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The Great Southern Ocean can be a terrible place, and there is in it at this moment a small, pink boat which has been battered for three days by wind gusts of over 50 knots, six-metre swells and a cold, stinging rain.

On the boat is a 16-year-old girl. Her thoughts right now are on making the right decisions to survive, on repairing a mainsail ripped by the winds, and on when she might be able to catch up on some sleep, but there must be a growing number of moments when she allows herself to think about an extraordinary truth: I am nearly home.

Jessica Watson is within about three weeks of achieving what she set out to do: become the youngest person ever to sail alone and unassisted around the world. And as she sails closer to the finish line in Sydney Harbour, she will galvanize a nation.

When Kay Cottee became the first woman to sail solo around the world in 1988, we listened via the then technological marvel of a live radio cross as she and her 11-metre sloop made their way across the Great Southern Ocean. She became an Australian hero, and Watson will do the same.

Perhaps even more so, because Watson is less than half Cottee's age, because her boat is even smaller at 10.2 metres, and because it is pink. She has had to overcome other disadvantages: the handle of Cottee's kettle did not fall off like Watson's did, and while Cottee famously celebrated passing the Cape of Good Hope with a bottle of Australia's iconic Grange Hermitage, Watson is too young for such partying.

On the other hand, Cottee didn't have her parents and siblings fly over in a light plane to celebrate being back in Australian waters. That happened for Watson on April 11, and it was surely a moment of celebratory emotion to know that the nearest land, if she could see it, due north, was Western Australia's Cape Leeuwin.

Jessica Watson and her wonderful pink boat were back under the shadow of the land she calls home. Welcome home, Jess.
images: heraldsun.com.au, yachtpal.com

LINKS
The official news page
Jessica Watson's blog

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Posted By: Chris Champion - Category: Australia, Happy Spot, Human nature

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Labours of love

July 13th 2009 04:58

An Australian polling group has put political issues aside for the moment and conducted a survey on something truly useful: which profession has the most sex.

The poll, conducted by Galaxy Research, was generally aimed at discovering who has most job satisfaction, with the sex regularity question considered a major component.

The result, without a word of a porky pie, was butchers. They are "the happiest employees in the workforce — and they're having the most sex" the poll said. Seventy-six per cent of butchers surveyed beat the respondent average in terms of feeling healthier, laughing more at work and having more sex.

Butchers didn't just win, they romped it in, reporting they they enjoy a staggering 60 per cent more sex than other workers. More than half the 295 butchers surveyed had no sick leave last year and 60 per cent described their work as fun. How they described their sex was not stated.

At the other end of the office contentment and bedroom excitement equation were service station attendants and bank tellers.

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Posted By: Chris Champion - Category: Australia, Happy Spot

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Fathers and sons on side

November 9th 2008 21:03

Most weekends you'll only find seven names on the list for the Pine Rivers Hawks cricket team in Queensland. But that's okay because those seven blokes always bring their seven sons so they have more than enough to take the field.

Two of them, Darren Reilly and his son Jake, 13, open the bowling. Darren, who played before bigger crowds in his AFL days with the (then) Brisbane Bears, says Jake reminds him every morning who has taken more wickets.

Also in the team are Bruce and Chris Stone, Brett and Ashley Mears, Russ and Matthew Dunne, Peter and Matt Bartlett, and Randy and Ryan Kay.

“The kids enjoy it. They try to run us (dads) to death but I think it’s the dads that get the most out of it,” says Darren. “To be able to play sport with your kid is just terrific."

pine-rivers-press. whereilive. com. au

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Posted By: Chris Champion - Category: Australia, Happy Spot, Cricket

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Grill ride

July 15th 2008 07:03

How much can a koala bear? Quite a lot, according to a story from Queensland, Australia, today.

A male koala who for reasons which will become apparent has been named Lucky, was hit today by a car doing sufficient speed for Lucky's head and one arm to be rammed through the radiator grill. And there he stayed, as the unsuspecting driver drove on

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