Since I was in Williamstown delivering the 25kg of olives I had been harvesting the last few days, I thought I would get the bike out for a Tassie IV boat hunt. How hard can it be, large ship twice as big as the old one. I was skirting the coast line and there it was again, the submarine was following me from Geelong and was now heading in towards Port Melbounre. I turned a corner and bumped into the Tassie boat then went out onto one of the piers for a better look. Very impressive.
A neighbour of mine from the first few weeks that we moved here was discussing the naval Pier across the way and how he had observed Navy boats and ships docking there including a submarine. I have been waiting and boat spotting since then for something similar. Sure enough the unmistakable form of a surfaced submarine was chooffing along and taking its leisurely time about it. The Navy wern't saying much but it has been hanging around Geelong for a few days. I was expecting it to dock at the newly refurbished pier but not so far. Submarines are boats not ships you landlovers. I wonder what you have to do to get a submarine named after you.
This book was picked out from a roadside library by my beach friend Jill. This one is in fairly good condition but I have generally stopped using these as the books were mostly damaged and grubby. I have watched most of the Vera TV series and found that you needed to pay a lot of attention. I think this book was more complicated. There are insights you get here that the TV doesn't do. Like thought bubbles. Things going through Vera's brain are expressed in book form but not on TV and a lot of them are nasty. I think it is the first time she has found a body instead of the usual dog walker or jogger. In her mind, fitness doesn't pay, she was trying to get fitter and look what happened.
Keeping track of these Tassie boats is quite a process. I spied something new yesterday as Spirit of Tassie V made its first appearance in Geelong after a seven week trip from Scotland where it was parked for 6 months. If I look out I can see it now bobbing across the way. Meanwhile Tassie IV is in Williamstown where it is also parked. It seems that both need a final fitout before they takeover from Tassie I and Tassie II which are also nearby as they criss cross each other during the night. Just for the record Tassie III was the one that was built for the new route to Sydney in 2003 but those Sydneysiders were not that much interested in taking a car directly down south. These latest two boats will start in November, That's the Spirit.
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I have been walking through areas of smoldering bush in the past and also driven through them soon after recent fire as well. These are places you do not want to be caught in. I unloaded some video that I captured from my deck, so this scene is close. It is controlled burning however at it's height you might not think so. It would not take much to escape and these minders of fire must study wind directions intensely. The smoke was the thing this time and you would not want it coming your way. There are houses so close. I get that aiming it away over the water is OK just don't be on a boat.
I have made Blog posts on readership and statistics previously. This time it is about communications traffic skyrocketing again and it is all about AI to AI generated comms. AIs are scanning, talking and requesting information amongst themselves. I can see it myself in this Blog. Whilst the human readership has gone up markedly, the overall views went passed 100,000 in a single month for the first time. It took 10 years of daily posts to get the first 100,000 views and now that number racks up in 30 days. If I was to turn on adsense, this traffic would not help contribute to a payment, as Google knows human readership from webbot and AI generated stuff. OK so I won't be a billionaire from this Blog.
There has not been a lot of reading time lately with a two week burst of continuous sunshine but we are not complaining. I did finish the fourth book in the series of the Thursday Murder Club. There are quite a few bodies piling up in this one and as usual the octogenarians seem to be able to keep one step out of the way. There was a lot of time spent on dementia and euthanasia which came from Richard Osman's experience with his grandfather. It is a topic for a retirement village but I am not sure if it is a topic for a murder mystery. The fox on the cover gets a mention as well.
