Where is Crazy Daisy?

For the last seven weeks, Crazy Daisy and crew have been in Australia. They’re currently making their way up the East Coast heading for Darwin. Daisy’s crew has seen a few changes since arriving in Hamilton Island, Australia. Danni, my youngest daughter joined the crew at the beginning of August, and Shawn (Stephanie’s boyfriend) joined them mid August. Erio has finished his part of the circumnavigation although Bob and Edi are both hoping that he will return later, for the leg across to South Africa. So the current crew are: Captain Bob, First mate Edward, Daniela, Stephanie and Shawn. Graeme rejoins the crew in Indonesia later this month.
From what I understand they have had mostly fine weather, although it has been very cold and the most recent legs have been a little rough. I am receiving an occasional phone call with updates when satellite allows, but the calls are quick and not always easy to hear between all the static and poor signal.
Daisy seems to be performing very well, although I know the crew are working day and night on maintenance and minor repairs, from all accounts the work dominates everything, and Ed has not been happy about getting very little time off for relaxation, sadly this is the nature of boats, they’re very much a labor of love, rarely giving their crew a break; yet another reason I’m happy not to be aboard, the constant work can really get you down after a while and I’m getting way too old to be scrubbing decks and climbing into engine rooms. There are perks of course, spectacular ones, but the work never goes away.
Whales and dolphins are sighted on a daily basis, Danni was very excited to see a Mother and calf swimming very close to Daisy. Also I understand that the snorkeling has been spectacular. I’m looking forward to seeing some amazing photographs.
Sadly, I will now be unable to rejoin the crew for the rest of the trip, although I hope to fly out to Antigua for the last couple of weeks. The logistics of planning a trip out to Bali where I had planned to rejoin them for a month, are just proving too difficult. I have the responsibility of my animals at home, and I refuse to put them into kennels for more than a few weeks. As I have no one to care for them for me here I will be staying home.
The rest of the circumnavigation from Australia to Bali in Indonesia and across to South Africa, then South Africa across to Brazil and up the South American Coast coast back to the Caribbean Islands, will be by far the longest and roughest legs of the trip, not something I would ever want to do under any conditions. I could have coped with the Pacific, and I will always regret that I missed that part of the trip, but the remaining legs I’m not unhappy to be missing. I’m just praying (very hard) for a safe, trouble free and hopefully enjoyable journey for the entire crew, until I meet them all again in South Africa for Christmas.
Please say a prayer for my family’s safety at sea.
God Bless