The Eden Shuffle
Snug Cove, which is the wharf at Eden, is not protected from Southerlies. The locals say they don't even need to check the weather on occasions. If they see heaps of boats leaving from Snug Cove and heading to East Boyd Bay (located about 2.5 nautical miles or approx 2 kms away) at the southern end of the bay, then they know some bigtime nasty Southerlies are about to hit. East Boyd Bay is an anchorage with no facilities, so people shuffle back and forth between there and Eden to stock up on supplies, then sail back to EBB and the protection of the southern surrounding hills.
And that is the Eden Shuffle!! :-)
We ended up doing the Eden Shuffle quite a few times. The first night we hid at EBB we had southerlies at about 35 knots/hour at the top of the mast (about 65-70km/hour), which was a 'little' nerve wracking as we have a new anchor and how the boat would hold was all new to us (we installed an anchor alarm for some security). It turned out ok, but the boat pulled and yanked on its anchor and swung around, and there were a few times Mike and I looked at eachother pretty wide eyed with an "Oh crap, where are we going to end up????" expression. The people who stayed moored at Snug Cove and would have experienced higher winds and swell described their night as 'somewhat entertaining'!!
East Boyd Bay
We stayed there for most of the time. It ended up being great, not only because of the beauty and serentity of of the bay, but because of the people we met there.
Mike and Sue from Yaraandoo II
Mike and Sue from Yaraandoo II dinghied up to say hi, and we spent a large part of the next few days with them. They have lived on their yacht for 21 years, and inside are all the momentos collected from travelling around Australia, the Pacific Ocean and up to Alaska. There are bookshelves (I love snooping through people's bookshelves), the interior is built out of teak wood, and they have added in what feels like a sunroom upstairs in the cockpit so you could lie under the stars or stare at the rain while warm and cosy inside. They even have central heating...and a washing machine :-) Ahhh...luxury. They were incredibly friendly, generous and kind in sharing their stories and hints how to make sailing easier. Lemons survive longer if wrapped in alfoil. Rubbish can be compacted by cutting plastic into little bits and continually punding into a 2ltr milk bottle!
They grew up in the same town in England about 5 doors apart in England, when Mike used to pull Sue's pigtails. Then in their early teens Mike was getting more keen about sailing, but needed someone else on the boat. