After our wild ride home, we took Anwar out for Barramundi (Australia’s best fish, from the northeast coast), shrimp, fish curry, and Blueberry Mojitos, then watched his video of living and working in McKay (the one he promised Mom about 2 years ago), and then watched our favorite episode of Fawlty Towers, “Communication Problems� and one I have never seen, even though there are only 10 or 12.

We were flying back to Melbourne on Wednesday at noon, so we rode the 8am ferry over with Anwar going to work at the airport. We had “brekky� (Aussie for breakfast) at a bakery (bakeries are everywhere, and usually have meat and veggie pies in addition to breads and pastries) and then wandered around the 5-star hotel for awhile. Then Anwar was able to take an hour or so off and picked us up in their golf cart and gave us a tour to the highest points on Hamilton Island with spectacular views of the surrounding islands. Patricia actually had a blast driving the cart (her first time ever) – it has a governor on it so it won’t go over 20 mph (which she loved – you know Patricia!), and this one sure needed a tune up, ‘cause it didn’t sound go good. The golf carts are 90% of the vehicles, and share the roads on this very small island with free buses and trucks.

He then took us up into the air traffic control tower for about 40 minutes – that was a blast. He did his best explaining to us a little bit about how he does his job, and we got to ask questions and watch him ‘pull down’ (land) a jet from Adelaide, as well as a small plane and another jet. He said he is getting better at telling stories – he used to have to back up again and again to explain some terms he used (like ‘base’, which I think means ‘coming in the same direction as the wind’) , but he is learning not to use those terms with ‘lay’ people unless he is prepared to explain them. He was *always* looking at and checking the sky and the runway – he always seemed to be very aware of what was happening, and says that even though this is a ‘quiet’ airport, everything often happens at once. He saw the approach of the jet from Adelaide long before we did – he handed us the binocs when we couldn’t see it. Patricia asked if he had ever seen a plane come in too fast (it is a very short runway), and he said no, but frequent too ‘long’, meaning they miss the long white strips that target where they should touch down, usually because they are coming in very slowly. He also went through the radio alphabet with us – thanks Anwar for filling in the ones we forgot!

Alpha
Bravo
Charlie
Delta
Echo
Foxtrot
Golf
Hotel
India
Juliet
Kilo
Lima
Mike (this one cracks us up!)
November
Oscar
Papa
Quebec
Romeo
Sierra
Tango
Uniform
Victor
Whiskey
X-Ray
Yankee
Zulu