portuguese irregular verbs

portuguese irregular verbs, originally uploaded by JeanineJeanine.

Monday

Monday's over! When I walked off the boat at 5:30pm it felt to me like I just woke up. I think I was high all day of brass polisher. I polished one flipping lamp for over 4 hours and am still not done with it. Went to do a yoga class, which was pretty good! Read "Portuguese irregular verbs" by Alexander McCall Smith and thougth my mum would adore the main caracter, Professor Dr von Igelfeld. Isabel just called and told me they broke their rental car in Bali, steam was coming out everywhere because they didn't refill the cooling water and they were stuck on the road... I spoke to Steff this afernoon, they are at x-mas island and she's doing well! Yeah! Here on the boat nothing has changed, my collegue and boat mate keeps on burping like a world champion, and I just can't ignore it! Maybe I should stop feeding him all these veggies???
Have to go to bed now. Good night.

another sunday

xxx, originally uploaded by JeanineJeanine.

I went to wash my car...

sunday afternoon

sunday afternoon, originally uploaded by JeanineJeanine.

... and took her for a ride...

Happy Sunday

Happy Sunday, originally uploaded by JeanineJeanine.

yeah! I am online all day!

I got Internet on the boat today, this is great, I can finally use my lovely computer again to play and anyway, I haven't had 24 hour internet since over 3 months.
I went out partying last night and really managed to get back home at 5 am. I had fun.
Went lying in the sun this afternoon at the laguna again.
I have to wash my car tomorrow. I can't see through the windows anymore.
I keep on leaving waterbottles on the rooftop when I start driving. so far three times someone had to tell me and hand it back to me through the window. Where's my mind?
Last week it was the first time I watched footy on TV. It was the first time I saw that game at all! I didn't know it was existing until then. It's fun to watch. They are just running into each other, making each other fall and wrestle on the floor. And play with a ball at the same time. Amusing. Well, at least that's what I get out of it... :-)

Sunset Sea Hawk

Sunset Sea Hawk, originally uploaded by JeanineJeanine.

view "out of my window" - there are many wonderful sunsets here in Abel Point Port, but this one last night was magical. Sea Hawk was our neighbour for a while. Crew are two Americans and one girl from New Zealand. Nice people, they left this morning though.

Shadow

Shadow, originally uploaded by JeanineJeanine.

sunset

sunset, originally uploaded by JeanineJeanine.

Airlie Beach

Airlie Beach, originally uploaded by JeanineJeanine.

Airlie

Airlie, originally uploaded by JeanineJeanine.

Footprints in the sand

Footprints in the sand, originally uploaded by JeanineJeanine.

Shute Habour Whitsundays

Shute Habour Whitsundays, originally uploaded by JeanineJeanine.

Airlie Beach

Airlie Beach1, originally uploaded by JeanineJeanine.

Aurora

Aurora, originally uploaded by JeanineJeanine.

"normal life"

I have the feeling the next 4 weeks are going to be really.........hmmm..........ordinary? Iwork every day (using my sweet computer to do inventory, cleaning silver with a movie on, trying out new cocktails, shop for food and other stuff the boat needs...), enjoy it, like the fact that I have to get up 3 minutes before I start working, enjoy cooking, which I've been doing almost every day, if only for Quenton and myself. After work I started to do 90min of Yoga again, I fell into the terrible habit of watching big brother at 7pm, but for me it's a study of Australian culture, and it really is! Catching up writing letters to friends, reading, telephone calls etc., etc. No road trips in the next 6 weeks, my dear car, the name still to be kept as a secret :-), is having a break and only driving around with me to check out the surroundings of Airlie Beach.
Well, the downside of a normal life is that I miss San Francisco, the only place I wanna have a normal life. But I shouldn't forget the upside: beautiful place, awesome sunsets, money comes in! and isn't spent so much, I life on a boat, I don't have to pay for my food and the terrible chef isn't on the boat anymore! There's not a lot more I can ask for.
Now I go home, cook, read or watch television and go to bed. I have a normal life. :-)
You won't hear much of me in the next weeks...
Today's Janet's birthday! Happy birthday, Janet! She's moving to Beijing next week, I hope she'll like it and I see her soon.
I think of my mum a lot today.
This becomes more a diary than a travel journal. That's probably because I'm not travelling at the moment... :-)

Photos

for those who haven't taken a look at this for a while (or never have before), check out April pictures (bottom right)
xxx

