The Pandemic has been a significant positive for me. Instead of cruising the South Pacific Islands, I have been able to watch my grandson Louis (Lou-ie) grow up. I sailed north from Brisbane in March, with 3, 5-day fly-in-fly-outs, staying with Kate, Jackson and LOUIS. Flying down from Gladstone, Mackay and Townsville.
Queensland has been relatively successful with it’s Covid Zero strategy (the virus does not like, sunlight, warm weather and open-air living, all of which Queensland has in abundance). Luckily every Covid incursion into Queensland has been controlled by a week or two of lockdown, almost always limited to Brisbane. When I flew down from Townsville in late July, I had to leave a day earlier, too avoid the lockdown announced that morning, for later that day. Since that lockdown, there have been regular Covid incursion in Brisbane, none of which needed a lockdown to control.
There had been no active cases of Covid in Brisbane for a week, so I decided I should make the most of this window to get a Louis “fix”, now that he was walking.
So, for the second time I left Logic in the Marina in Cairns (the first time, 2 weeks before, had an active Covid incursion in Brisbane, announced a few days before I was planning to fly down).
The first day there, I took Kate and Louis to lunch
Louis got to eat his first prawn 
then off for a play in the playground 
his first (of many more in the future) time in a boat 
he may be walking, but his vocabulary is limited to 4 words, and some very expressive grunts accompanied by a pointed finger 
having me staying, allows Kate to go the early morning gym class, while I got the morning Louis wake-up
nappy change 
“pick me up Grandad“
I got to go along for his weekly swimming lesson
My parents dropped over for lunch
in the same way I am reliving my memories of Kate at Louis’ age 
they are reliving their memories of me at the same age
Louis is growing up with Prim and Winston 
I grew up with Buster
In the same way that I enjoyed developing my walking, exploring the garden 
Louis is off whenever he gets the chance 
checking out the veggie patch for ripe mini Roma tomatoes
The moment he sees his red car he is in 
Just like his mother did, he smiles in a way that has me pushing him around 
He and I share a love of eating bananas. When I was a little older, on a family road-trip through the banana plantation in Northern NSW, I made my first career choose, to be a banana farmer. Rather cutely with my baby poor enunciation, it came out as “nanalekta“. The name given to a 16ft trailersailer, we would go on family adventure in
It has been rather lovely getting my 5 day Louis fixes every 5-7wks, I get to see the major changes, while it is gradual for his day to day contacts. The last fix he was crawling, the one before he was swimming on the carpet. 
He is a lovely boy, who is giving so much joy to those in his life, in the same way as my brother and did
(me on the right)
I’m back on Logic.
It is surreal up here, it feel like I have gone back in time, to a time of no face masks and zero Covid restrictions.
I’m spending October cruising up to Lizard Island and then back to Cairns, to start the sail back to Brisbane in early November