Fractal Blog

First of all, a very happy birthday to my nephew Lars who is eight today! Also, I spotted these odd cloud shapes this morning. Mammatus clouds. Each one of the little strands wants to be a tornado. Didn't get a tornado today but lots and lots of rain. More rain than we've had in seven months in Melbourne, with the possible exception of Christmas. And it's cold. Autumn is definitely on its way. That said, yesterday was lovely, 27 C and sunny...

All the boats that have been moored in Docklands for the last week moved out to Port Melbourne today to start the Melbourne to Osaka race. Since we were up unusually early, due to having an extra hour today as it's winter now, we took our bikes and followed them down the Yarra. Predictably we arrived way too early and had an hour to kill, watching the rest of the sailing that went on in the bay. A race of Flying Fifteens with symmetric kites (how quaint!) was among the available entertainment.

And a Tornado race. All that hanging around outside, in freezing temperatures (all right, 15C), neither of us thought that sunburn would be even a remote possibility. Wrong. Despite having our backs to the sun for the entire time, both of us caught the sun on our faces. Sunshine being reflected off the water or something, says the Physics Geek. Note that he didn't mention this before we got sunburn. Also there wasn't a great deal of sunshine. Check the photos.

Among the multitude of boats in the bay today was this beautiful old gaff-rigger.

Finally, the start. The big warship fired the start signal, and at the same time two military helicopters crossed the start line. Only another 10,000 miles to go.

Just before we turned to go home, one of the boats unfurled an enormous banner. To our surprise it said "Sunsail"! A blast from the past. We miss Sunsail's sailing clubs more than anything.

Here's another picture of a gorgeous sunset. Because I can.

Slightly late, here are some pictures of the air display that accompanied the Grand Prix last weekend. This Qantas jet flew directly over our flat back to Tullamarine Airport.

Black Hawk helicopters flying in from Geelong.

And a fighter plane, too.

Take a guess as to which region Australia (or, as they call it, Oceania), is in. Asia? Pacific? Even AsiaPac? Wrong. North America, apparently. Along with Singapore and New Zealand. I am not kidding. Blizzard (of World of Warcraft fame) consider Australia, Singapore and New Zealand to be part of the 'North American Region'. This means they take the 'Oceania' servers down for maintenance a 3am US Pacific Time. This is 10pm Australian Eastern Summer Time, i.e. during prime playing time. As in right now. Not pleased.

Since I can't be out hunting virtual monsters you get a picture of horses dipping their toes into Port Phillip Bay. We spotted them on a cycle ride a couple of days ago. Looked like a good idea.

One of very few flowers I've seen blossoming in Australia. It looked so gorgeous partly because of its rarity value. The state of Victoria is basically a desert, and few natural colours are on display.

Docklands is preparing for the Melbourne to Osaka double-handed yacht race. Some of the competing yachts have started to enter the harbour and are currently moored at New Quay. This one is Wasabi. Did the name come before the colour, or was it the other way around?

It's all a question of style. This dinghy was going beautifully in Melbourne's strong winds.

I haven't blogged in a while; this is due to having to get the new blog software to work, written by The Resident Geek. Notice all the improvements, such as an atom feed, and finding this blog always at exactly the same address. Anyway, a week or so ago we went to the Moomba Waterfest. Impressive fireworks, thrown from barges on the Yarra.

A funfair graced both sides of the river. We had more sense than trying out these rides. Though I dared the Person With A Higher Guts To Brain Ratio. In this case to no avail.