Marvelous Miles

Meet Marvelous Miles - super hero!

Miles & Leanne. 

We could have edited this shot but why clear away the bottles when they tell their own story!

Miles, who we met within days of arrival in Port Lincoln defies description. We love him to bits! He is hospitality personified and the 'Go to Man' in Port Lincoln as far as we could tell. He put us in contact with whomever we needed for any job we were on. Did we need a car? Can I lend you a tool? Have these prawns. Have this frozen whiting. Come yacht racing!  I'll get in touch with the sail maker for you. Let me lend you my dehumidifier etc, etc... nothing, but nothing was too much trouble and generous to a fault!

Miles has energy, creativity and an entrepreneurship by the shipping container load. There are so many businesses, big and small, he is involved with. Small Businessman of the Century we reckon!

Oh, and did I mention that we like Miles - a lot!

We have had Miles over for many meals while we've been in Lincoln. We confess also to many bottles of red wine being shared (his AND ours). What's not to like with a mate like that? Steph, his wife is away a lot in Adelaide so we were lucky to see a lot of him and we always called past his Sparks and Spanners business on our frequent walks into town from the Marina. Ever keen for a bit of banter, he always downed tools to shoot the breeze. Together with Jonathan Newbury, the Commodore of the Port Lincoln Yacht Club, we are suspicious that they are secret members of the GPLA - Grow Port Lincoln Association tasked with trying to entice us to stay forever... Shades of a Hotel California - "You can check out any time you like but you can never leave". There might be other members of this clandestine group too because it looks like they might have already claimed a scalp.... The crew of Urchin are staying on.

With the bond between the Bloke and Miles cemented over a couple of quad copter flying sessions it was not hard to ask if Miles might like to join us on our overnighter across to Port Vincent. Having owned 2 Jeanneau yachts in the past and now a couple of months away from his last sailing day (the final race of the season aboard Fresh) Miles tried hard not to appear unnaturally keen to join us. We wondered if he'd pull it off since we planned to leave on June 30 - the End of Financial Year!

No problemo for Miles. He's a definite on the crew list.

Phases of the moon

Prawn fishing is done on a "dark moon" i.e. when there isn't a moon. We have witnessed a procession of prawn trawlers three times now as they depart the Port Lincoln Marina for their monthly catch.  It's quite ghostly in a way because they all seem to leave after dark and it takes several hours for them all to motor out of the Marina around 10-20 min apart, each one in a blaze of their own light.

They left  again a few nights ago and they'll be back next week with their catch already processed and packaged for market. We've been told that each year, on average, they spend 43 nights at sea. So far we've noticed them gone for nearly a week at a time. This suggests that they must sometimes trawl the Gulf and at times way off shore. Although we'd arranged to buy a 5Kg from the next haul (contacts) we don't look like we'll be around to collect - darn it!

They move pretty fast so by the time I got the camera out this is as much as I could manage

Saying Goodbye

A former WA Premier, Sir Charles Court, used to say "Leave while you are still having a good time". This wise advice ensures that you don't overstay your welcome and leave with the best memories possible.

We didn't get a chance to farewell everyone but we gave it a go.

If you start getting your photo in the Social Pages is probably another sure sign it's time to leave.

 

We probably won't miss this fella spotted sheltering on the jetty between Zofia and Urchin during a 30kn gale

Jim and Gyn are retired local farmers and cousins of long time friends. They lived only a stroll away and were most hospitable and came to say goodbye

Three Doctors in a row.

Jonathan and Wendy Newbury with the Bloke.

Wendy's recent Doctoral Graduation photo visible on the bookshelf...Onya Wendy!

Who is the 'Chookman' anyway?

Claire Bear

Claire left Perth on her own in a Kea (Winnebago style) van some 3 years ago for an adventure. During that time that she's been chris-crossing the continent and made a few trips home too to be with her family for significant events. Mostly though, she's been on the road. We've always stayed in touch having phone chats while she was in lay-bys in Tassie, FNQ, Exmouth the NSW high country or wherever Claire has happened to be. We even trailed her in her first year. The year we sailed to Shark Bay, we stopped at Port Denison (Dongara) and spotted the same 'Red-Hat' ladies she'd been with only a couple of months earlier. I'd recognised them from a photo Claire had attached to an email. News of Claire's whereabouts was exchanged amid great hilarity.

We have always thought that somewhere along our travels it must be possible to intersect our journeys and in Port Lincoln we have made it so!

We enjoyed Claire's company for a week, sharing meals and wine and stories of what we'd all seen. Did I mention wine? Yes, lots of wine! So far, we've covered a section of the country Claire has not yet visited; the SA west coast and south west WA coast. We shared heaps of hints and tips for our future destinations - and some more wine!

