For those of you who have been following the adventures of Blue Moon, you may have been wondering where she is and what she is doing.  Blue Moon has been stationed in and around Sydney, Australia since December 2001.  Rob had undertaken a major refurbishing job on Blue Moon and Jo was working in Sydney.

In January 2004, Jo and Rob took an ‘Around The World In 78 Days’ trip - backpacking through Europe and Thialand.  Jo has written a short account of that trip which follows:-

May 16, 2004

The Back Packers in France

Around the world in 78 days and we’re back! Despite all the warnings we did not get our pockets picked, drugged in our sleep nor robbed, or have our packs disappear while we were enjoying a coffee in the local piazza.  We stayed healthy, although Rob went straight from the airport to the dentist for a root canal and also he seems to have killed all the nerves in one foot, seemingly from wearing shoes for more consecutive days than he has in his whole life.

We found Blue Moon as we had left her, bobbing happily in Pittwater, just north of Sydney.  Rob thought it would be a good opportunity to service all the pumps before he restarted the motor, so it took a week or so to get going, not helped at all by my contribution, dumping all the pots of nuts and bolts, seals, and various other essential very tiny bits, straight into the bilge.

I am finally resuming life as a yachtie.  It seems strange not to be working now, even though I did not think about it at all as we were backpacking around Europe.  We have acquired two nice bicycles to replace our car, and we are due to put Blue Moon on the slip next weekend.  There is nothing like a good dose of anti fouling to remind you of your status in life.

We arrived back to find summer in full swing, still enjoying high 20’s and sunshine.  But reality came with the ‘cool change’ a few days later, which knocked a good 10 degrees off the temperature.  Suddenly Tonga is looking more appealing, but the 2000 - mile stretch of ocean between here and there seems a lot less inviting.

If you ever wondered about going to Europe in winter, it was great. No lines of people to wade through to visit the attractions, hotels offering cut price rooms, no bookings required, bearable temperatures to wander around in (although half the weight in the packs we were carrying was due to blankets, coats and sweaters). We didn’t have too much rain and only one blizzard in the Bavarian Alps.  This meant that we did not see the Bavarian Alps, but made up for it in the Swiss Alps with days on end of clear blue skies and mild weather.  We took the Golden Pass scenic rail trip between Lucerne and Montreau, and had one entire rail carriage to ourselves, surrounded by polished wood, leather lounge chairs and the most amazing vistas.  The Eurail pass is the only way to travel through Europe. It gave us first class tickets wherever and whenever we wanted for the month.

Someone asked me what my favorite food was on the trip.  It's funny because when I thought about it, I could not really recall any truly outstanding restaurant meal that we had, although we did have some good ones.  The first thing that came to mind was our hotel room picnics, where we sat on the bed and sampled bits of proscuitto, cheeses, salami and other delicacies we had procured around town.   In Amsterdam, the end of the bed was only inches away from our balcony which opened onto the red light district, so we had a third floor view of all the goings on as we ate our meal.

My favorite food was found in Florence.  There is a huge hall which houses the market, filled with hundreds of stalls selling everything that you can imagine - fresh.  As we passed by one delicatessen, an English speaking customer said to me – ‘You just have to try this’. The countertop was covered in plates of samples – all kinds of cheeses, meats and preserves. The man behind the counter knew exactly which things went best together and was providing us with tempting morsels to try.  That was our breakfast.  The most wonderful taste I had was preserved fruit slices - apples, pears and mandarin - done in a spicy garlic and honey syrup, served with a slice of tangy cheese. This was a welcome addition to our picnic for a few days.  

My second favorite food was in Greece - octopus and whole stuffed squid, cooked on a BBQ beside us in the lane where tables perched around the edges of the activity in the back alley on the island of Aegina. Old men sat sipping their Ouzo, where they had been all day, all week or all year.  Street vendors came by with a range of goods from sunglasses, CDs and things my dad calls Nitwit catchers. The most fascinating was a bamboo cage containing a toy bird, which chirped when you pulled on a string.  Another fascinating thing, was that all the people in the alley stopped to look at this – old ladies, kids, and the Ouzo guys.  Not only look at them, they bought 2 or 3 each!  We spent the afternoon before Easter there, watching the salesmen, the kids playing hide and seek in the shops and men carrying whole lambs over their shoulders to put on the spit for the big Easter feast.  We  chatted with the pistachio nut lady, soaked up the sun and wandered around the ruins of three civilizations dating back to 5,000 BC.  I felt a tear in my eye as we boarded the ferry back to Pireaus but I know we will be back to Greece one day.

Our favorite place was Venice, for both of us.  I know, everyone says that. But it really has a magic that has to be experienced at some time in a person’s life. One of our objectives on this trip was to get an overview and to see where we would like to return.  We can’t wait to have Blue Moon resting at anchor there, while we take the dingy in through the canals to procure the days supplies.  That is if the entire place hasn’t fallen into the sea by then, or been submerged by the rising tide.  I know that it’s centuries old, but it was still a shock to see the decay, with entire buildings leaning precariously.  A lot of the town was shrouded in scaffolding in a restoration attempt.  This was particularly annoying when it happened to be a monument you wanted to photograph.  The day before we arrived they had ‘high water’.  This is when the wind, rain and tide combine to flood the entire town.  Doorways have washboards in them, the same as our companionway slides.  All along the sides of the streets are trestles, such as old church hall tables, sacked and waiting to be laid out for a walkway above the water.  All the canal bus platforms have a route map for alternate travel, depending on the height of the flood.  Traffic ceases if it exceeds 2.6 meters!

Our last stop was Ayutthaya, Thailand which was on the third day of their new year celebrations.  The village we stayed in has a really great atmosphere. Essentially every inch of road space for miles around was covered in a traffic jam having a water fight.  It is supposed to be a cleansing for the new year.  It starts off with gentle pouring of water on the hands and gifts to the Buddhas but, as the explanation sign in the hotel lobby says, the water pouring becomes more disastrous as the day goes on.  We have been riding around in the back of a 3 wheeled baby pickup truck (called a tub tub here) getting totally soaked with people throwing water at us from any type of container ranging from a small dish to a wash basin.  Rob uses his drink bottle as a water pistol which the locals think is quite hilarious -especially the kids.  They also have a sort of mud they make with talcum powder that they smear on your face for good luck.  We returned to our hotel covered with muddy water.

Jo - covered in Songkran Festival mud

We arrived in back in Sydney, Australia after completing our trip around the world in 78 days!  We will be leaving Pittwater at the end of May bound for Tonga.

On their return to Sydney they were kept busy with preparations for their next adventure in the South Pacific Islands.  They departed from Pittwater, Australia on June 1, 2004 and are sailing for Tonga.

Please keep this bookmark to find out about Jo and Rob's progress.  We will attempt to keep you posted with news in Blue Moon’s Log.