Another easy day. I started painting in the morning and forgot to make lunch till afternoon.
Had a good afternoon nap and did some research on Virginia Woolf’s life. I wanted to know what kind of life did a woman who wrote such beautiful words live. The facts made me sad. Although she was born in an well to do family, she experienced sexual abuses from her stepbrothers. Her parents died when she’s still quite young. She suffered from depression since then. At 59, she filled her pockets with stones and jumped into the river and died…. The lighthouse enlightened her readers but failed to lead her to move on.
At sunset, I caught another yellowtail scad, made a pot of delicious fish curry laksa, and my cooking skills finally became stable again.
09/07/2020
Since arriving at Great Keppel Island, we haven’t been off the boat yet, just sheltered from the wind for several days. After lunch, the wind was weaker and we went to the island to experience the famous walking track here. Landing on Second Beach, there is a sailors Christmas tree, covered with colourful lifebuoys and floating things.
Walking around a rocky corner, we entered the bush and started tracking towards high point. There are A few green plastic chairs on the side is the track, always in pair. And you will find guiding stones on the ground, some with poems, some with sayings, and there is one with ‘Godot’s bus stop’ written on it. Just when we were lookIng at the blue butterflies at the stop, ‘Godot’ did came! A guy driving an off-road battery cars with bags of supplies passing through the path and stopped to greet us and talk about butterflies.” It’s funny that we walked in the bush for hours but hadn’t met anyone at all, and we met ‘Godot‘ in the ‘bus’ at this “bus stop”.
It‘s getting late so we went back to the boat.
At sunset, I caught a yellowtail scad again, which was similar to what I caught last night. It was a mystery how I caught the fish last night, because the hook is not in the mouth, but in the forehead of the fish. looks like it crashed into the hook… Steamed double fish with soy sauce, ginger and spring onion tonight. It says steam eight minutes on high heat, the result is a bit overdone, will try five minutes next time. (My friend told me later the best way is steam for 6mins and turn off heat but still cover with lid for 30 seconds.)
08/07/2020
Today, the wind was still very strong so we did not go ashore. Last night, J made a device to reduce the rolling of the boat, and named it ‘Le anti-roll device’ or ‘LARD’. It is simply using the Spinnaker Pole and the halyard to lift the submerged bucket on the side of the boat. When the side of the boat is rolling upward, the bucket pulls downward and the hull will stabilize quickly. It is quite effectIve. If the boat is is rolling next time, we will say ‘hang up the LARD’.
Tonight, I made a large pot of warm pumpkin soup to go with freshly baked bread.
Sea Journal 