In the very first week of arriving in Port Lincoln, we'd been invited out to dinner and met a man who likes reciting poetry and bush ballads on a scale that far and away outstrips the Blokes capacity with The Man from Snowy a River and The Man from Ironbark. Mike recited ballads and sang some tunes at the host's request and then revealed his membership of The Cellar Folk Club -(Port Lincoln). See below for the lyrics of the  hilarious Man From Kaomagma. The club meets on the 2nd Saturday of each month in the cellar of Boston House. The fact was noted for the future.  Three months later, Claire and the cat crews came with us for a rare Saturday night out.

Mike on the 'mike'

Claire getting a farewell hug from the Bloke in front of 'Winnie'.

Claire, always glamorous, dropping around for a cuppa

Thanks for visiting us Claire, we'll be in touch as soon as we get our livers out of rehab!

The Man from Kaomagma

There was motions on the station, for a wog had passed around.
Salmonella, I regret, had got away;
Makes you run like wild bush horses. Sorbent made a thousand pound,
And everybody's crack began to fray.

All the tried and noted bush quacks from the stations near and far
Had mustered at the homestead overnight,
But their cures proved ineffectual, from cement to Stockholm tar.
'Twasn't even plugged by trusty Araldite.

There was Harrison, who got his piles when a hard 'un got caught up,
The exertion turned his hair as white as snow,
So he took to liquid paraffin and drank it by the cup,
But now he don't need that to make him go.

And Clancy with his overflow came down to get a hand;
His guts so sore it crippled him with pain.
There was not a shouse could hold him, not a pedestal could stand
With a hundred cu. secs. rushing down the drain.

And one was there, a stripling with his arsehole tightly shut
'Gainst wogs what cut a mountain man to size,
But he wouldn't go outside to that single lonely hut -
From him no diarrhoea could be prized,

For he hailed from Kaomagma, down by Sulfanilomide,

Where the wogs are twice as big and twice as tough;
Where their guts are lined with leather. They're impregnable at times,
And the man who holds his own is good enough.

When the wog was at its zenith, even he was seen to weak,

But surrender, no! He'd not sit on the can,
Till intestinal agony made him shriek with pain :
'Look out! I'm going!' And off he ran.

He sent the flintstones flying with the patter of his feet;
He cleared his fallen comrades in his stride,
Till the man from Kaomagma was safely on the seat -
It was grand to find the loo unoccupied!

He stayed there single-handed till his sides were white with foam,
Ne'er allowing his sphincter to go slack,
But it was a false alarm, and so he turned his head for home,
And alone and unassisted staggered back.

For this hardy little mountain man would ne'er give in to trots
While Kaomagma settled his insides.

It's an intestinal panacea. You may believe it or not,
But without it he'd have surely filled his strides.

Copied from OBSCENE SONGS AND BALLADS OF AUSTRALIAN ORIGIN by BRAD TATE

Part 1 of the Brad Tate collection AUSTRALIAN FOLKLORE - OCCASIONAL PAPER No 11, RAMS SKULL PRESS 1982

Catching up with Nine-of-Cups

There are sailing vessels chris-crossing all over the Australian coast. It's the people that you meet along the way that enrich the journey just as much as the breathtaking scenery. We last saw David and Marcie as we sailed out of Streaky Bay. We've been in touch since and we made a point of calling in on them while they were on a scheduled maintenance visit to the Mandurah Offshore Fishing and Sailing Club. We were passing on the way back from visiting the General in Busselton while home in WA last month.

There is not much they haven't encountered in their sailing lives and this year should see them tie the knot when they reach Cape Town. They emphasise that The Med and South East Asia are yet to be visited!

The folks at MOFSC were treated to a talk from this intrepid pair and were asked for an encore the following week by popular demand! Apart from visiting their blog site www.justalittlefurther.com you can also read the July 2014 edition of Cruising Helmsman and read 2 of their articles... a bumper edition which additionally includes a letter from Steve off Easy Tiger!

More Home Improvements

Our trip home gave the Bloke plenty of opportunity to hatch more schemes to improve our life afloat. Despite groaning about lack of bandwidth with our mobile internet - 'too close to Murdoch Uni' and in a bit of  'an internet blind spot', he managed to research his project.

In the time we were back in Lincoln there was a flurry of activity on the jetty. Zofia now has a new inner forestay which is now sporting a furler. The little jib was sent to a sail maker for adjustments (hanks removed and UV strip applied) so that it can live on the furler rather than in a sail bag on the deck. Deploying this heavy weather sail will no longer require a visit 'up front' which is exactly where you don't really want to go in 'heavy weather'.  Getting the sail bag off the deck also improves windage issues when at anchor.

