Collecting plastic garbage from our waters

The children have been on a mission to collect and dispose the garbage that floats in the water around the marina. Seeing plastic trash litter the shores of pristine islands, thousands of miles from anywhere, left an impression. We might talk about the impact of consumption and pollution around the main cabin table now and again. They understand well the threat it poses to marine life and ocean health, and see our marina as a point they can intercept this junk before it is carried out to sea.

Here they are with a bucket full of one day's collection

We keep our kayak floating at the bow for easy access, so it's often a convenient place to toss an errant bottle found floating near the jetty.

An overfull kayak, with the wrong kind of cargo

It accumulates at a rapid pace,especially when runoff from rainfall adds to the volume of floating trash. For a while, they kept a log of the quantity and type of garbage, plotting it against tides and weather.

Rainfall brings plant material... and styrofoam

Siobhan found the complete packaging for an Apple computer, right down to the shipping label. I wondered what would happen if we returned it to the rightful owner?

 

Box full of more styrofoam. No computer.

After a call from our neighbor Peter on s/v Kittani, Ian Kiernan came down to meet them one day. He's a former BOC sailor, and Aussie environmentalist. Dismayed by the garbage he saw floating in the world's oceans, he started a movement in Australia that earned him the the Order of Australia. The recognition by an adult outside our circle for what they've been doing meant so much to the children! That picture at the top? They're proud of what they're doing, and I think it shows. 

Aussieisms: the queue

The orderliness of queuing for public transportation in Sydney almost equally charming and puzzling. I cannot imagine this happening in... SO many places, I get a giggle out of it pretty much every time. Even the little bus stops with 3 people waiting in our residential corner of Sydney, people line up. It's sweet, but is it really necessary? Is it mindless habit or genuine courtesy?




Here, in the dark, in the rain... is a long line that stretches behind the sheltered bus stop. I'm usually the person without an 'brolly who dives for the shelter.

Camping! Cricket! Kangaroos!

A few weekends ago, we were included with a group of families who get together for camping fun a few times a year. What a treat! We knew from last our failed attempt at camping (we were rained out after one night) last January that the kids loved it, but hadn't had the right impetus to try.  This one included 14 adults and over 20 kids.



Our campsite was a beautiful private property along a river in the tablelands west of the blue mountains. The children were off at the barest crack of dawn, and came back with excited tales of kangaroos, birds, and a possible platypus sighting.



The river had just enough current to carry an air mattress for rides.



Jamie set up a ropes course.



Most kids found it easier to cross with shoes. Mairen is not most kids.




 Each family had responsibility for one meal- this worked very nicely.



There were horses, walking right through the campsite! This is Mairen's idea of heaven.




There were cricket lessons. Literal lessons, and cultural ones. Did you know, to say something is 'cricket' is to say it's fair? If it's not cricket... it's not fair. Stemming from the history as a gentleman's game?



And lessons in retrieving the cricket ball from a fetch-happy border collie.



Many more pictures on Flickr.

The continuing saga of the marina geese

A few weeks ago I wrote about the heartbreaking state our resident marina gander, Peter. He was in deep mourning for his longtime mate Paul.

The crew in the marina and shipyard decided something needed to be done, and new geese were acquired in a mission that included the children, who trekked to a farm well outside Sydney to find him new friends. The mission was for three but somehow, four came back.  All were promptly named by the kids, of course.

It was decided that they should be held in a pen at the shipyard for a week to ensure they associated the location with food (e.g.- "home") and wouldn't take off once released.


The children with Steve, the marina caretaker, checking on geese in the pen.

To ease the situation for Peter, one goose at a time would be released over a period of several days- giving him time to adjust.  The geese- or more accurately, ganders, as they are all male- are less than a year old but full size. They were patient with the marina pen. The first to come out was George.

George follows Peter everywhere like an obedient puppy.

Things went pretty well- Peter mostly ignored him, but they stayed together. Ben was next.


