We have ourselves a Master!

I almost forgot to share the most exciting news and its completely unrelated to sailing off into the sunset! For the past four years, Bryce has been working part-time on a Masters degree in International and Community Development. Last week, he submitted his last paper and took his last exam! He won't have the grades back for another month but is pretty confident he passed! ;) Congratulations to Bryce!

And we're back!

Well hey there! Remember us? WE'RE BAAACKKK! :) Bryce is back from PNG and we've got this boat adventure rolling again. While things have still been happening while he was gone, I thought I would spare you the blow by blow on my recovery. Not much has changed but I am improving... just very slowly! I am still doing my hourly exercises and scar massage, my finger still has a bit of a pregnant belly (It's swollen), and I can't quite make a full fist yet but.... I have been discharged by both the surgeons and the occupational therapists and the rest of my recovery is in my hands. It could take up to 18 months for the swelling to go and to regain a full fist but its all up to me keeping up with my exercises and actually using my finger. I am allowed to do basically everything, except for maybe a cartwheel... but that will come! 

So lets get you up to speed! Probably the most exciting thing to happen on board Aquabat is our new bed! Our old bed was a little less than a double at the head and a single at the feet. It also wasn't long enough for Bryce so he would sleep diagonally which left not much space for me! 

White was the old bed, brown is the addition.

Our new bed...is...AMAZING! It's now bigger than a queen at our heads and just under a double at our feet. We switched to sleep with our heads towards the bow to achieve that but it is just amazing! A little bit like heaven! We removed the door to the master cabin to give us a bit more room so I've added a curtain to my to-do list of sewing projects. We had a new foam mattress cut to size and it's super comfy! Combine that with a luxe mattress topper and new sheets and we are really excited to go to sleep at night! Looking at what the bed used to be... I'm impressed that we lasted as long as we did sharing!

Complete Luxury! Will never go back!

We've been working on a few other projects but some of them just aren't quite finished. We owe the bed and several other projects to Bryce's brother who artfully applied his cabinetmaking skills to boatbuilding! Bryce is currently working on replacing the wooden slats on our swim platform with beautiful new teak that he brought back from PNG with him. I have been going container crazy trying to fit everything onto the boat while using the space the most efficiently. It's a bit like a giant puzzle but I am getting there! 

This is not even the half of it!

That's about where we are... I won't jinx us by sharing a departure date yet but we are close! Fingers-crossed... XX

It's wonderful to be back on the boat!

A kind reminder to check your visas!

While I was waiting for the shuttle bus to the hotel from the airport in POM, two Australian men from my flight were brought over to join me in the special waiting area. They were understandably not in the best of moods as they were in the process of being deported.

I will explain. This was March 7th.  On March 1st, PNG had changed the visa laws for Australians requiring them to obtain a visa before arriving in PNG - no longer allowing them to purchase it on arrival like most other nationalities were and still are permitted to do. This was done in the hopes that Australia would revise its visa procedure for PNG Nationals arriving in Australia and grant them visa upon arrival privileges. Probably not going to happen! These guys had been to PNG before these changes and had no reason to suspect that anything was differenr. I did have a visa. The changes had been advertised in the local newspaper in POM and Bryce had received bulletins about it at work, otherwise we wouldn’t have known. When I got my visa, the website still said you could get it on arrival in PNG. I called to check – given we had good reason to believe otherwise, and they confirmed that I would need to get my visa in Australia before I left.

So these poor guys were getting deported. Their passports were not stamped, their baggage was not released and they were let out into the main terminal to wait for the next flight back to Cairns. (Kinda like the movie ‘The Terminal’!). They were trying to connect (unsuccessfully) to the internet to see if they could get their visa online. I told them it took the embassy 4 days to process my visa in person and being that it was Friday and there was no chance they would be able to apply before Monday, that kinda blew their week long surfing holiday. They were understandably angry, frustrated and disappointed.

So…the moral of that story is to please remember to check and double check visa requirements well in advance of your actual visit.

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For an update on us... Bryce is back from PNG for the Easter holiday. Great to see him! His contract has been extended for another six weeks so he well be heading back up there on Tuesday. Given that we now have a bit of extra time, he has decided to finish off his masters degree for which he only has two subjects left to do. My rehab for my hand is going well. I am following a strict regime of weekly appointments, hourly exercises, thrice daily scar massages, different dressings for different times of the day and have just started weaning off my splint for small periods of time. Hopefully I will be able to follow Bryce up to PNG soon.