My weekend started with a working bee in the yacht club. A clearing out green waste in 35+ degrees isn’t something I want to do every day. Hats off to those who do. Allan and I then did a bit of re-machining to fix new cleats to the yacht, and otherwise the day’s humid high temperatures beat any kind of productivity out of us.
Today after church I figured out what I’d been doing wrong getting the drone to follow me, and have a whole 2 mins of video to show for it. Not very inspiring, but at least I now know how to get it to work.
I think it got tired of following me when the batteries ran low, at which point it simply stopped moving and hovered exactly where it was. Which might be ok, if it wasn’t right on windscreen height for the Kia in the carpark. A squished drone would have been the least of my worries if they’d ran into it without knowing what was going on. You’ll see in the video that I’m more attentive to the drone following than to traffic oncoming. And I’m glad I was, too, all things considered.
Then back to a farewell lunch for Joey at church, at which I was warmly welcomed despite being the resident ring-in vagrant.
My afternoon was then spent at the Casurina beach, just sitting watching the day go by. Well, watching the locals drink copious quantities of VB, before tossing their empties all over the grass right in front of me. If I were to be politically incorrect, I might wonder out loud how that fits with the continuous and strident calls for “white man” to “respect” the land and its “traditional owners.” I’m sure I’d quickly get myself in trouble, so I’ll keep that thought to myself. Our modern politics just don’t make sense to me.
The locals eventually moseyed on when the carton of VB ran dry (well, more correctly, “was strewn empty all over the lawn”). For some reason that I didn’t quite get my head around, one of their number then came back and sat with me for a while. Rose was her name. I think she wanted me to buy her an Uber or taxi to Palmerston (30 mins drive away). But I couldn’t really make out more than about a third of what she said. I could discern coherent thoughts in about half.of that third. So conversation was strained, to say the least. For some reason it was apparently of relevance to the conversation to hand me her Medicare card at one point, so I can verify her name most definitely was Rose. For what that is (or isn’t) worth.
Rose’s Uncle – although I think that term simply means “older man who could possibly be distantly related” – joined us eventually. From what I could make out they didn’t really know each other. But we had then two layers of conversation, slow and slurred and overlapping. I am almost certain that none of us understood the others at all. Alcohol and other factors certainly played very much into that. Such endemic and entrenched intergenerational poverty. On the plus side, I did very little more than listen and wasn’t required to say anything much to keep conversation kind of stumbling forward. What these interactions lacked in coherence, they kind of had in a strange gentleness and warmth. Hard to explain. But all in all it was a pleasant enough way for the afternoon to wear on.
I was then roped into welcoming people to church this evening at a Christmas event. That’s kind of ironic, as I’ve avoided that kind of contribution at my Melbourne church over the years. It’s noisy, hard to talk to people, and full of Christmas kitsch that really pushes all my buttons. Oh well. Since this adventure ride has required I step out of active involvement with my normal community for a few months, and I’m very grateful to have a little proxy community welcoming me while I’m stuck here in Darwin. So I’m not complaining.
Hopefully tomorrow we’ll finish our preparation for the mast to go back on the Huey, and over the next day or so the roller furling manufacture will be complete and delivered. That said, Allan remains more comfortable to schedule next steps only once previous steps are complete. So we’re yet to find out how much delay there’ll be (over Christmas) until we can hire a crane to hoist that mast. Apparently I still need further masterclasses in patience.
2 Comments
Thanks for another update Daniel. I love the drone footage. You are going to be a pro by the end of your trip
I think we all need to learn more patience Daniel. Seems to be a lifelong lesson..