I'm sitting in the still early morning and the sun, bright even at 6am, has been up for well over an hour. The only sound that has so far broken the silence is the familiar drone of a small airlpane flying overhead, a sound we've not heard often in the last 8 months.

We've settled into the Scarborough Marina, just off Deception Bay on the tip of a peninsula north of Brisbane. The marina itself is a mix of small commercial fishing boats, local sailors and boaters, and a few cruisers, who are slowly trickling in. Some of the cruising boats come to be sold, and others are here to wait out the cyclone season and will continue sailing in 6 months. A few arrived in previous years and never left. And it's easy to see why.

The seaside town of Scarborough sits between the Sunshine Coast to the north, and the Gold Coast to the south, both heavily developed tourist and resort areas, but this stretch of beach still retains much of it's quiet charm from decades earlier. The marina is surrounded by neighborhoods of little 1940's and 50's homes, all meticulously maintained, some renovated and upgraded to modern standards, some razed and replaced by sleek beachside homes, much like many beachside communities in California. The town of Scarborough faces the sea, with small cafes and shops, and, as I discovered yesterday, rolls up the sidewalks from Sunday night until Tuesday morning. Down the street a few kilometers is Redcliffe, a little busier, a little fancier, but still charming, with a bustling ferry dock and Sunday market in the park along the ocean, where you can get sourdough pumpkin bread and sugar-roasted macadamia nuts. Everyone is friendly. A long bike path stretches from the top of the peninsula all along the beach, and is rumored to go as far as the Brisbane International Airport. The beaches are host to swimmers, windsurfers and kiteboarders, as well as older couples who come with upright folding chairs and sit together reading, or just gazing out to sea.

Inland is all the usual stuff: storage facilities, car fix-it places, funeral homes (seem to be quite a few of them, for some reason,) donut shops, mega grocery stores, and big, air conditioned malls. We took a bike ride the other day along the beachfront bike path, stopped in Scarborough for a nice lunch, then continued on down through Redcliffe and inland on busy 4-lane Anzac Avenue (every major Australian city has an Anzac Avenue) to the mall, where we needed to set up our phone. From there we took a different route home on another wide 4-lane road, but were impressed to note that bike lanes exist almost everywhere, making it a very pleasant area to get around without risking your life.

Mike and Hyo from IO arrived Saturday after a 7-day passage from New Caledonia, and are cleaning out their boat in preparation for return trips home for a month. We've met a number of boaters in the marina, in part because our slip is on the main throughway to almost everywhere else due to the unusual layout of the docks here, so we say hello to everyone passing by. And Fly Aweigh, the new kid on the block, attracts a lot of attention -- she looks big and shiny and new compared to the more mature and solid boats in residence.

We had a surprise visit the other night, a couple knocked on the boat and introduced themselves as "Friends of Carol and John," our cat sitters and car sitters back home. They invited us to join them for pizza, so we happily climbed in their car and drove off up the road to Caloundra, another ritzy seaside area rife with great restaurants, and had the best pizza in years, accompanied by interesting conversation and topped off with fabulous gelato.

Today we're going into Brisbane, a 1-hour bus ride tagged onto a 30-minute train ride to Central Station. We have a little business to do, and then we'll explore the city and hope to meet up with our friend Brian on the motor yacht Furthur for dinner. There's plenty to do around here, it will not be boring. And lots of wild kangaroos and other marsupials apparently have free roam of the more rural areas, according to the "Watch Out for Kangaroo" street signs, and get this: even the crows have Ozzie accents!