We are the People that are FREE!  Home  Passage People by edition  Passage People by boat names  From The Coastal Passage, issue #25 It’s never been a secret how much I enjoy seeing kids on boats. I also admire the innocence and honesty when our small folk put pen... oohps, crayon to paper and tell the tale from their perspective. So here is a small collection starting with issue # 1 where lovely Francine tells her story. If this page doesn’t make you smile, go get a heart transplant! MY FIRST FISH When I caught my first fish I was in Australia with my family. Bob and Kay are my mom's friends, also mine. My brother, Bob, and I were out on a small fishing boat. We were going over huge waves. I thought we were going to tip over. We went to a place in the water where it was calm. I through out my line but we weren’t using a fishing pole, we used a line and reel. I was waiting and I got mad because everyone was catching the fish and I haddend caught any. Then all of the sudden. My line tugged a little, then it got harder. I slowly pulled in my line and I had caught my first fish. Bob was taking pictures like crazy. I was happy for the rest of the day. From, Francine Crivello California, USA Turtles at Lady Musgrave Island By David Hawkins, “Quoll ll” At night time on Christmas Eve 2003 we walked around the other side of Lady Musgrave Island to the guide who was going to show us the turtles laying their eggs. WE watched one female turtle dig her nest. She put her back flippers down and threw the sand and coral out of the hole. Her back flippers kept on digging on the sand like a bucket.. It is a good idea to stand on the side because the coral can come at you like a rocket. When she stopped digging, she started laying her eggs. We watched her and were allowed to take an egg out. It felt in between hard and soft. When you pushed down a bit not too hard, it would pop up. We didn't get to watch the hatching that season but we did this year. Just before Easter, we stopped at Lady Musgrave again. At night, we went on shore and found a baby turtle going down to the sea. We helped it a bit by shining a torch in front of the young hatchling. There were some seagulls around but they were scared of us. We heard them squawking because they wanted some more food. Lady Musgrave Island is a great place to swim, snorkel and walk. Best of all was watching the turtles lay. I look forward to watching them again sometime.   When I went sailing with Faye and Steve with my Mum and dad and Fayes pussycat Shelly. We went to Airlie Beach where we put everything in the dinghy and went out to the boat. As we unloaded everything onto the boat including the pussycat, Steve fell over into the water and we all laughed. When we started sailing my Mum lost her sunglasses. Mum didn’t laugh. We sailed from Airlie Beach to Nara Inlet and stopped with all the other boats. The next morning we went for a row and a walk over the rocks. Then we rowed back to the boat. After lunch my Dad sailed the boat to Cid Harbour where we went for a swim and a walk. The wind got stronger so Steve and Dad took the boat to Gulnare Inlet where we stayed the night. Then we had a fast sail back to Airlie and I saw some Mermaids sitting on some rocks near the end of an Island. TCP note: Linnea refers to the mermaid statues by Daydream Island By Aimee Rose, “La Passarola” The sun was going down behind the mountains, casting a reddish light over the yachts anchored in Pearl Bay. The hills were beautiful with thick bush reaching down almost to the water. Pearl Bay is one of our favourite places to anchor. Mum & Dad were sitting on the beach talking and sipping wine while my brother Jordan and I played with the fire. We'd arrived at Pearl Bay the day before after coming up from Great Keppel Island. We had been delayed there for a week and because we were there that long, we sent Dad off to get some work at the Resort mainly just to get him out of the way while we were doing schoolwork! For the first half of this year we had been living in our house in Gladstone, and after cruising all of last year it was hard getting used to suburbia. Of course it had its funny moments (as in seeing Dad walking down the street pushing a lawnmower. These are not things you have living on a boat and we had to borrow one from some friends who were living down the street!) Some other things that were strange were: putting out the wheelie bin each week, neighbours throwing loud parties, going to shops every other day and getting junk mail in the post. These were all things that took some getting used to but it was really easy to get used to long, hot showers! And I think Mum liked having a washing machine too. Also Dad was working out at the mines at Blackwater a lot of the time. This was one of the hardest things for everyone as he was only home three days out of ten and sometimes less. None of us liked it very much, especially him!                           Now we're back on the boat and it was really strange going from living in an OK-sized house to being on the boat where we're all continually together. But some of the good things are fresh homemade bread everyday and eating fresh fish. I really like smoked fish. That's what we were doing this particular afternoon in Pearl Bay. We'd been ashore for a few hours and gone for a long walk along the beach. Lots of other boats were at anchor and I could see from the way they were rolling it was going to be a really uncomfortable night, even with Dad's homemade flopper-stoppers out. Our fire was burning low and the fresh smoked fish was sitting in the left-over coals. A scrub turkey was scratching around nearby building his nest. As I sat down with a plate of freshly smoked tuna that Mum and Dad had caught that morning, I decided I really preferred being on the boat to being in a house, even if it is uncomfortable and annoying sometimes.