Mana Marina (near Wellington)
Sunday 5 April 2020
It’s always a welcome surprise … the extra hour you gain each year from turning the clocks back at the end of Daylight Saving.
The effect might only last half a day, but the extra hour in bed, or doing whatever, is certainly a better option to losing an hour when Daylight Saving starts. At the start of Daylight Saving, you inevitably realise it late on the Saturday night, “ … oh no, it’s 11 o’clock, but wait, it’s really 12 midnight because Daylight Saving starts tonight … one less hour of sleep!”
Well, this year the “extra” hour kind of lost its currency. What’s an extra hour, when you’ve got as many extra hours as you like here in isolation. Ah well … mustn’t grumble.
Being Sunday morning, and thanks to those clever IT and multi-media folk back at our church in Melbourne, I was able to attend the online service. Which, like last week, was really good. Got a chance to communicate with all those friends I haven’t met for several months … in a world that seems so far removed from where I am here and now in New Zealand. And where we all were, just a few short weeks ago.
For the rest of the day, I worked on the video presentation of dad’s 1947 Milford Track adventure. It’s been a lot of fun and very satisfying, to incorporate a pile of old black and white snaps, with the audio recording I did of dad back in 2008, plus additional commentary (from me) along with some maps and a musical backing track.
It’s also been good to learn more about video editing. Next, I’ll have to get my own YouTube connection to upload everything onto. Who knows where it might end!?? My very own kitten movies, or singing dolphins, or crazy killer albatrosses … now that would silly … unless you were a fish of course.
Video conferencing was very much the order of the day, today. First, there was the regular catch up with my lovely wife Linda – home bound in Melbourne.
Through Linda’s iPhone I was able to see the vegie garden she has been progressively planting, in various spots around the backyard. Plus, the remedial work she has been doing on our old glasshouse – using lots of clear duct tape to patch several panes of glass. The glasshouse was a second hand “dismantle yourself” eBay acquisition from a few years back. It’s been in need of some love and attention for some time, and after sealing up all the cracks, I could see that there is now a fine selection of seedlings sprouting. Linda’s turning into a regular Homesteader she is.
Which, as I understand from my research, is different to a “Prepper”. Preppers are generally the ones queueing for faster guns and more ammo, while the rest us are queue for toilet paper and pasta.
Still got to get us some chooks … although there are still a few hurdles to get over before we go down that path; like getting home, for example. No doubt there’s a long queue to buy chooks too these days, because Linda was saying there’s been a rush on vegetable seeds and seedlings. Maybe we could buy a dozen eggs (not from the supermarket) and hatch our own
While we’ve all been naturally adjusting to our new lives of isolation, spare a thought for Vanuatu – my second home in many respects after the time I’ve spent there and the relationships we’ve established over the past 10 years through Medical Sailing Ministries Inc. (MSM), www.msm.org.au Well Vanuatu is being hit right now by Tropical Cyclone Harold, a Category 5 system with winds gusting over 250km/h. It’s currently making landfall on the islands of Malekula and Santo, with a track that is likely to take it right through the Shefa Province, just north of Efate and Port Vila.
All very reminiscent of TC Pam that hit almost exactly five years ago and which I experienced first hand with my friend and co-founder of MSM, Mike Clarke.
With the onset of the COVID-19 restrictions and threat, things were getting even tougher for our South Pacific neighbours … a category 5 cyclone is exactly what they don’t need right now. Please keep the people of Vanuatu in your thoughts and prayers at this time, and be generous if opportunities arise to assist with any necessary reconstruction.
It was great to also have a video conference with MSM volunteer and friend Peter Wright, and his wife Gigi, from their home in Hobart Tasmania. As a retired micro biologist, Peter knows more than most about viruses, infections and pandemics. In fact, he was telling me that back in the day, he’d get his students to watch the 1995 film “Outbreak”, starring Morgan Freedman and Dustan Hoffman and together they would dissect fact from fiction.
So, if you’re getting sick of watching the real news about the current real, global viral pandemic, you could escape into a little bit of lite, fictional Hollywood escapism by watching the movie Outbreak yourself … or one of the many films in the, “struggle-for-human-survival-genre-” … such as Contagion, Contagious, Flu, The Andromeda Strain, Pandemic, Carriers, 12 Monkeys … I could go on. And it’s nothing new … who can forget, (more to the point, who can remember) the 1950s movie “Panic in the Streets” … ? (Don’t go there, unless over-acting, dramatic batman-esq music, or corny wisecracks and one-liners are your thing)
Late last night there was also the opportunity to catch up, online, with friends from North Ringwood, Graeme and Sue Duke. Linda even joined in on the video, with a candle to blow out, as we sang happy birthday. It was Graeme’s birthday, and he apparently had the week-end off. As an intensive care specialist doctor, he’s at the front line of state and national coordination and planning, not to mention treatment; when it comes to the current pandemic crisis. Not that Graeme’s relaxed approach gives much away. Like many, he’s working from home as best he can, but he has more than one computer on his desk and is constantly communicating and advising.
As an aside, Graeme’s elderly parents live on Norfolk Island, and in checking in with them over the last day or so, they said that there haven’t been any tourists on the island for a week, and all the restaurants are closed, as people self-isolate. The net result is that the supermarket shelves are still pretty full, particularly with fresh produce, and probably toilet paper too … because there’s fewer customers now to buy anything.
Around the marina, the tide came in and then went out again. And whilst there are supposed to be a few people in the marina living on their boat, like me, everyone seems to keep to themselves.
Smooth seas, fair breeze and an extra hour today
Rob Latimer
NZ2020 