Coopers Quest

[David Fox]

You cannot keep a good woman down, here is Nicky with her Christmas message.
Seasons Greetings all!

What a year this has been for everyone, us included. We are spending the festive season on solid ground this year, no water lapping at the side of the boat, no anchor watches just in case we drag, no listening to the weather predictions and laughing, knowing that it will never happen that way and hopefully no unexpected alarms going off in the middle of the night.

Instead we are keeping our fingers crossed for a lovely sunny day, staring out over green paddocks from our garden swings and wondering where the year went(it is summer here after all, though we did get snow just last month so who knows!) we don’t want to have to light a fire as Santa will burn his butt on the way down the chimney!

It was good after 2 epic years of sailing from Florida, through the Caribbean, Panama Canal and the Pacific islands to finally make it safely to Australian shores. It wasn’t quite the trip we had in mind when we first set sail, Covid made its entrance just 3 months after we set sail and wrecked our plans somewhat. We, like the entire world, had to rethink our plans and adjust to ever changing rules and regulations. Whilst many countries along the original planned route slammed their borders closed, a few remained open to us and, with extensive paper work, testing, quarantine etc. we were able to make our way slowly home - whilst it was arduous and expensive it was nothing compared to the difficulties many have had with not being able to get to see loved ones in their final days and families not being able to share those special occasions that memories are made of.

We were treated fairly and welcomed in all of the countries we did stop at and extend our thanks and Christmas greetings to all the lovely people we met along the way that made us welcome in their communities.

When we finally made it home to Tasmania, having left our boat in Queensland to clear customs and importing before going on the market, we were assailed by the prospect of whipping our property back into shape. When we arrived the house was in great condition, thanks to our neighbour who kept an eye on it for us, the spiders and flies had taken up residence inside and needed evicting and we needed to cut ourselves a pathway through the cobwebs and dust but the inside of the house was pretty much as we had left it.

The chimney was full of soot but a cold snap just after we got home saw us lighting the open fire and as the chimney didn’t burst into flames we think we have burnt off all the excess soot by now. 

The paddocks were a different matter, we have had them slashed on a regular basis whilst we have been gone but there was a lot of growth in the difficult to reach areas which we are gradually beating back - it’s much like the painting of the Sydney Harbour Bridge - you start at one end and by the time you get to the other it’s back to the start and repeat!

All of my flower and veggie patches were now weed patches with grass growing through them at waist height and roots that go down as far as China apparently. We have filled so many garden bags and done so many trips to the tip with trailer loads of weeds and garden garbage that the tip manager just waves us through the gate without even looking at our load and we still haven’t got more than half way through it yet. It’s much like eating an elephant, you just have to do it slowly and constantly, which isn’t helped by the La Niña weather pattern that we are currently experiencing, one day it’s shorts and tee shirts and the next 2 days it’s jeans, sweat shirts, raincoats, hats and gloves! We hope that by the new year it will settle into a few sunny days in a row so we can at least get the rest of the grass chopped back.

Each Australian state has different rules and regulations around Covid, there is a massive push for everyone to be vaccinated and the various states have implemented differing regulations as to who and how you can cross the border into their state making it very hard for many to travel and see family and friends over the festive season. Our daughter lives in Western Australia which has closed borders to every other state with exemptions for a few lucky (?) people, this means that we will not get to see her any time soon. Whilst we know that we are all well and able to cope it does beg the question of what effect this enforced separation has had on many families and the mental health of the nation as a whole, not to mention the economic outlook.

We have done more than our fair share of driving since returning home, I think we are making up for the time spent on the boat when we did very little road driving, I suspect that we could own the fuel company with the amount we have handed over for fuel in the past few weeks!

