazing how quickly you get used to living in lockdown measures and the old normal seems so strange!

My hotel cell for 14 days.

If I walk up and down here for an hour its 5km!

But hey, I have a view.......

And I'll get to see these guys, Jeez, there growing like weeds!

So the new rough plan? go back to Portugal around New Year, the temporary import permit on the boat runs out at the end of January, so I need to get the boat out of Europe before then or the nice folks from Portuguese customs will be after 23% VAT on the value of the boat.....nae chance! hopefully by that time Morocco will be open and I can nip across there and reset the permit, maybe head for the canaries whilst waiting for the spring sailing season to try and get north to the Motherland, I'm sure everyone will be vaccinated by then, it be all hugs and square sausage.........superb!

We shall see eh!?