Hey it’s my birthday. Unlike most, mine only come around every 4 years, but they do hold the Olympic Games to celebrate when they do.
It’s a lousy day, grey & blowing the oysters off the rocks, & the leaves off the trees, but still bone dry. It’s not fair I reckon. When you are allocated so few birthdays, you’d think they could be nice days.

Yep, I’ve only had 19 birthdays, & I missed 2 of those due to the bad weather. 76 I was battened down in the middle of the Solomon Sea, riding out a small cyclone in my yacht. Being single handed does make these things a bit harder, & you don’t even realise it’s your birthday, until it’s all over.

In 80 I was up a mangrove creek a few miles south of Shute Harbour in the Whitsundays hiding from another. I was not alone this time. I had 2 island ferries, 6 bare boat charter yachts, their mother ship & my yacht I was responsible for, & 5 crew members helping, plus 3 other charter or private boats, & their owners.

This was a big one, lasting 5 days. The damn thing went inland, then came back out & attacked us again. Still we were so sheltered from the wind for the first half in there, that the sand flies were the biggest problem. Again forgot about birthdays, until it was all over.

Still, I’ve had so much good luck in my life, a couple of missed birthdays doesn’t hurt too much.

What are your birthday stories? There must be a few.

On the up side, mate, you've packed a lot of living into life and only 19!!

..........Happy birthday Hasbeen.........unfortunately nothing dramatic has ever accompanied any of mine,,,,,,,,,cheers to you.

Dear Hassie,

Many Happy Returns to you.

I hope you had a Happy Birthday.

The last Birthday our family celebrated was
in September for my son's birthday - and that
was the day of my horrible accident in the
Yarra Valley when I had my fall and ended up
in hospital for over 13 weeks. I would have
settled for lousy weather instead if I could
have done.

Still I'm making progress and things are much
better now.

On the down side - I've haad to move my mum to the dementia
wing of a nursing-home. It will take her a while
to get used to that. It is a good one - and we do
visit her every day.

Once again - Happy Birthday.

Happy birthday ol' mate ! Gee it must have been pretty tough to have a birthday only every four years?

You're living a remarkable life aren't you, more so than many other men who've worked in an office from nine to five most of their working lives.

From a Naval Aviator; Sailor/Master of your own vessel; race car driver; and race car preparer/builder - you're living one hell of a life eh HASBEEN and to many, almost an impossible dream !

In hindsight, now you're in a position to sit back quietly and reflect upon your adventurous lifestyle, is their any one pursuit or discipline, you wished you could've further aspired to, where you had to abort or giveaway, because of family, a lack of funds, time, or continued good health?

Have a very happy birthday HASBEEN !

Gee Foxy, these birthdays aren't all that friendly are they? Glad you are on the mend now.

Hi o sung wu, no mate, I managed to do all the things I really wanted to do, & a few others. Financing them was always a problem. I had to learn all those skills, & a few others, like boat building/restoration, sailmaking & car restoration along the way. I could never have afforded paying others for the work.

One thing I have found is the most knowledgeable people love teaching those who want to learn. I've had some brilliant people teach me as much as I could handle of their speciality, often just when I needed it.

Not so successful with my latest hobby. My son started flying radio controlled planes, & I have joined him. I am slow learning it, & my real flying was not much help at all.

I have lost much of my depth perception, & have parked some planes high in trees, when I thought they were much closer to me than they were. Just as well I don't still drive at 160+ miles per hour down Conrod. This of course means learning yet a new skill. How to repair damaged model aircraft. Fortunately with my less than perfect flying, I'm becoming quite good at gluing them back together, & it is surprising how well a patched up wreck can fly again.