The Bloke and the boys had the best fun ever, assembling the furler kit etc.... Big boys meccano! I got the 'pleasure' of being the Winch Bitch hoisting the Bloke aloft with his drills, pop rivet gun etc.... Happy Days!

A safer arrangement.

Furler and furled sail on the inner forestay.

We decided to swap-out our Delta Anchor too and add a Stockless Marsh Anchor to our 'ground tackle' options. It is an Admiralty Anchor variant and much favoured by South Australian mariners as a reliable option in weed. Many of the commercial boats in Port Lincoln use them and one would imagine they are wise to a thing or two. Would such a beast have helped us anchoring in the weed in 30knots in Doubtful Island Bay?  We'll never know, but our hope is that it will make us less dependent on 'finding sand' when it's time to throw the pick down. Since we have ambitions to cruise parts of Tasmania and it's reputedly quite weedy we decided to splash out.

 Zofia's bow looking like a local

I've been enlisted too to make some repairs and 'improvements' to the dinghy cover. The Sailrite industrial sewing machine purchased before Easter was trailed on some small home sewing jobs like taking up the hems on the Blokes winter weight sailing trousers before attempting something more complicated. The whole process was probably quite excruciating for the Bloke who daily lifted the machine onto the cabin table in the hope that I'd get the canvass work done. Just a hint  - "no pressure" he said. Thursday was the requested deadline and I'm glad to report that I delivered, as per contract, by COB.

Reinforcing at the lift points plus a zippered pocket for the drogue. 

Materials all re-cycled from the sail bag.

The cats have also been on a home improvements mission. Easy Tiger, in particular has a repaired propeller, replaced their anchor winch, repaired the sail bag, installed new taps and much, much more. Urchin has had some small gel-coat fixes but generally has come this far with flying colours.

We are all now eying the weather hoping to time the completion of the works program with a suitable weather window to leave.

Getting with the Progamme - The Port Lincoln Long Lunch

This is an annual fundraising event that also showcases the best of district food and wine. It looked like another fun thing to experience while we were here. It's a variant of a progressive dinner. The concept is for several venues to offer small tasting plate/ tapas type catering options plus wine which one buys as you go along. The different venues can be visited via a minibus like a Hop on Hop off tour bus. Responsible drinking promoted.

Our long lunch kicked off with a stroll over to Jonathan and Wendy's in the Marina before being driven to the Yacht Club where we enjoyed 1/2 doz oysters prepared in a couple of ways plus a lovely beef medallion and chicken on a stick with a lovely cream and mustard sauce. We elected to skip Del Giorno's on the foreshore, which has some of the best food in town (and they have trophies as proof) because we'd already been there several times before including the Bloke's Birthday Bash.

 The local Lincoln Times -Social Page photographer and the Bloke.

Jason is originally from South Africa and was at a very windy bus stop in case you are wondering about the BIG HAIR!

So next we traveled to The Boston Bay Winery which has a lovely outlook over Boston Bay. It was just beyond Boston House on the Lincoln Highway where we attended the folk club the week before. With entrée already covered off, we chose the Tuna Steak option. YUM.

Boston Bay Winery here we come!

 

The bus stop clientele swap over

 

The reception committee at Boston Bay Winery

The wind associated with the front heralded in an earlier post, was already kicking up so the Bloke was rather chivalrous and shielded some young ladies with his jacket. His prize was worn proudly upon his cheek for the remainder of the day. All that lipstick was quite a conversation starter.

 Would you buy a car from this man?

Skipper of 'Fresh' Kim Clarke & wife Anne at the 'bus stop' crowd change-over.

Next stop Delacolline Winery not far from David and Sonja's off  Flinders Highway and high on the hill.  Here I opted for coffee and a Lavender Panna Cotta. The lavender was a bit overdone and I kept thinking of Pinoclean although the texture was sublime.

 A work of art and house speciality

We caught the last shuttle back into Lincoln and by a stoke of luck came across people we knew and got a lift back to the Marina with Evie and Drew just as both rain and darkness threatened. What a brilliant day!

Port Lincoln keeps ticking boxes and it will be tough leaving although we are actively planning to lever ourselves off this wharf soon. The lure? to join in the festivities over near Wirinna for a couple of significant '0' birthdays that need to be honoured. It's our duty to be there, weather permitting, for July 19. Today we were were just brushing up on party skills. It's blowing dogs off chains and the wave readings at Kangaroo Island say 8M !!! It will need to be much smaller than that before we venture off!