Tasmania

Island and house guests

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I only need to look around at the rocks to find all sorts of interesting things. I met a GP from Sydney the other day who was happy to learn she wasn’t the only one seeing things.

How did I miss this duck?
I am not the only one who sees a duck here, am I?

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I wish I was imagining things instead of seeing the spiders I have found around the house. Apparently they are relatively harmless but I wouldn’t do well if I found one on me when I was sleeping.
A visitor told me they would probably only bite if provoked. I asked, “what if I screamed loudly?” He said you could try that. Actually, there would be no thought behind screaming if I found this on me. Chelsea had one inside a bus. I bet there was some screaming there.
Oddly enough, Australians almost uniformly fear ticks. I can handle ticks. It must be something about the devil you know…
     

The ocean racers have arrived

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There are several big races in this area right after Christmas. Our first visitors, who will go unnamed, stopped by after they dropped out of the Sydney Hobart race due to problems with their sails in the gale force winds. They walked up the hill to the compound, looked around a little, took a few pictures and walked back down to the boat. A quiet group.

The boat below was a winner.

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Yesterday, the winner (I think) of the Melbourne Hobart race and two other boats, who finished, arrived and the party began. There were 20 people ashore for the barbecue. Toasts were made, pictures were taken. It was a clubby group and everyone seemed to know one another. They had the air of people who had come through an ordeal together and survived and even won. Every one of them was in awe of Deal Island and were sorry they were in a rush to go home and couldn’t spend more time to explore the island. Most have been on the boats since Boxing Day and one boat’s head wasn’t working. They were especially eager to get back home and off the boat. When the boat left under the cover of night, a bugler played taps.

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The barbecue area is at the land end of the pier with a huge grill tables and benches.

Some things are universal though. At least two of the boats had female crew. I talked to several and they had withstood huge seas and knockdowns of their boats. Well a group of women were going out to one of the boats in a dinghy but they were having engine trouble. All the men stood at the beach and snickered. i know they were thinking, “female drivers” yet these women sailed the Southern Ocean in a gale!

Our grid

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We don’t have one. We depend on no utility companies, only the wind and rain. (Except for Telstra internet and phone and we haven’t had internet for two days). We are well stocked with power and water. We get our energy to run a freezer, refrigerator, lights and computers from a solar array which generates about 7.5 kwh daily, and the energy is stored in a bank of batteries. We seem to use about 3.5 kwh daily.

There’s a backup generator if the sun should stop shining. This replaced a diesel based generator system. Not much fun getting the diesel up the hill or paying for it.P1030114.JPG

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We get our water off the roofs of the houses. Our drinking water is collected in a new fiberglass tank and we filter it through a ceramic filter. The rest of the water comes from two concrete tanks, from which Tim occasionally scoops out dead bats. The next major project is to cover the tanks and keep out the bats and other wildlife.

We run a little honda engine, which pumps the water (but not the bats) up a hill to a tank about 1/4 mile from the house. It takes about 20 minutes to top it off. Then when we want water in the house, we just open the tap and it runs down the hill. Lots of engineering came before us. We just turn on the light switch and flush the toilet.

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Sweet.

We speak the same language, but just use different words

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We all speak English here. First of all I still can’t believe the US has not adopted the metric system when the whole world uses it. So I have to translate all measurements and weights, kms, grams and cms. But there are words here I haven’t heard before and we often have to ask what someone is talking about. Before we arrived, we were advised to bring a doona for the bed. When I was trying to figure out how to get internet service here and corresponded with Bigpond, the largest provider. They told me I couldn’t get a prepaid or month to month contract. Apparently they told me a porkey because I was able to get it through their parent company. I bought tomato paste squeeze and sachets. We eat sultana and bran cereal. Instant coffee is simply Nescafe. Milk is full cream or skinny. The other day someone asked us if we have chooks on the island because it would be hard for them to get used to the wind. We are greeted with, ” how are you going?” and aren’t sure how to respond. Yesterday we picked up some dunnage from one of the coves to build a bench.

There are also unlimited ways to convey a carefree life. “No worries, mate”, ” too easy” and “sweet”.

doona; light blanket or duvet

porkey: lie, not true

squeeze: packet or tube (i think)

sachets: packets

sultana; large like a raisin but not a raisin

chooks: chickens

dunnage: driftwood

Uh oh, I’m seeing things again

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I spent a good part of the morning spinning yarn and looking out the windows. I think I was hiding from the flies for a while. Later in the day I walked to Garden Cove to look for a grave there and then to the Lighthouse with Tim to close it up for the day. On the lighthouse tower, I saw a monkey I haven’t seen before. Or it might be a mouse in a dress.