Sunday night

...so, downloading more pictures doesn't work here, so I thought I just write one or two words. I've had a very lazy weekend, lying in the sun, going for a swim at the laguna here in Airlie Beach (it's also an artificial one, because there are deadly box jellyfish here, and you shouldn't swim in the sea, at least not so close to the beach) I read a lot (about a young guy who sailed around the world, to get a bit of an idea how Stef feels like now) and spoke to friends on the phone. Now the weekend is over, and I realised that I have tons of things to do on the boat in the next four weeks! Which is good.
I received an e-mail from Mystic Lady today, the boat Stef is travelling on. I get reports every week, so I will just put them on here with the title Mystic Lady. Most of who know her will obviously be receiving these updates anyway, but maybe someone who doesn't know her might be interested in following their sailing adventures?
So long!
Jeanine

MYSTIC LADY

This is what received today, news from the sea. Ken is a guy in his sixties, I think, and Stephan must be about in between Stef and Ken. Stephan is originally from Schwaebisch Gmuend, an hour away from where Stef and I come from! and has been living in New Zealand for ......... hmmm, forever, I guess. Enjoy reading.

A whole week in Darwin , one of achievement , a fair amount of pleasure , and some good food and drink ! We even found some very good beer !!
David thoroughly organised us in the way of sightseeing , such that,after he left us, ( deserted ! ),there was not too much of interest left to us. That man has a lot to answer for ! But before he left,we had a new Hydrovane rudder shaft made and waiting : had managed a few post cards: visited museums and heritage centres : shopping centres ( ughhhh !!) ;and,amongst other things, beaten both Australia and NZ at the "make life for Ken difficult at the gas game". To explain that,the boat has an English/European Calor gas system and cylinders. The above authorities find these cylinders totally unacceptable,and will not refill them,or allow them to be refilled.As ours were last filled in Panama on the way out,by the time we arrived in NZ supplies were getting somewhat low.A very kind friend of Mark lent us a cylinder for the time in NZ,but that was handed back on our departure.Mark,meanwhile,had made adaptors to fit NZ to our cylinders,but noone would use them.Fortunately,when noone was looking,our cylinders "became" filled from a local cylinder we obtained, legally,actually ! However,in Australia,the problem again reared its ugly head,and noone would touch anything . Fortunately,we found a large cylinder,at a " bargain"price,and not only filled our existing cylinders,but have some left over for top ups,despite the whole procedure being illegal.As we are now well and truly in international waters,they will have to send out a gunboat!!
David,sadly,left us late Saturday night ( thanks,Roz, for letting us have him this long )and Sunday was a lazy day ,somewhat encouraged by all the liquor shops being shut,and we having run out on the boat !
Monday was the 'technical'side of departure,with Customs and officials needing 48hrs notice and documentation in advance:collecting and fitting our new Hydrovane rudder shaft; and,believe it or not,we have recruited a new crew member ! After all the notices in backpackers etc.,and all the talking ( pleading with every eligible person we met !),we have found one !!
Stefanie ( Stef ) is just 22 yrs old,German,and flying up from Cairns,sight unseen,to join us Monday evening.She must be stark raving bonkers mad !!We are quite looking forward to it. However,Customs and Immigration clearance had to be initiated before she arrived here,so a visit on her behalf was initiated,and again we were very lucky in finding a lovely helpful chap called Bill,who bent over backwards to get things organised for us.Despite that,it transpired Stef had a glitch with her permit validity,so , on Tuesday,all of us went to Immigration ,where a very motherly lady took charge and sorted everything,including into Cocos Keeling,which comes under the Australian banner.We are lucky : we don't mind : and they are all marvellous people !
Tuesday evening Stef was "escorted "away for farewells with friends in Darwin.On her return,she slept in the #######,trusting soul.Or maybe she couldn't make it downstairs into the boat that night.We two,left to our own devices,found an "eat all you can" restaurant,offering a 6 course meal for $27, and absolutely pigged out !There was soup,salad,red meats,assorted fish,sweets galore, various coffee and tea, all absolutely delicious and excellent,and round as many times as you liked.Fortunately,closing time intruded !!
Wednesday,day of departure,dawned clear and bright,and everything worked like clockwork.We were refuelled (duty free !),cleared and away by 1030 AM.The only slight problem was no wind ,so we were already into using the engine on and off for some 12 hrs ,during which we passed a large brown turtle lazing on the surface,who raised his ugly head:took one look at us;and somewhat as an afterthought,slowly dissappeared below the surface.It wasn't until 3AM that the wind picked up a little to allow sailing.And when it did arive it was fickle and on and off.However,it did allow some semblance of sailing,picking up a little as the day progressed. A tropic bird,passing,decided to provide interest by performing two quick orbits around the boat,before slowly flapping off into the distance,and who knows where .
Around tea time we were visited by our first Indian Ocean dolphins.These were larger than we had seen before,and had an almost greyish green tinge to their backs.Nowhere near as energetic or friendly as those previously encountered,they swam round a couple of times and dissappeared.Stephan's theory is that,with the water temperature at some 29 degrees C , it makes them lethargic.
Although having sailed a little previously,Stef is well and truly 'in at the deep end' !This is her first trip offshore,and ,with some 2,000 nm of it ahead,will be make or break.So far,she is not only fitting in well,but is actually enjoying the relatively steep learning curve,and the big wide open spaces.A couple of really beautiful sunrise/sunsets have actually helped the female mind along a little..Should she,however,decide at Cocos that she has had enough,there is one plane in two weeks,and that goes to Perth! Meanwhile,a salt water bath every day seems to be taking over,heaven help us !
Thursday night/Friday morning sometime,we crossed the 8hr time zone boundary of 123 1/2 degrees E ,going from GMT plus 9 1/2 toGMt plus 8 .We are now 7 hrs ahead of British Summer time.This is no problem,except it put an extra 1 1/2 hrs onto Friday,waiting for lunch,which is quite a hardship! To alleviate the pressure,a couple of our dwindling stock of beers did help a little !
In terms of progress,we are not doing too badly.It took a while to leave the wind shaddow of Australia behind,and get into the SE Trades,since when the wind has been mainly in the 15 to 20 bracket,virtually running. We have two head sails rigged,and poled out,which is giving us 6 to 7 kts day and night at the moment,with the odd flash into the supersonic ! So,by the time you get this,we should be very close to the Ashmore Reef,at just over 12 degs S,and 123 degs E.We are heading due west.The reef consists of a few "islands",with 4 coconut trees between them! We do not intend stopping !
Best wishes from everyone,and particularly from Stefanie whose decision to come along was rapid and unexpected by all, and more next week.
Stef,
Stephan,
Ken.

