Season's Greetings

MERRY CHRISTMAS AND HAPPY NEW YEAR

Season's greetings to all our friends and family. Another year has almost passed and this sees us celebrating our 9^th anniversary out on the oceans of the world. 2013 has been quite hectic as we've covered almost five and a half thousand nautical miles since our arrival in Brisbane on Christmas Eve last year, an amazing distance using what has to be one of the world's slowest forms of transport.

Earlier this year I had a trip back to Canada to see my family which was terrific with Paul using that opportunity to catch up on the inevitable boat projects that pile up relentlessly.

While in Australia, most of our sightseeing was restricted to Brisbane and the coastline but we had a great trip down to Sydney with friends and once we started moving up the coast, stopped and visited as many places as possible. We met up with a few friends we'd not seen in many a year and then our journey took us up the Queensland coast through the Great Barrier Reef, over the top of Cape York through the Endeavour Straits and on over to Darwin where we joined our first ever rally to take us through Indonesia.

Indonesia was wonderful; the people so incredibly friendly and welcoming despite the abject poverty in so many of the places we touched. We saw dozens of active volcanoes, beautiful reefs and islands, spectacular mountainous scenery, rice paddies, traditional villages and tropical fish and corals. We were constantly entertained with traditional song and dance, sampled the delicious local fare, saw Komodo dragons, watched Orang-utans in the wild, visited temples hundreds and hundreds of years old and were generally treated like royalty. A three month visit but memories to last a life time.

Then on to Malaysia, a country which is very first world in comparison to Indonesia with a fascinating combination of cultures (Malay, Chinese, Indian, Indigenous and Dutch, Portuguese & British) as well as religions (Hindu, Muslim, Christian, Buddhist). We also managed a few days in Singapore with a friend there. Another fascinating city.

As I write this, we have travelled up the west coast and are currently in Langkawi, the last island we'll visit before moving on to Thailand. En route, we visited Kuala Lumpur, the historical city of Melaka, toured islands and revelled in the past and present. Again, the people are one of the country's greatest assets and I mustn't forget to mentioned the food...we're in gastronomical heaven!

We've decided to spend our Christmas at anchor here with other cruising friends. As we continue our adventures, we will toast in the New Year and wish you all everything of the best for 2014.

Love and best wishes from Paul and Maureen aboard the good ship Calypso.

  

Cheers Everyone