- Date: April 20, 1987
- Location: Cairns, Queensland, Australia
- Subject: Kina and Awls-NOT Owls.
Dear WaterFairy:
OK, after a really fun weekend, Sacha-B is back on the pilings and we are back to normal, which really means back to getting ready for our trip. Today, Capt had 4 things on his “honey do” list:
1). Get off the boat for at least 4 hours so Mom could finish organizing the stores.
2). Take me with him…..hahahaha
3). Get some Papuan money at the bank
4). Get an awl at the craft store, which is a special needle used to mend and sew the sails.
Numbers 1 and 2 were easy, we just jumped into “DingDong” after breakfast and headed across the creek. Of course, I was at the helm. I know Capt thinks it is very important that I practice as much as I can, handling the dinghy, but sometimes I think he is a bit jealous because he is not driving the dinghy. “DingDong” is one of his favorite little toys. First, we went to the post office to collect our mail. The post office is one of my favorite places to go, it is a bit like Christmas, will we get mail? Who sent us something? It’s exciting to see if we got any mail. As usual, Mom got a bunch of letters from Gram, her friend Katie and Trisha, her brother California, Uncle Stephen. I also got a letter from California Uncle Stephen. Capt didn’t get much in the order of letters, and he knows why. If you don’t send letters, you will not get letters.
Then it was off to the craft store, which Capt called the “Haberdashery”. It was near the laundromat, Rusty’s market and by a stroke of good luck for me, a few doors down from Mozart’s Pastry Shop. We got the awl, which is a big needle attached to a wooden round handle. It has a sharp point on the end with an eye for the thread to go through. Capt said he would show me how to use it later, and that I could practice on some scrap sail cloth. Looks like fun to me. We did pop into the pastry shop and sat outside at a small table on the sidewalk. I had a gorgeous chocolate cake and chocolate milk shake, which was cold and yummy. Capt had….guess what?? Pot-o-tea!! Of course, the tea at the shop was not as good as the stuff he gets on board Sacha-B! blah blah blah……
The last stop on the way to the dinghy was the Australian Bank. We waited in line for a few minutes, then went to a man at the desk. Capt filled out some paperwork, which seemed like a year’s worth of homework. Capt gave the bank $300 of Australian money and we got back $ 225 kina. The bank also charged us $5 for the exchange. Capt made sure he had a good stash of smaller kina bills, ones, fives and tens, for shopping at markets and stores, where making change might be difficult. We could not get any coins because the bank only deals with paper money. Mom told me that the coins are similar to Australian coins but instead of being called cents they are called toea. She also said that their one kina coin, which is like our one dollar coin, has a hole in the middle of it. That is crazy, I can wait to get my hands on a few kina coins and make a necklace with them. We will be using the toea and kina when we get to Papua New Guinea..
When we got back to Sacha-B, Mom was finished organizing and reorganizing the boat. You could never tell that there was months and months of food stored all around the boat. Capt got some sail cloth scraps out and was showing me how to make some stitches with the awl. He made the scraps 4 layers thick, because any repairs we would be making would probably be through 4 or more layers of sail cloth. Then he told me to measure and mark dots every half inch on the material. This was going to be our stitch line and will help keep the stitches the same size. I practiced for about an hour, it is not hard but it is time consuming and a little bit fussy. A good strong stitch is important to keep the sewing strong and the sail together..
We all sat around to enjoy our hor’devours at happy hour and Mom read all of her letters out loud, twice. I read Uncle California Stephen’s letter out loud too. He always has funny stories in his letters, and he also draws maps and pictures of things he is describing. His letter had a map and drawing of his new apartment. I will be able to write to him tomorrow and get the letter in the post before we go off sailing into the China Sea.
After dinner, Ivy and Brian from Tikani, came over for a visit. They used to live in Papua New Guinea for many years and even brought up their 4 kids in Rabaul, Papua New Guinea. The grown ups did a lot of talking of boats, anchorages, islands and things to be aware of. And LOTS of funny stories about living in Papua New Guinea. Sounds like their kids had tons of fun.
When I am finished writing this, I will go to bed and do some more reading of “Mary Poppins”. I am getting close to the end, which I do not like. I do not like it when a book ends, but I do have other books to read. Tomorrow is another big day, because we are hauling Sacha-B out of the water and putting her on the hard stand in the boatyard for a few days. I have never been involved with this, so it will be interesting to see how it is done.
