Sunday, July 8, 2012

Right, a few more details about the great flotilla expotition to find the North Pole or East Kangaroo island (whichever came first). The wind set fair for France, the day we embarked... (true. So long as you don't mind taking the long route) After causing some wallowing when we loaded Peter's boat with 6 people and dive gear for 3 we took two boats. Unfortunately boat 1 took off like a rat up a drainpipe, and did not realise that boat two was sitting at the jetty suffering a serious dose of flat battery and electric start. They did see us coming along their wake... only it wasn't us. It took getting a battery out of the Ute to get it going (and no, pull starting 110 horse motor did not work). By this stage yours truly's toes had froze and I barely noticed them getting nipped by a rising boat and not rising jetty ladder. I notice now. Anyway, had a nice run out once we got going, with wonderful airconditioning (aka evaporative cooling off the drips from the bimini). The divers went into various caves and crannies and found... not a crayfish. The fishermen drifted sans sounder and did not hit any rocks. No fish, no rocks either. We did get a few flathead in the end but it was not a great day for fish. Still it was beautiful out and Barbs did get her first gummy shark (I always want to throw them back, but they are popular trading items.)

6 comments:

  1. Looks like the forecast is for Cool and Rainy for the next week or so there on Flinders Island. Amazing what a quick google search will turn up. :)

    I've been hearing that your form of natural AC (boats moving on the water) is proving fairly popular on the American Eastern half right now. They are still struggling in many areas to get the power back on a week after a massive storm system blew through about a third of the US on June 29th, which would be bad enough in itself.

    On top of the power outages much of the middle and eastern parts USA is dealing with a record breaking heatwave with temps over 100F/37.7C for most of the week and high humidity. Folks that live in homes designed for artificial AC, not breezes and natural cooling are getting GRUMPY with the continued power outages as the utilities have to restring hundreds of miles of cables from the multitude of line breaks caused by down trees.

    I bet you could write up a great little essay on ways they could help themselves stay cool but the ones that really need it won't have the internet access to read it...

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    1. danneely has pegged. Open as much of your house as possible at night. close everything (especially curtains) just after dawn. If you have water, wet the roof down at about 11-12 o'clock

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  2. The whole get up at the crack of dawn to remove all the window fans and seal the house up while it's still full of cool night air bit probably won't appeal to a lot of those people either. Some might be desperate enough to try by now though...

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    1. you know what I found oddest about the US? You guys all have bug screens on your doors and windows(as they do in Oz but not South Africa) but no one ever opens a window :-)

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    2. That's what AC is for silly.

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    3. I open mine most evenings and overnight in except in the winter...

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