It has been bumped up with us joining a group of car enthusiasts who do a car run through the countryside every Wednesday for the hell of it. It’s a fun group who like to have coffee, do a drive, have lunch, do a further drive and stop for afternoon tea before heading home ( they are also in the age bracket of needing to know where all the toilets are along every route so we are in good company for a comfort stop or three!) Gerry bought himself a “project car” to take on these runs and is now spending his free time finding stuff to fix on this car- the tweaker/ tinker just can’t leave things be!

We went into town this morning to pick up a couple of things, 6 hours later and we have made it back home - another day wasted. The Christmas madness week is in full swing, there were more cars and less parking spots than ever and we didn’t go anywhere near a supermarket, that joy is still to come! I’m not sure how the rest of the world is doing with mail and parcels at the moment but we seem to have a huge time lag in delivery both coming and going out of Tasmania, things that generally take a week to ten days are still missing in action after 30 days of mailing - guess they are on that slow boat to China!

Perhaps coming via the moon like some of your spares from the voyage.

It’s a good job that we can’t think of anything that we desperately need under the tree as the thought of gift shopping is way beyond my abilities this year, I will be more than grateful to have the “peace and quiet” that my dad used to say he wanted every year when we were kids, enough food and drink to send me into a food coma for the afternoon “Miracle on 34th street” re run, and good health and happiness for the year ahead.


Having said that I’m going to end this little catch-up email by wishing you all the joys of the season and everything that you hope and wish for yourselves.
Merry Christmas to you and your loved ones, stay safe and healthy and I look forward to hearing from you when you have time to take a breath.

And for all of you in England here’s one we hope you won’t get - ( The Ashes)                                        The Coopers


Doubt there's any chance of that, don't think we've won the ashes since Freddie Truman(I'll sith 'e) or Ian Botham played.

[David Fox]

Contacted Gerry recently and he said he has had a few nibbles on the sale of Opal, but not much, perhaps things are slow due to Covid.
Nicky will no longer be adding to their old Sailblog.

He recently had a deck for barbies made attached to his house, been busy cutting back 2 years of grass over a large amount of grassland and paddocks.
He is enjoying his retirement and also bought a BMW straight 6 softop so he could join the BMW club that does scenic runs round the island, bit of social life, as they live in the middle of nowhere, his nearest neighbour is several miles away.

[David Fox]

During May, before the weather turned bad in Aussie, Gerry and Nicky had a week or so up at Opal , removing gear they wanted , dealing with new sails and general maintenance, though Gerry never mentioned his Muriatic routine down the toilets, so they must have been ok. The yatch was in pretty good condition when they arrived, still floating, batteries held up as they stayed on board instead of a hotel.
It was a working holiday, with a bit of sightseeing on the way back from Brisbane , calling in at Canberra to see their taxes at work or not as the case maybe. Plenty of hot air though. They caught the ferry across from Tas to the mainland and drove up and back.
I would expect they will be selling her (Opal that is) at the start of the season next year. There was some wierd legal thing about them not being able to sell straight away.

This last weekend the Platinum Jubilee weekend they took delivery of two female kittens to replace the late Priss of the motley crew.

Since arriving home from their epic voyage , they have cleared their property of 6 huge trees, one of which would have hit the house if it had fallen, built a wooden bbq deck (its Aussie after all), the edges are surrounded with a 3 foot safety glass 'fence' with a stainless rail on the top.
The view is out to the west and the mountains and what a view that is, now the trees have been removed.
Gerry told me this morning 6/6/ 22 that they had a fall of snow, it had been blowing a houllie and raining the previous day or so.
Not much different to our blazing (the fire that is) June.

[David Fox]

Thanks to all the readers of this post, its got to 74,000 views and rising. I didn't think it would go anywhere near that.

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Regards,
David Fox
Former 2/E
Benedict,
Brasilia Star
Starman Anglia
Afric Star
Avelona Star
Mandama
If we have sailed together on the above or on any of the 'vessels of character' as the old bangers were described please drop me a pm through the site and we will go to email afterwards. None of us are becoming any younger, so it would be good to catch up on old times.