Fah Kiew Tu

Heh - sugar is one thing we definitely *don't* need. We bought a shit-ton a couple months back in preparation for making a year's supply of apricot jam. Well, the sailing has been good so the apricots are halved & in the freezer and the sugar is still in the pantry. Making jam can wait a bit longer. Now the plums are about done but the apples are pretty much ready to pick - provided the bloody parrots don't get them all first. Running out of freezer space though - a year's supply of blackberries & raspberries along with the stone fruit. Lots of potatoes ready to harvest too. Forecast is looking good so we might go back down the Channel & do some fishing. FKT

2 cruise ships in Hobart port yesterday when I drove up. Saw them as I was coming down the Southern Outlet and thought to myself - WTF???? Yes we have to allow them to refuel and load supplies if necessary. We don't have to allow pax ashore though. Going to be interesting if the Bass Strait ferry stops carrying pax for a while. Might stop my annual winter migration to Sydney but if things are at that point, shrug, better do it than not. I've only about 20 years of backlogged projects right here. Might need more firewood though. FKT

Tilman had no problems with the Patanela - they did their Heard Island expedition & back without excessive drama. It was later on that it disappeared off of the east coast of NSW. Tilman and others were lost at sea after leaving Uruguay (IIRC) on En Avant heading for the Falkland Islands. I have all Tilman's books mostly in original editions because that combo volume is missing a lot of the photos. FKT

Not defending the big employers but the small ones generally *are* in a different category. Another forum I hang on there are a lot of small manufacturing job shops employing 1 to maybe 20 people. They say their margins are so fine that they literally cannot afford to pay people to stay home, their cash flow doesn't allow it. You can argue all you ike that they should charge more so they can pay more but guess what - the tier 2 and higher buyers just go to China instead. Partly because the US buying public is addicted to cheap shit from the likes of Walmart. In a case like this the general tax revenue not the small employers should be funding the sick leave payments. But then I live in a socialist country so what would I know.... FKT

Still got a pretty good 'emergency' stash of goodies left over from deep ocean voyages including a couple jars of Gourlays Raspberry Drops. Great stuff when it's blowing a F11 with 20m seas for over a week. Lie in bunk, read books and eat junk food. Probably taking the boat out for a few days again soon. Excellent way of staying away from masses of people and maybe - if she who fishes has her way - supplementing the food supply. FKT

My GF has a Trangia she used a hell of a lot when she did a lot of bushwalking. Quite familiar with metho stoves. They have a lot of advantages, utter simplicity being one of them. But they're quite poor in heat value and really expensive - at least here in Oz - for fuel. That said I think stoves are one of those individual preference things - there are no definitive 'right' answers, just what you're happy with and how much space you have. I'm certainly not knocking your choice of something different to what I wanted and agree on the stew choice for cooking regardless. It's also easier/simpler to carry more liquid fuel than the mass/volume of LPG cylinders. I wanted an oven with decent temperature control among other things and am prepared to live with the very small risk of a gas explosion. FKT

Agree, they were quite within their rights to insist on knowing that. But actions have consequences. FKT

No, decades ago NZ told the USA that there'd be no more port calls by the USN unless they declared the ships nuclear weapons free. The US Govt predictably said fuck off, we don't say. And downgraded military cooperation with NZ. Actions have consequences. FKT

Mine is too and every so often I do test it. I did my installation which is technically illegal but I *know* where the pipe goes, how it's protected and am absolutely certain there's no joins in it from the fitting on deck right through to the stove fitting. Had an alarm go off the other day while out sailing. That got my attention fast. As it happened it was just the main bilge alarm - I'd washed down under the engine with degreaser & fresh water, got most of it out but not all. And a big mobo came past at close quarters for a stickybeak, the wake caused the alarm to trigger for 2-3 seconds. At least I know it still works. FKT

NZ basically said a big 'fuck you' to the USA decades ago in a feel-good move. Actions have consequences, sometimes decades later. Of course in the current regime it'd make no difference as Trump has no concept of honour, loyalty or keeping agreements. FKT

This. But Gissie is right, NZ has basically rolled over for China. Small country, no leverage, little choice. But still not great. FKT

