The long and the short(s) of it

Going cheap – in fact, free – three pairs of unhemmed stretchy shorts, sizes 18, 22 and 24.
I could hem them I suppose.
How did I come across such items, and what the heck does it have to do with Sea Piper?
The story begins with an article I read a couple of years ago. For some reason it stayed in my head even though I could not, at that time, see the point of the article’s subject.
The story told of how you could easily make fender covers out of old track suit pants, instead of paying a fortune for them in a chandlery.
For those of you not familiar with a boat fender, they are the inflated, tubular-shaped things put along the side of a boat to cushion it from contact with the wharf/jetty/marina finger/other boats.
They are very useful if not essential.
However I couldn’t figure why people put pretty covers over them. They looked OK to me `au natural’.
That is until the blue rubbery stuff at the top of several of our fenders started to get sticky in the sun and leave hard-to-remove blue marks along the hull.
Ah, fender covers - that cartoon `light' went on in my brain.
Off I went to visit Townsville op shops (with which I am pretty familiar). Do you know how hard it is to find second hand track suit pants (of the large variety, or small for that matter) in the tropics? Four op shops later I had the requisite three pairs (Adidas, Target and Millers' brands) each looking rarely, if ever, worn.
Today I borrowed Carolynne’s sewing machine and created new `leggings’ for our small, medium and large fenders. As that magazine article had suggested, it was dead easy - and cheap. I even used the elastic from the Size 24s around the fender-cover tops! I guess that means that the Size 24 shorts will fall down so they’re off the market.
Our row of matching fenders look stunning in their little black numbers!

All dressed up and going nowhere.

 The build-up has finally hit Townsville, as of last Monday.
Swarms of jelly fish came into the marina yesterday. These are not the stinger variety but those won't be far away as the sea is warming up considerably along with the weather.

Jelly fish ranged in size from tiny to about 40cm. Hundreds of them swarmed into the marina.

My facial barometer has been working overtime – slight dripping to full-on water cascades from the face by Tuesday (Donna you will recall this from our Darwin days). Today was much less humid reducing my output to just a thin veil of wetness across the forehead.
Coping mechanisms include such things as lying about in the foreshore rock pool which has stingers and other beasties filtered out; going to the movies (can recommend Argo and The Intouchables) and sitting in air con sewing fender covers.
The evenings remain superb.
Thank goodness Royden decided to set the air conditioner in place last Sunday, never thinking we would be using it the next day as the weather up until then had been delightful – warm to hot, and breezy.

* The rock pool kept us entertained on Monday with a big goanna strolling around the grassed area causing quite a stir among the sunbathers (Yes, people still do that). On the sea-side of the pool a number of turtles were feeding, rising to the surface for several breaths before each dive. Unfortunately I forgot to take my camera to capture either of the above.