American Spirit II - Day 210; Slept In, Laundry, Ordered Stuff, Dinner with 1/2 of Nexus, , Kangaroo on the Loose and Marina Tavern; Sunday, August 3, 2014

Up at 9:15 AM. I had closed the two shutters in my cabin; as a result it was pitch black, allowing me to sleep in. Once up I got coffee, then made breakfast. Breakfast today consisted of me cutting up a potato, adding spices and cooking it in olive oil in a skillet. Once the potatoes were cooked, I added the scrambled eggs and mixed them together. Along with the eggs and potatoes we had raisin bread with New Zealand butter. I mention New Zealand butter because it is the best butter we've had on our trip; and we're all convinced its actually addictive. Remember Coca-Cola and cocaine?

At 11:30 AM I took a shower at the marina showers, which were fabulous. Hot water and plenty of water pressure; plus each shower stall had a connected little room to sit down in and get dressed when done. Quite nice compared to the phone booth we shower in on the boat.

At 11:45 AM I helped Jeanine carry the gigantic laundry bag to the laundry, which was quite spacious and had a fair number of washers and dryers. Cost for a load of laundry was $4.00. We had 2 loads to do today. I had bought this laundry bag the day before in the general store. It is large enough to hold everyone's clothes on the boat plus all the sheets on the boat. It is HUGE. Beats carrying laundry in 4 stuffed pillow cases.

At 11:50 AM we emptied out the aft hold in the boat to take pictures of the auto pilot mechanism located there. I was going to order a new auto pilot to have on board as a spare. However, in the process we found out that the one I have on the boat is no longer made. Go figure. I'll have to order a different model than what I have. The negative is that we don't know if the two units, the old one and the new one, will be compatible, brackets wise and part for part if we want to substitute just one part of the old auto pilot. Russ from Nexus, an engineer, thinks that they will be. I happen to agree.

At 1:45 PM I bought some meats from the general store - hamburger (which the Australians call 'mince meat;' steak and chicken.

Jeanine was done with the laundry at 2:15 PM. We had hamburgers and chips, plus a 'dessert' cookie that Jeanine had bought,for a late lunch. Vanilla and chocolate. Joel cooked the hamburgers on the propane grill in the cockpit.

From 3:00 PM to 5:00 PM I walked around looking at some of the retail stores, returning to the boat at 5:15 PM; where I saw that Russ and Laurie from Nexus were visiting. Jeanine invited them to dinner, which was Chop Suey. Quite good. Good call Jeanine. I had a glass of wine, and poured one for Laurie, that was called 'Pink Moscato.' An Australian wine. VERY sweet. And it appeared to be carbonated. How unusual is that?

At 6:40 PM Russ, Laurie, Jeanine and I departed the boat for the non-denominational church services on top of a hill near the marina. The hike was fairly strenuous because we were in a hurry and didn't want to be late. And it was all steeply up hill. We arrived at 6:58 PM, two minutes before the 7:00 PM start of the services. The church was the size of a chapel, with 9 rows of pews and a central aisle down the middle. Could seat 72 people maximum. A nice service. The singing was helped by a recording that the priest played at the appropriate times.

On the way back to the marina area we saw a kangaroo off the road way. We suspected that it had escaped from the Wild Kingdom located nearby.

From 8:15 PM to 10:15 PM we had some beers at the Marina Tavern. Joel, who was on the boat, watched a movie from the hard drive that Russ had allowed him to copy from a computer on his boat. When I got back to the boat and saw the number of movies that the hard drive contained I was amazed. A LOT of movies.

Once back at the boat Joel and Jeanine went to bed at 11:00 PM. I followed at 11:30 PM. We have to get up really early tomorrow to go on our Crocodile Safari.

Brian Fox