I have now put up the Christmas Island photos on the previous blog
We left Christmas a day after the main boats as we were still messing with the generator. There were three of us that took it easy leaving.
Oscar had a rough day and a half after his Chinese lunch came back to haunt him but after that was able to take his place in the night watches. it makes it all very easy as we now do only two hours on and six off.
I am sitting in the shelter shed on Direction Island at the wifi hot spot. It is so bright hat I have a towel over my head and the laptop trying to see the screen. Nearly jumped out of my skin when a coconut dropped out of it's tree just by me! We had a fairly uneventful mostly sailing trip from Christmas Is. We did manage to have another fright with a fishing line around the prop as we forgot to pull the lines in when we went into the wind to get the main down. We got the label maker out and now have a sticker on each throttle saying "RODS IN!"
I made Pete a hazelnut mocha layer cake for his birthday then we had only just finished that and it was Oscar's! So I made a chocolate cake for him. What with some ice cream that we made and the lollies his cousins gave him from Darwin we all were sugared up! Cocos Keeling is a very pretty lagoon with fringing islands and snorkelling anywhere you're inclined to put your head in the water. We all snorkelled the famous "Rip". Lots of very big schools of very big fish and loads of black tipped reef sharks - that luckily are very well fed on the reef fish! We had a bommie right under the boat with it's own resident turtle. Pete and I went to Home Island and from there by ferry to West Island where the shops etc are and the next diesel mechanic! Hopefully we are all fixed this time!!!. We left Oscar and Huw swimming and doing more Rip snorkels. Today Oscar is going to West Island for the day with the other family and tomorrow is the BBQ and skippers briefing for Mauritius. There is a lot of navel history here and is the sight of Australia's first ever navel victory - Pete and I are going to walk through the island today to see some of the remains of the instalments that used to be here. it was a catalina flying boat base too.