When I decided to fit a LPG stove rather than a kerosene one, the *first* thing I did was fit a combined LPG/carbon monoxide sniffer, hard-wired through its own dedicated fuse direct to the house battery bank. You can't turn it off short of pulling the fuse or the batteries being dead flat. It has a LED so you can see it's drawing power. Someone once observed that they'd rather take the very small chance of a LPG explosion than the utter certainty of dying of boredom while waiting for a metho stove to cook anything/boil water. It was the continual maintenance needed for kero stoves that put me off installing one. Plus the PITA factor when you want to light the second burner while the first one is still on. My friends have one, they're happy with it, but my, it has a lot of custom features for fast/reliable burner changes at sea. We had a lot of fun machining those parts last summer. FKT

Dunno about that. I'm pretty happy keeping my boat on its heavy duty mooring out the front of my house. Of course if the average boat drags down on mine, it's going to be their problem not mine WRT broken gear & damaged hull. Plus I can fix everything that can go wrong or get damaged on mine anyway. FKT

What about the time to get the plasma cutter out, disassemble it and cart it off to the metal recyclers? I wouldn't take that for free even if delivery to my place was included. FKT

That would be a first. FKT

-25% IMO.

It's all good - told her my first wife was still the beneficiary. FKT

Panic appears to be over anyway. I just borrowed 2 weeks worth of reading & stopped at the supermarket while I was there to top up on supplies (been off sailing). Seemed to be adequate stocks of TP and no people trying to check out entire trolley loads. Of course this *is* Tasmania so I can think of at least 3 alternate scenarios..... FKT

There's something not right about that hull shape, even for a Swain boat. And I'm not talking about the excrescence on the top. Shame to see perfectly good material end up like that but if the owner thinks they'll get anything at all for that - they're dreaming. Of course it is in Queensland so who knows - the owner only needs to find *one* sucker... FKT

This is why we had 2 D rings fitted to our auto-inflate jackets, one in the chest area, the other at the nape of the neck. That one was for someone else to clip a line to if the MOB couldn't do it. And the jackets were fitted with crotch straps so they didn't just slide up and over the head. All with the intent of recovering injured or unconscious people as easily as possible. Most of us sail short-handed. There's no way my 58kg GF could hoist me aboard without mechanical advantage. FKT

Better make a sub-list of those with no dogs (or geese or native hens down here)... FKT

I cannot adequately express how happy I am that people like *you* don't have guns. Other than that, I agree - this fixation with stockpiling massive amounts of TP is kind of amusing but - why? We weren't going to run out. And as you say, there's more than one way to clean your arse. Maybe The Age will finally be good for something again if all else fails. Ah well. Back shoreside for a few days to resupply - we were running out of library books. Now if/when they shut down the libraries - that'll be a major PITA, might have to go to e-books. I have a pile of holds waiting for me to collect - might buy a few more cartons of UHT milk et al while I'm there if there's any left - haven't read about panic buying there. Ditto powdered milk & powdered coconut milk. Already have plenty of pasta, rice and various sauces & spices to last for months. Ditto fuel for the boat, chainsaw & generator if the power system takes another dump. Not like it's a rare & unusual event anyway. It's so much nicer sitting in an almost deserted anchorage reading a book and listening to the curses of she who must fish when she catches yet another undersized flathead than reading the doom & gloom online. Between fish, wallabies & kangaroo we'll all be good for animal protein if the supply chains get disrupted and that's not even counting all those penned salmon out there... For your sake & the others living in a city I hope the Govt gives decent advice/instructions about quarantine and infection control *and people follow it* because cities have always been major disease sinks and a lot of my close family live in Sydney, one of them working in a big teaching hospital. FKT

Yes, but then she'd have to find something else to misunderstand and feel that warm inner glow that comes from indulging in righteous outrage. FKT

Whatever. Of course most of us wouldn't do that because we'd know we'd be fucking up the people already there. We'd go somewhere else where there was room. In fact that's precisely what we do. But hey, do it your way. Just don't come and whine to me that I've too much chain out unless you're also prepared to take 100% responsibility for the result if the boat drags at 0200 on a moonless night after I shorten up to what *you* think I need. Which of course you won't do and in fact can't do. Crowded First World problem basically. FKT

FIFY. Thank Dog that I don't have to deal with crowded anchorages and people who want to tell me what I need to do to satisfy my desire to safeguard my boat by putting out "too much" chain. Look, you're not going to convince anyone, I'm pretty sure of that. FKT