Matilda's Journey: January Newsletter, 2018

News from the Crew of Matilda

January 2018

Ships log ~ Matilda continues to be on the hard stand at Pangkor Marina in Malaysia. There has been a lot of torrential rain in Pangkor during December last year which continued into the New Year hampering efforts for our paid workmen. Islam and his team have been working very hard removing all the old antifoul off her hull. We are certain work on Matilda will be complete upon our return February 1. We are looking forward to splashing back in February after we repaint her underbelly, fix her broken bits so we can sail up to Thailand to join friends.

Captain Bruce, inspecting Matilda as she sits on the Sea Lift machine.

Crew log ~ the end of January see’s our time home come to an end. We came home to lick our wounds mid-November. The time has been well spent and we have thoroughly enjoyed being home. We have caught up with land based friends, sailing friends and soaked up loads of family time. Even enjoying some house maintenance. The dominoes game: Mexican Train Dominoes certainly had everyone enthralled.

Lisa and Bruce sprucing up the out door setting.

Deb with Catherine off CatchCry. It was so good to catch up with our mates.

We had a sensational day thanks to an old work mate of Debs. We went to the local hot rod meet. Bruce loved every bit of it and a few of the kids came as well. A great morning.

Our bikie family at the Hot Rod meet.

Victoria Point, Hot Rods.

Captain reminiscing of days spent in his youth.

Great memories of spending long days with Doug & Britt. A highlight was touring around old favorite haunts of Mt. Tamborine and enjoying some new ones. Chatting for hours and eating American style beef ribs & burgers at one of their local favourite restaurants and catching up with their two hounds: Charger & Hemi. And not to mention the enormous lamington ‘pie’. It was massive!

Doug & Britt at O'Reilly's winery at Canungra. One our favourite places to go.

On the way home we stopped at The Bearded Dragon Hotel for a cuppa and one huge lamington.

One little man we will miss is Lisa & Reece’s fur baby: Romeo. He is the most adorable little dog. Romeo turned 1 while we were home and his playfulness kept us entertained daily, we especially loved psycho hour! Due to the mild heat and humidity we decided to walk as much as we could in the mornings with him. Romeo certainly loved this time of the day. Although we don’t think he was too sure about his home grooming experience. Talk about laugh – he is such a good little pup.

This was part of the walking path we enjoyed each morning.

Romeo's first home grooming experience with Lisa, Tamara and Tom.

Every morning Romeo would sit and wait ever so patiently for us to take him on his walk.

Maisy, the cat took some time to warm up to us at first then we couldn’t get her out of our room. She loved sitting on our window sill soaking up the afternoon sun or laying between our pillows. Then as we were leaving she loved sitting in our bags as we packed.

Miss Maisy in one of our bags.

During our time home we did loads of running around for Matilda gathering things we just can’t find/buy in Asia, so our bags back were full to the brim and right on our weight limit. We did bring a heap of clothing and items back home that we just don’t use to lighten Matilda, but it seems we are taking equal weight back!

One item we are excited to use was the Hookah. Its a dive unit without air tanks. You dive with air hoses connected to a compressor which is connected to a battery. Back in June 2017 we used a friends Hookah while in Tioman and Bruce was very impressed. With the help of Reece we bought a unit for our self, back in December. The great thing was we got to test our unit, thanks to Helen & Lester. They very kindly let us load it all on board their lovely boat Joule. We had a lovely sail down to Peel Island and loads of fun testing out the unit.

Bruce and Lester off the stern of Joule testing the dive Hookah.

It was marvelous being home for the Christmas vacation period and seeing family & friends. Christmas Day was a special day spent with lots of visitors coming and going through the day. Bruce certainly was surprised to see Santa had bought him a drone – now there’s something for him to master! Little Romeo certainly made us laugh running around in his Santa suit.

Poor Romeo in his Santa Suit - he hated it and chewed it every chance he could.

Miss Maisy enjoying Christmas.

Australia Day was spent swimming and eating a wonderful BBQ spread with Tim & Jo, friends of Lisa and Reece’s and it was great to have Doug and Britt with us. The pool was fantastic.

Doug draped in the Australian Flag

Tim & Jo's pool.

We got to enjoy quite a few swims this time home while visiting family and friends. It was certainly hot a lot of the time so the swims were a great way to cool down and have loads of fun.

Enjoyed a day with Aunty Nee in her pool.

This time in Reece's parents pool. We had a great day with Jan, Kevin and Alana.

It was good timing for a Facebook gathering as I belong to the group: Women Who Sail Australia – WWSA. A lunch had been organized as a Christmas get together and we were in time to attend. It’s always fantastic to put faces to names you have been chatting with for some time online. I find these women inspirational and comforting at the same time. Many great friendships have been formed due to this group of women.

WWSA's gathered for lunch at Moreton Bay Trailer Boat Club.

Bruce’s 60th birthday was a very special evening spent with family and friends. Lunch was was a lovely treat, cooked by Reece. The birthday weekend was made even more special by having Tamara and Tom come up from Melbourne to join us. Tamara’s speech certainly left most of us with watery eyes, it was a lovely heart felt speech. And the birthday cake was very impressive thanks to the efforts of Alana – Reece’s twin. The two tiered chocolate cake was sensational. Good food was in abundance and kept us in left overs for next 3 days!