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Then I found a pac man rock.

Pac man rock

But I was really on a quest to find more about some of the history here on Deal Island. I was looking for a grave of a sailor near Garden Cove. He was on a ship sailing by in 1849 when he died. His shipmates came ashore and buried him near the beach. His marker was replaced in the 1930’s by a lighthouse keeper who used wood from a boat that sank in one of the coves. After a little hunt, I found it.

JS Sept 30 1849
I cleared some of the weeds around it. It was strange pulling weeds from over a grave. I thought twice when there was a little resistance. It’s in a beautiful location near Garden Cove. The marker says, “JS Sept 30 1849”.
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Garden Cove
There was a sealer’s settlement near Garden Cover around the same time. A cave has been found on Erith Island, just next door, which was inhabited about 7,000 years ago but nothing that old has been found here…yet.

Every picture tells a story

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We are lucky to share the island with fairy or little penguins. They live in burrows down by the coves and right now their babies are in the burrows all day. The parents leave before dawn to fish all day then return after dark. Some walk quite a way up the hills to their burrows. We saw them one night. They have several landing areas where they come on to the road from the beach. They’re not too hard to find because they leave penguin poo wherever they walk Plus it smells like guano, that distinct aroma of partially digested fish..

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This is an especially popular hopping off point. They wait as if there is a crossing guard and then hop onto the road and waddle home.

Cars on Deal Island?

This sign welcomes visitors to the Kent Group of islands. It outlines how much people who arrive by car have to pay. We’re 30 miles offshore. The only car we have seen is our 3 cylinder Diahatsu.

Maybe they are all parked on the other side of the island.

It was a beautiful day for a change. All the local visitors left but we met some new people who anchored yesterday on the other side of the island. They are friends with people we met a few days ago. The world keeps getting smaller. But Orion remains upside down. The other night at the barbecue, Tim heard an explanation that Orion is carrying a pot? The hunter with a sword and pot? I don’t think so.

East cove at sea level

Here come the visitors

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Everyone told us that visitors would come after the Christmas and they have. It began with Customs agents yesterday looking for any suspicious boating activity and ended with an eight legged visitor this morning.

Customs agents headed to Deal Island
Last night there were six boats at anchor in our view. There are others in coves we can’t see from the house. We met a couple yesterday who came here on their 28 foot catamaran!
Tim spent the day cleaning gutters and I was still working on floors and yogurt. Then we walked to the lighthouse to close it up for the night.

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This morning I ran into this guy when I was baking english muffins. I got a lot braver with my photos when he was under glass.

Yikes, a visitor

Rainbows and Christmas trees

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Our day began with a double rainbow. A few squalls blew through and then it was sunny and windy for a change.

The rainbows end here
Tim mowing the lawn with the tow behind mower and the Ute
Tim used the truck to mow the trails and I went along for the ride.
We checked up on our visitors. No one was anchored in Garden Cove because it was too rough. Very beautiful, but rough. We found them in Winter Cove, tucked in nicely. By the footprints we found on the beach, we had just missed them.
Garden Cove
Our Christmas Tree Along the way, we spotted the perfect Christmas tree. It’s strange to be gearing up for Christmas in sunny, relatively warm weather. Will Santa find us here? Yesterday was our summer solstice and the longest day of the year. He doesn’t have a long enough night to do everything he needs to do.
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A nice day for a walk

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East Cove and the road to the compound

Yesterday was a nice day for a walk. The sky was clear and there were 48 knot winds. Luckily I had my handy new headband and off we went. At the lower left of the picture is the pier. On the right is the road around the hill and to the compound. Below is a picture of the old way. Straight down the hill to the pier was a “whim” or tram: Iron rails on the ground like a railway on which a cart was hauled up. The power came from two bullocks (I don’t think they used horses) who walked in a circle, which turned a gear, which turned a gear.

The whim's engine, sans bullocks

 

 

Behind the “engine” to the left are the remains of some of the track leading down to the cove.

 

 

Dover and Erith Islands, Kent Group

A panoramic view of Dover Island to the left (south) and Erith Island to the right. Most of my photos from the compound are directed between the two islands where a swashway sometimes separates them.

The swashway and beyond

 

Barn Hill cliffs

 

 

Another perspective of the Erith Island, from Barn Hill

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

This incredibly deep ravine on Barn Hill. I couldn’t go any closer to the edge to improve the perspective.

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