Our time in Mackay

O.K I have decided I'm never quite going to catch up with this blog with exactly whats happened in the last few weeks! But heres a few things we have had, rain, rain and more rain. Leaks, leaks and more leaks, a king tide and many very very low tides making getting up our jetty ramp a major source of daily exercise for us all.
We are itching to take Nirvana Seafari out at the moment as she has been sitting here too long without movement.

Mackay out and about

From a transient boating perspective.

It's a beautiful day sitting here in the cockpit of the boat with breeze floating gently in the air. The storms have passed and still enough cloud cover to keep the temperature down.

This marina is situated beautifully between a beach and the 480 odd birth marina. The beach offers patrolled swimming with the surf life saving club, two covered playgrounds and at this stage of it's development a small walking/bicycle track and modern new housing development. There is a huge breakwater wall/road that you can drive out on and fish from with a good view out to all the oil containers Mackay has secured just out off her shores.

Facilities here at this marina are good offering small yacht club and further down the picturesque walkway are the Clarion hotel with fine restaurants, takeouts, further down hotel bar with live music every weekend, fish n ships, ice cream confection shop, chandlery and local grocery (although over priced.) We are about 15 min drive from Mackay town centre and local buses do run from the marina, however very limited about every 2 hours.

This really is a cute quant little place to spend some time with 2 major shopping centres, the city area one being the largest, 2 cinema complexes, and small art gallery, local library in which you can purchase a temporary membership for about $30 you get returned to you when you bring back your books. Mackay can be very expensive for a small place due to the money that the mines bring to the area and so businesses feel they can charge more. This makes it very expensive for locals that do not have family working in the mines. I nearly fell over when I asked to get a price for my hair done here, I got quoted $230 for quarter head of foils with toner and wash and blow-dry. Not even a cut was included. I have resorted to doing it myself and retouching my grey at home with a store bought pack. Not my ideal but will do until we sail back up to Cairns where I know I can get it done for quarter the price.

Home schooling

So here we are in Mackay.............
We have been here for about 6 weeks now and have settled into our homeschooling routine finally.
We are all new to home education and have tried both public and private schooling in the past. I have been doing distance education with our 3 girls when we first moved on our boat, it really wasn't suitible for us at all, as we have struggled with the workload eating into our discovery time on the boat and for me it has been juggling the curriculum as a home tutor. I also disliked how my youngest daughter 7yrs, was being judged with not being up to standard in her reading and english. We know she is very bright, just in different avenues not deemed as important, for example she loves music and likes doing maths, so we have decided to progress with eclectic home schooling for all three girls. Much to all their delight! The older two, 14 and 11 have excelled in their schooling but have experienced stress and anxiety with meeting school deadlines in the past. We value their happiness and the developement of their spiritual beings to be free to be who they desire to be. And I have really noticed a burnout and total dislike for school especially last year when they attended catholic school. So I knew things had to change for them all to be happy again and want to continue with their desire for education and learning.

So school looks like this these days - All three girls do Maths, English and unit studies. This month Destiny is doing her unit study on photography and Saraya and Harmony on the Ocean.

Saraya learnt why the ocean is salty.

Harmony has a learning disability to do with visual memory we believe a form of Dyslexia. I am in the process of major research into what is the best avenue to take to try and help her.