Me Port Douglas

Me Port Douglas, originally uploaded by JeanineJeanine.

Whitsunday Islands

Whitsunday Islands, originally uploaded by JeanineJeanine.

Abel Point Sunset 2

Abel Point Sunset 2, originally uploaded by JeanineJeanine.

pink and blue

pink and blue, originally uploaded by JeanineJeanine.

SUN AND BLUE SKIES MAKE ME HAPPY

.......... it was raining on Wednesday, when I went on my first sailing trip, which wasn't really one because there wasn't any wind. First lesson: one cannot sail when there is no wind.
It was a good afternoon, though, getting soaked, still moving from port to starboard every 5 Minutes or so wiping down the wet parts of the boat...
After that we had a BBQ at the yacht club, and strangely enough our boat got a price (bottle of rum) because it's been the FASTEST????? Yeah.

Then on Thursday all of the sudden the sky broke and we had sun, sun, sun. I went on a daytrip to Port Douglas, with Stef and Julia. Picked up Kashy at he airport Thursday night. Went out. I don't like eating in pubs. There's so much you have to do. Order food. Order drinks. Get them to the table. Jump up every time your beeper beeps and get your food. I almost started to clean up the table afterwards, because it's hard to believe that they would waste money on people doing that!

Friday Kashy, Stef and I went to another beach close by, it's kind of a retirement place, but nice. Nets in the sea again, so you can swim, because there are crocodiles in the sea. Until now I lived with the believe that there are no crocodiles in any sea anywhere. Australia is such a dangerous place!
Became very antisocial for the rest of the day, because I started reading "The Coma" by Alex Garland and didn't stop until I finished it. It's about the brain, reality and fiction. What is real..... what isn't. How important is reality. I enjoyed it.
In the evening I took myself out to the ballet. Got cheap tickets to see "Sleeping beauty" and discovered that her name was Aurora, like the boat I work on at the moment. I didn't know that the sleeping beauty was called Aurora, I thought she was called sleeping beauty??? :-) (oder Dornroeschen, wie Schneeweisschen, Zitronengelbchen und Brokkoligruenchen.....)
It was nice, not as good as the SF ballet (what do I expect?), but nice for a change, especially after me complaining there's nothing like that in Australia the other day.

Saturday I went to look for a birthday present for Stef. And good bye present. Stef is going. This is so exciting. She is going on a sailing boat, about 35 foot long, which leaves Australia tomorrow morning, one day after her 22nd birthday, to go via all kind of funky island like the Coco Island and Mauritius first, then to South Africa. They probably stop at some places there, too, and want to be in England by October. I'm so very excited for her, even jealous, and I am generally not really jealous about whatever people are doing, because I think that my life is exciting enough... :-) But I am so happy for her, the crew (2 more) seems to be very nice, and the boat is comfortable and nice. She's gonna have a great time! And it's her birthday today aswell! HAPPY BIRTHDAY STEF! What a girl, leaves Australia after 17 months to go right into the next adventure and sail half way round the world, just after turning 22... yeah, what a girl... :-)
So, yeah, I got her birthday present, and in the afternoon we were going to Julia's new place, she moved into a house which reminds me a lot of the warehouse in San Francisco. We had a good party going on until late at night.
Sunday was Stef's last day in Cairns. She flew out last night to go to Darwin, where "Mystic Lady" was waiting for her to jump on board. It was a sad day. I got a call in the moning which made me worry about a person I love and then my little travel Angle left me....
Brony and Em moved into a house yesterday as well and I am really happy they finally got that sorted out. It's a nice place and Em has a tiny little garden to look after.
Cleaned up my lovely car this morning which was a really relaxing thing to do, then went to the laguna with Bron and we had a good chat, then Silvie called and we got really excited about travelling down the West coast together in October, and now I go and see Julia to get some useful :-) information about it. AND I am going to the movies tonight, after I haven't been -------- forever. Little things which make you happy....
Will be on my way back to Airlie tomorrow morning, back to the sleeping beauty.... I look forward to the trip, and I'm ready for some more work then as well.
Bye everybody, I'll be back with some pics.
Jeanine
xxx

