Vegemite and firearms

Jindabyne, NSW, AU

Being as Australia isn’t exactly known for its alpine ski industry pretty much no one outside the natives typically makes it to the slopes here.

The upside of this is that working at a ski resort in Australia enabled us to meet one of our main goals for our time down under: we spent 3 months working and living with actual Australians.  As opposed to our previous job where we spent the majority of our time around European cowgirls; here for three months we were immersed in a, granted atypical but nonetheless genuine, Aussie cultural experience.

This, inevitability, led to the conversation on Vegemite.

Because Vegemite in Australia is a lot like guns in America.

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The weight of the world

While romping from the snow-capped mountains of Australia to kung-fu training in China to Germany’s Oktoberfest with a quick side trip to the London 2012 Olympics, one can assume a few interesting conversations were had:

British friend: I wish I could vote for the US president

Yes people, this is about that.

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Australian snow is cold…and hard.

Jindabyne, NSW, AU

Greg loves video editing.

So easy to make something look really awesome that, in truth, went so very, very, VERY wrong…

The doctor recommended stitches but Tiffany convinced him to go with medical tape first.  She still has the scar.

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Chairlift PLZ!

Jindabyne, NSW, AU

Travel is all about learning about other cultures right?  How other people do things differently from us and how that works out for them.

Like snow…in August.

For example, Australians don’t really believe in chairlifts at their ski resorts and when Americans show up it provides a source of much amusement to them.

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Working for a bed

Pittwater, NSW, AU

Living for free as volunteer crew on someone else’s yacht sounds all well and good while you’ve got a boat to live on but we are often asked what we do when we’re between yachts.

Our first few months in Australia are a good example.  After we left our work with the racing stable there was about a month before we found a job “sailing” in New Zealand and after that about another month before we decided the best way to celebrate the 4th of July was to get trapped in a genuine Australian blizzard.  Both of these situations were the same: too short a time to find a temporary position but too long to want to pay for a hotel in a country with a high cost of living.  So we had to answer the question –

What does a sailor do for a cheap night’s rest down under?

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Find a fleet

You want the real secret we used to find ships to travel around the world with?  How we were able to find a ride in Tahiti before we even pulled into port?  Well, here it is:

Find a fleet.  Travel with it.  Make friends.

That’s it.

Wait, find a fleet?  What the heck does that mean?  Are we joining the Spanish Armada here or going for a vacation?

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Getting your first crew gig

Ok so after deciding the cruising thing is for you,

Testing it out and finding you like it

And deciding that you, for starters at least, will grab a ride with a costal cruiser

You’re oh so patiently waiting for us to tell you how to find your first freaking boat!

Ah, but if you’ve done everything we suggested so far you already have started looking!

Yeah, how’s that for a little sailor-Yodaism?

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Bluewater cruising

Up until now we have been talking about a successive series of experiences to build up your sailing experience before taking “the big leap”.  We talked about how to test out sailing, how to build experience in your local area and how to work your way up to costal cruising.  Now we want to make it clear that there are a lot of people spend their entire sailing lives doing costal cruising and are quite happy, with good reason.  We know sailors who have spent the past 5 years doing nothing more than exploring the Pacific Coast of Mexico and have new experiences each and every day.  Using that as a base, how long you reckon it would take to explore the entire cost of North and South America?  Ok, now after that you can hit up the Caribbean, the Mediterranean, and with a flight or two, South East Asia and Australia.  Overall, it’d take a while.  There are plenty of adventures to be had and cultures to be explored in costal cruising because, well, there is a lot of coast out there.

But then, there’s a lot of ocean out there as well…and that’s the rub.  Yes, there are many places you can explore with costal cruising but there also a couple of good sized seas and, of course, two oceans.  Two very big oceans…

 

and way out there in the deep, that’s the domain of the bluewater cruisers

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