Our last night in Tasmania

We’ve said a lot of goodbyes lately. Goodbye to the islands of the Bass Strait-Deal, Dover, Erith and Flinders; goodbye to the people we met; and now goodbye to Tasmania after four wonderful months. We loved how people here know how to embrace life with clean air, wonderful food, beautiful water and islands. We spent [...]

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In the company of strangers

We saw Deal Island from a new perspective yesterday. A luxury yacht anchored in the cove the night before and called us and said they wanted to see a little of the island. They didn’t have a lot of time but checked out the museum and Barn Hill, which has some spectacular views of Murray [...]

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Local lizards, beetles, possums and snakes

I’ve grown fond of the lizard who hangs around the sun room. I can hear the little pitter, patter of his feet as he runs across the linoleum. He no longer resides in my sneaker but I found where he was storing his food stash. He made quick work of a little beetle. These beetles [...]

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Red skies at night predict a gale the next day!

We are enjoying our last full moon on Deal Island and the skies cooperated. We had fog on and off all day, and even recorded several mm of water in the weather gauge from it. It lifted in the afternoon and produced another beautiful sunset with the sky ablaze. As I walked around last night, [...]

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The flight of the sailboats

I saw this boat in the cove yesterday and the water and its shadow were so clear it seemed airborne. As more boats arrived, the dance of the sailboats at anchorage began. Initially two were anchored. Another arrived and dropped its anchor, perhaps a little too close to a boat already there. They hauled the [...]

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Jack jumpers and spiders

I think i stirred things up with cleaning and blogging. I cleaned the house and the next day awakened to several small, dead spiders in the house. Maybe they ran out of insects to eat or I destroyed their webs. I purposely left two spiders as sentries over the doorway to the sun room to [...]

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Dinner aboard the Young Endeavor

We received a phone call in the afternoon from the Young Endeavor, anchored in Garden Cove. She is a 44 meter Naval Training Vessel, with a youth training program for kids aged 16-23. It focuses on personal development and growth sort of like Outward Bound and 10,000 kids have done it. This year they sailed [...]

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My lettuce is listing to the left

We are having a run of windy weather for a change, right when my seedlings are beginning to raise their little heads above the dirt. I spent the afternoon putting protection around them because gale winds are expected until Friday. I had to prop up the corn once again because the plants were leaning to [...]

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Above the lighthouse

The Deal island Lighthouse doesn’t actually sit on the highest point on the island but it’s close. The lighthouse is officially at 305 meters and is 12.5 meters high. We climbed to the peak just next to it, which is higher but wasn’t a good site for the lighthouse because it’s only dirt and rocks. [...]

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Island and house guests

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. I am not the only one who sees a duck here, am I? I wish I was imagining [...]

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