ALL IS COOL AGAIN

... and I am fine and going to the beach now! :-)

Lazy days

.......... too lazy. I need to do something productive. Australia is such a difficult place to be. Little culture, beautiful countryside. Nature, nature, nature. Where is my fancy sushi bar and where is the theater and where the ballet? And where are art galleries and art openings where you can get free wine and hors d'oeuvre? Somewhere else, not here in Cairns. I know. I miss San Franicsco. I miss my friends there. I wanna be back now. I won't be back for a while. So there's no reason to be unhappy about it. It's just the way it is. Sometimes the remaining time here in Australia seems to be so little. Doris will be here in July/August, then Silvia wants to come and travel down the West coast with me in October and November. And then it's almost x-mas and almost time to go somewhere else and eventually to Germany and finally back to San Franicsco after that. But x-mas is in7 months! I don't know if I can spent so mucht time in the wilderness of Australia. I wanna be fancy! I spent five minutes in a shop the other day wearing beautiful lace hightheel shoes, looking in the mirrow and thinking "this is what I used to wear when I went out, now I am only wearing flip-flops". Oh well, you can tell that I am having a bit of a strange day. It'll change again. And I am really happy that I have decided to go to Australia, it is a beautiful piece of earth, and I love it here, though I know that I could never live here.

Okay, I got to go now and pitch a tent, yes, I am gonna afford a campside tonight and not sleep in the car anymore and go and have a shower in the public bathrooms like I did it for the last few days. What luxury! Hopefully we are gonna find a flat soon (Stef, Bron and Em want to move into one sooner or later), at least before I have to go back to Airlie, it would be so much nicer to have a home here in Cairns, even only for 10 days. Anyways, take it easy guys. I miss you too much today! Love, Jeanine

After a month...

... a little bit more money in my pockets, but still recovering from 4 weeks of work, work, work. Basically I got up at 7.15 in the morning, then worked all day and went to bed at about 22. 30. Every day. At least I got enough sleep, nevertheless, after three weeks I walked around like a Zombie. And felt like one, too.
But that's all over now, and since 2 days I am in Cairns, I met up with Stef again, sleeping in the car again, and am very happy to ABSOLUTELY DO NOTHING!!!
I spent all day today reading, writing, drinking coffee, and maybe I will go to the movies later.
Work on the yacht is fun. I got on with the captain well (he gave me a payrise after 4 days, because he's been really impressed by my work!), also with the new deckhand, who started working 2 days after I got on the boat. The chef though was a pain in the you know where, I ended up calling him the schizophrenic chef, 'cause he thought or at least wanted to make everybody believe that he's the first officer, who also does a little bit of enineering work and is responsible for the boat when the captain is away. Thank god you can't fool me (haaa!) and I saw straight through him and anyway, after we finished our charters he left the boat 2 days earlier as he was supposed to (he was to quit anyway) because he's been caught buying herbal man's tablets (aka Aphrodisiac) with the boat money.
We had a good laugh and opened a bottle of champagne.
The owner of the boat is cool aswell. Nice guy. He threw me off the tender by speeding it up to good knows how may k's per hour and then alter coursing. Off, I flew in the sea and got out with a concussion and two legs covered in bruises. It was worth the fun. Next thing I know I'm playing beach volleyball with the guests on Whiteheaven Beach, ending up having a heat stroke at night. I had a lot of fun, but being a full time employee for this guy would probably cost me a few months of my life, at least .... (I'm not talking about being totally humiliated during two nights of karaoke I had to attent... :-)
I am in Cairns now for two weeks, then go back to Airlie Beach, back to Aurora. Our next charter is the end of June, and I can stay and make some money working normal hours until then. After the charter I will leave the boat, 3 months of work will be then already over.
Hope to hear from you all soon!
Love,
Jeanine
Photos will follow once I'm back in Airlie. Haven't got them with me.