Long Way from the Ocean!

In order to supplement our “Oh No! The mast has fallen down” fund, we had to work for the Northern Hemisphere winter which, luckily, is the southern hemisphere summer so we headed back to Australia for our third summer in a row.   I had planned to get some nursing work in a rural/remote area of Western Australia where the pay is higher and where Andy could get some truck driving work. He has always had a truck licence and, because we knew we would need to earn some money when not sailing, gave up his sales manager job last year and has been driving a concrete truck to gain some experience.

Luckily, I managed to get a job working in the Emergency Dept of a little hospital in a remote town in WA called Morawa for 5 months.  In order to attract nurses, they provide housing at a nominal rent so we have a 3 bedroom furnished house with, thankfully, air conditioning!  Andy is working in the local blue stone quarry driving an excavator.  My job is relatively easy. Andy is worlkng 14 days on, 7 days off in temperatures of up to 50C! He spends his days dreaming of the Med which we will be returning to In April.

Morawa is quite different to anywhere I have ever lived. It is mainly sheep and wheat farming country with a population of around 800. There is one pub, one school, a small hospital and a supermarket.  However, because it needs to attract people to work in the iron ore mine  and farming, it has a swimming pool and a sports club with a bowling green, tennis courts and a football oval.  It's definitely been an interesting experience but are finding the temperatures a bit hard. Days off are spent hiding indoors or, as a special treat, driving 178ks to the nearest big town for a coffee and a supermarket shop! Not unlike cruising!

We return to Athens in April and our itinerary includes sailing down through the Cyclades and around to Turkey until end of June then we will start wending our way back to italy, Ballierics and down to the Canaries and Cap Verdes to cross the Atlantic next December. If anyone is going our way, please look us up.  Our boat is a Lagoon 380 called Matilda (of course) and the blog site is called Waltzing Round the Med  and can be found at www.sailblogs.com/member/janejarratt

We already have a few friends on boats going the same way so the more merrier!  See you somewhere beautiful!