KatieKat 2001 Cruise Chapter One

This is the first webpage of our cruise covering the year 2001. The purpose of the cruise webpages is to let family and friends know what is going on in our lives. The "Interest" column identifies the target audience, and is intended to spare you baby-picture slide-show agony. This is one long continuous page, and clicking on any of the underlined dates above should jump your screen to the appropriate section on this page (or you can use the scrollbar on the right to navigate up and down this page). Good luck and let me know of any bugs, as I'm also this site webmaster ...uh, webslave... uh, webapprentice (I know just enough to be dangerous, but am sticking to writing this from scratch instead of using a Web authoring software program). Joe Siudzinski

21 February, 2001 -- Attacked by Mozzies

After a month of recuperation from our trip home, we're finally on the move (albeit, slowly). Spent three days exploring the shallow-water inside passage from Moreton Bay down to Southport, on the Gold Coast.

Still experimenting with various ways of carrying BikeBoat - this scheme intent on intimidating anyone in front of us. Note the new veggie plants on the dock which Kathy was watering. Not shown are the two bicycles which, attached to the lifelines, really peg us as cruisers.

The Royal Queensland Yacht Squadron has a beautiful site at Canaipa Point, and graciously invited us to stop by. A beautiful setting, a large swimming pool, and great shower facilities, surrounded by huge lawns ... and mangroves.

KatieKat's mast can be seen in the background. We had a great refreshing swim, clean showers, and hosted zillions of Australian mozzies - we were eaten alive! My shirtless bod shows dozens of spots just from the BikeBoat ride from KatieKat to the dock and the walk to the pool. Our faces were punctured by the mozzies that landed while we were swimming, and our legs look as though we had measles. We spent the worst night ever on our screen-less boat, with thousands of the little buggers buzzing in the stifling heat making it impossible to sleep.

The only good mozzie is a dead mozzie. After that horrible night, our vacuum cleaner executed all the remaining culprits (I really got good at midair slurping). Still vacuuming out the carcasses a week later.

Click here to go back to top of page

16 February, 2001 -- Brisbane Botanical Gardens

This was the week for visiting vegetation. Checked out the Brisbane Botanical Gardens where Kathy went happily dancing through all the exhibits while I admired the hordes of really tame lizards.

A pond by the Japanese Garden

Happy girl loving the bonsai collection.

This Eastern Water Dragon let me get right up next to it for this photo.

Click here to go back to top of page

14 February, 2001 -- Lamington National Park

Spent a couple of days hiking through the rainforest of this lovely park. Not far from the ocean and at 3000ft altitude, it was a great St. Valentine's Day getaway.

This walkway is suspended halfway up the trees, allowing one of us to admire nature whilst the other was doing a quick stress analysis while recalling rigging tests done by a sailing magazine which showed ordinary cable clamps were the first to fail...

Nice views during the hike

A posh St. Valentine's Day breakfast at O'Reilley's at the Park.

Friendly tweeties.

Cute

Self portrait.

Click here to go back to top of page

12 February, 2001 -- Radar Installed

Still at Manly, busy installing boat toys, going for daysails, and making like tourists. Taking the train into Brisbane is sure convenient.

Mounted the radar scanner on the lower spreaders, off to one side as it is too large to fit between the mast and the diamond. Kathy's getting her workout winching me up repeatedly.

Continuing the philosophy of being able to position the electronics anywhere, the radar control unit is happily sitting on the table in this photo. I can also move it in front of either steering station, or down below into my study, or onto the tv tray at the foot of the master bunk. When not needed (in port) I simply disconnect it and all the other nav instruments and put them away, with all the wiring coiling up out of sight in the battery compartment.

Think I'll start a collection of Australian billboard ads.

Click here to go back to top of page
Click here to go to KatieKat the Cat webpage.

1 February, 2001 -- Rainy Day

Well, the dogs and cats are raining out of the skies, so the most productive activity is to fix up this website while nicely sheltered from the elements in the main saloon (without even putting in the back screen door - the wind is on the nose). Bought a couple of old folding mountain bikes a few days ago - Kathy's happy, as she found that the six-mile round trip hike to the large supermarket in the neighboring town was cutting into her reading time.

So, how many sailboat cockpits can accommodate a couple of bikes with lots of room to spare? Here, they're out of the rain. Those are BikeBoat's pieces on the right, and I borrowed BikeBoat's yellow crate to use as a bicycle grocery carrier - so uncool.

Despite being totally drenched, Kathy's happy because: (1) she just took a shower, (2) the boat's tied to the dock in this gale, (3) she has a bicycle

Mean Machine in the yacht club parking lot.

Click here to go back to top of page

26 January, 2001 -- Celebration

This date happens to be Australia Day, which commemorates Australia becoming a federation - this year was the centennial celebration. Coincidentally, it is our first wedding anniversary (or is it the other way around?), so we took the train to Brisbane, toured the art museum, watched the Australia Day parade, had a great dinner in an Irish pub, and then took in the fantastic fireworks show over SouthBank, before going back home to KatieKat on a crowded train.

Nice old cars as part of the parade

Dancers were also part of the parade

Spectacular

Click here to go back to top of page

21 January, 2001 -- Flight to Summer and Website Musings

Just as the winter power shortages were beginning in California, we flew back to Brisbane on Japan Air Lines with a six-hour layover in Tokyo/Narita. Roughly 30-hours door-to-hatch. Brought four more blue boxes (my 'designer' luggage) full of boat toys - one of which is a wind-generator, further ensuring independence from any power grids.

Boat survived our absence just fine with only a couple of bent aft railings.

We had spent a wonderful Thanksgiving, Christmas, and New Years visiting family and friends, hosted by close friends Marya and Lee who put us up (and put up with us) for two months.

Alec's 21st birthday on Thanksgiving Day, with a happy mom looking on - a week before, while in the middle of the Coral Sea, I didn't think I'd make it in time!

New Year's morning.

After the holidays, the grim reality of trying to get everything in order so that administratively things will continue to work for the entire year - not to mention trying to get the taxes done ahead of time - was indeed a most exhausting exercise.

Unscrambling nine months' worth of non-junk mail.

While home for the holidays, we found it quite interesting talking with friends, family, and sailors regarding this website. Some of the observations are:

• Very few friends have the time to read this site in-depth. Most just skim the material to see what's happening
• It's the sailors who are interested in and really read all the gory details of the sailing misadventures - the non-sailors think we're nuts
• Naturally, it's the family that enjoys all the touristy travelogue stuff
• Strangely, the mix of responses wanting more photos and less writing was about equally balanced by those who wanted more writing and fewer photos
• Most people still have relatively slow telephone modem connections, so loading speed is important - in recognition of this, I will have shorter individual webpages and will refrain from getting fancier with stuff such as wiggling graphics and multimedia

I continue to appreciate the e-mailed feedback I've been receiving from total strangers regarding this site and I'm happy so many people have found it interesting and informative. Although I have no business connection with Seawind, I am always happy to respond to queries from prospective Seawind owners.

Click here to go back to top of page

Click here to return to KatieKat Home Page