Ben hits the water.

He and George hit it off, but Peter continued his obsessive post-Paul behavior of talking to his reflection and wasn't terribly sociable.


It's so sad! He talks to himself, even.

There was a little bit of drama when Jerry escaped when the geese remaining in the pen were being fed. He doesn't swim very well, and took off without a backward glance at the marina. It took some chasing and coaxing but eventually he was returned to the shipyard.


Coaxing geese back with bread.

They're doing OK now. Peter was truly unpleasant to Ben (or maybe it was Jerry... I can't tell them apart!) in the beginning, but has backed off. Trying to assert his dominance, maybe? His alpha-gander status? Any Goose Psychologists out there? For now, they seem to be have a group identity.


Snoozing on the rails in the shipyard. They really do have two legs each.

Out for the weekend

This past year has been a relatively land-oriented one for us...it's also been one that once again gave "weekday" and "weekend" definition in our lives. When started to get cold last winter (yes... Australia does have winter), we really went into hibernation. With Totem at the dock, her crew bundled up, our lives felt very different than they had for the prior few years. Our circle of weekend activity involved trips to the garden, or the library, or some Sydney-side destination... very different from the open ended explorations we'd been accustomed to, poking around the corners of our watery habitat.

How nice to have spring arrive to warm us all up, and get us out exploring again. We welcomed it by getting off the dock to anchor in a quiet bay for the weekend not long ago with our neighbors on s/v Kittani. After a season of many enjoyable evenings spent playing cards below deck, keeping warm, it was nice to shift to the cockpit. It is amazing how many corners of Sydney Harbour can make you feel like your are far, far from the madding crowd.


Close to the city of Sydney, but feeling far away


We couldn't quite ditch our "jumpers" (Aussie for sweater) yet.


The girls having a laugh during afternoon tea in Kittani's cockpit.

The children went for a swim. I worried about sharks the entire time. It's not irrational, even in the protected inner bays of Sydney Harbour.


Still a little chilly, but no wetsuits required.

Coming back from a dinghy exploration, we circled around rocks popping up at low tide and temporarily marooned them. This was met with lots of King of the Hill fun, but ended a bit prematurely by sharp oysters.


I still worried about sharks. Love them, but respect them.

It's warmer and warmer. We had a scorcher recently that even cracked 100*F! We're back to "normal" spring temps in the low 70s now... but feeling summer right around the corner... and feeling many more bays beckon for anchoring.

Things to love about Australia: Clivia

I was reminiscing to my friend Joan the other day about White Flower Farm. We used to get their catalog, back when we had a garden that benefited from a good chunk of of our weekend efforts. I'd drool over the entries in their glossy pages and dream about the showstopper of a garden I'd have someday. It's fabulous dream fodder.

One flower I remember in particular, Clivia, was sold as an indoor flowering plant. You can spend about $90 with White Flower Farm for a 7" pot that will flower if you can keep it alive for another 2-3 years. You can even get special editions of the flower for about $800. Yes, eight hundred dollars! (You still have to wait a few years for blooms. Sorry.)

Still, I thought, someday I'll have a flower like that. But you know what? It turns out they grow like WEEDS here in Australia! They're ground covers in public parks. They pop up along the hillside behind the marina. They're used in large shady tracts around neighborhood yards. And they are beautiful: even more than the catalog suggested. I'm not sure if I'll ever have one, but I'm enjoying them all around me.

Here's our $800 "weed". I'm going to try and save a few seeds and send them to Joan. Her husband Rainer has a talent for nurturing amazing life from seeds... he specializes in bonsai but I think he'll humor this. If you're still here with me, check out Joan's blog, and send her a little light.

One year in Australia!

Time flies- it's such a cliché, but it's true. One year ago today, we made landfall in Australia.

What a year!


Niall waves an Aussie flag from the deck of M/V Further on Australia Day- January 2010