G'day! Seems it's been a little while since last I wrote, and although I don't have much to report -- no giant squid sightings or rare purple mundungus encounters, I still feel the need to continue some form of communication.

The bulk of our time and energies of late are devoted to the preparation of selling Fly Aweigh, which includes importing her into Australia, a requirement that must be complete before we can offer her for sale. This has been interesting. Costly, annoying at times, amusing at others, and quite a process. One of the more ridiculous tasks we've accomplished is becoming licensed freon gas importers, required by the newly instituted Ozone Department. As an inbound boat with refrigeration and air conditioning, we're considered "importers" of the freon gas we have aboard to run those devices. So we've paid the $400 fee for the license, and the 15 cents tax on the amount of freon we imported, and now, I guess, we're in the business. Then there are the sniffer dogs, who come this Wednesday to snuffle about in search of termites. We've heard there's only one company in Australia approved by the government for this task, and they have only 3 dogs -- highly-trained Beagles who travel the country and sometimes go abroad on important sniffing duties. After they give the boat a good nosing, and hopefully find no termites residing in what little "timber" we have aboard, we should get a letter from Customs giving us the green light to put Fly Aweigh back on the market.

Over the last few weeks we've taken off loads of stuff, and I'm repeatedly reminded that just last year we were putting it all on. I cornered the market on plastic storage bins and containers of all sizes before we left, and they've served us well. As I unpack the deep, dark corners, those odd-sized compartments beneath the mattresses and under the floor, I find bins coated in a layer of sticky goo -- a leaky soap bottle, or a tipped-over container of honey. I'm glad they were in bins and not leaking down into the unreachable depths of the boat, and I pat myself on the back for good organizational skills. Now, they get cleaned out and refilled with things to ship home. We agonize over what to keep and what to sell or donate. We're caught between being thrifty -- wanting to keep the things we've invested perfectly good money in and may use again, and being practical -- recognizing that most material things are really a burden, and we both feel that burden weighing on us with every decision to "ship it home." More stuff to wade through on the other end. We'll be unpacking these boxes and wondering "Why did we keep this??" Not to mention, it's costly to ship, and we have to ask ourselves if we can rebuy back home on the used market for a comparable price.

We took a drive to Australia's famous Gold Coast the other day, a somewhat ill-timed trip that coincided with a break in the school year, which meant beaches swarming with "schoolies," all tidily ID'd and wrist-banded, an apparently new approach to containing the chaos of what we in the US call "spring break." Everyone has to register, and the beach and hotels are monitored for crashers --- known as "toolies" -- the older kids who come and drink too much and generally run amok. It's a good idea, and it keeps the younger teenagers safer. Allan and I found a shady spot on the beach and settled in for a nice rest, enjoying the tousled green sea and the little clumps of teenagers, trying to gage the ratio of ankle bracelets to no ankle bracelets, roughly 9 - 1 in favor of.

Last week we met the local Australian Catalina Yachts dealer in this neck of the woods, who has been helping us with some important boat--related issues, and he invited us to join him and his wife and daughter for a book signing event at the Southport Yacht Club on the chic Gold Coast. Seems the Commodore there is quite an accomplished man in the sailing realm, and just published his latest book, "Bligh." Having sailed across Blighwater in Fiji, and been to many of the places Captains Bligh, Cook and Christian sailed and made famous, I find myself very interested in their stories. This particular book attempts to set the record straight about Bligh's bad reputation, a task that Anna Bligh, the current Premier of Queensland and a descendant of Captain Bligh, is grateful for. The lecture was fun, but I must admit, this was my first reintroduction to high society, as the Southport Yacht Club is huge and full of important people in nice clothes, and I felt somewhat underdressed and plain. But plain in an I-earned-it sort of way, plain by choice.

Our aft lower shroud, which as you may recall separated from the mast on our last leg from New Caledonia, is in the process of being made, and will be a simple matter of reinstallation once we get it. In the meantime, we can't take Fly Aweigh out for a sail, and we're getting a bit ansty to leave the dock. We hope to have her back in sailing condition in a week or so, but may just go out and motor around for a few days before then, out to a local island to scrub the bottom, do a bit of snorkeling, make some water, and bob around a bit.

Meanwhile, our plans keep morphing, as plans do, for what to do with our time in Australia. Our latest thought is to save our energies for traveling around New Zealand after the first of the year. With Christmas coming, repairs, packing, shipping and cleaning underway aboard, and trying to get our head around the idea of selling Fly Aweigh, we can't see having quite enough time to buy a camper van here in Australia and do any touring. So we'll see how that develops, but for now, we'll just lay low and finish the tasks before us.

Last night we joined some of the local cruisers for a weekly BBQ in the park. The Ozzies really do take their BBQ'ing seriously, it would seem, and virtually no park is without clean, free, griddle-style BBQ's that fire up at the touch of a button. On our Sunday bike ride yesterday we noticed that the parks were loaded with families, birthday parties, couples young and old -- all set up with extra folding chairs and tables, blankets, picnic baskets, bottles of wine (I don't think it's legal, but if you don't make a scene, nobody enforces it) and are obviously quite skilled at whipping up a quick park gathering on a moments' notice. Saturday we rode past a wedding in the park by the sea, with the Saturday sailboat regatta in full swing on the bay behind them.

Today, a bike or bus ride to the bank! Whee!! Okay, not nearly as fun as seeing giant mantas or floating eye-to-eye with a Humpback whale, but hey, that's what today has in store, and I'm going to enjoy every minute of it! Tonight, Trivial Pursuit with some of the local cruisers in the marina. It's a rich life.