END OF AN ERA & START OF THE REST OF OUR LIVES

Lazy days in Paradise

Quite surprising to me that I have had constant requests for the old Silver Affair Blog to have a return appearance.  So here goes. Here for the last time is the final update of our Winter/Spring/Summer cruise with a BIG (to us) announcement at the conclusion of this final chapter in the life of our Silver Affair.

Can't believe it's been nearly two and a half months since we sailed in to Port Douglas.  Have loved the relaxing and casual life on the Marina.  We've had many trips to the beach and the reef as well as being kept very busy with trips up and down the mountain to spend time with Grant, Nina and the kids. Pleased to have been able to help Nina with some babysitting, allowing her to do a little extra work.  We love the little Julatten State School where we often take and/or collect Tahla.  I've sort of become a bit of a local fixture and enjoy chatting with the Mums and Dads that I know.  Funny to see the kids running around shoeless in the playground, it's a lovely little country school, with only 80 students K - Yr.6 and not even a canteen. In fact there was great excitement last week when the P & C Mums organised a sausage roll and cupcake day.

We had another visit from Germany, this time Nina's Mum and step-father. Great to see them again and enjoy a catch-up both on the boat and a few lovely dinners out as well as the big occasion of Tahla's 6th birthday.  Lovely to have her grandparents there all together for her big day.

Had a very happy time when Liss and the boys flew up for 10 days onboard.  We took the boys swmming again to the World Heritage site, Mossman Gorge where the local Kuku Yalanji Indigenous people are running the new Eco Tourism Centre with 40 new jobs already taken up at this truly stunning place.  The boys were great and enjoyed time up at the farm with Uncle Grant as well as 3 days out at Low Isles where they spent much of their time feeding the bat fish and reef sharks circling the boat as well as mastering the stand-up paddle board and swimming with the sharks when and if they fell off. 

Our Friendly Bat Fish

Bruce & Bat Bob

The boys off into Low Isles

Stand Up Paddleboarders

Liss & I - Champers at the Reef

  

Around this time Col persuaded me into agreeing to something he had thought he might try while we were at a standstill at the marina for a few months.  That was to contact a Yacht Broker and maybe see if there was any interest in finding a buyer for Silver Affair, not really expecting any such thing to happen.  Unbelievably it's now 20 years since we launched old Silver and I must say she, along with us have aged well.  Well at least Silver has and what a time we've had together. Four long fantastic trips to the Whitsundays, Great Barrier Reef and Lizard Island and our Padi Scuba Dive Certificate at age 59 thrown in, not to mention practically 20 New Years Eves.  Of course, the most memorable of these being the 2000 Millenium in Sydney Harbour,  where somehow we found beds for 16 adults and 3 grandchildren.   Now 7 grandchildren have many happy memories of their time with us on Silver Affair.  Well you guessed it and blow me down after 3 weeks along came our buyer, a man called Joe, originally from Germany but now living up here in the Tablelands.  We sold the caravan we bought for Grant & Nina when they were building to a German couple, we have a German daughter-in-law and now along comes Joe.  We seem to have this German connection and I always did say how I love Germany, said it was my favourite European country back when we were there in the 80's.  Joe is our age, his wife is not a keen boaty but Joe can't wait to get a few mates on board and hit that reef.  We had a sea trial with him a couple of weeks back and he loved everything about the boat.  We are still can't believe it and the kids are sobbing.  Mia gasped in shock and in tears, dropped the phone.  As I said to them, it's the end of one adventure and now it's the start of another bigger and better one.  Well, not bigger, but we are already spending hours online weighing up the pros and cons of what type of boat we now need, sailing or power, trailable or not.  Only time will tell.  Perhaps caravanning we thought, nahhhh, not yet, we'll leave that till we're old. 

On 9th November we sadly and finally will say goodbye to our Silver Affair and head for home just before end of November.  Two weeks after arriving home we fly to Bali  for 2 weeks.  Just enough time to unpack and re-pack.  We were all going for Christmas, but in the end it's just Trude, John & Co and us and now we will be home 2 days before Christmas day.   What then............

This is now not only the final goodbye for Silver Affair but for the Silver Blog as well, but maybe stay tuned, perhaps we'll resurrect this one day under the Blog title  "Sailing North with Golden Affair". 

"Twenty years from now you will be more disappointed by the things that you didn't do than by the ones you did do. So throw off the bowlines. Sail away from the safe harbor. Catch the trade winds in your sails. Explore. Dream. Discover."

- Mark Twain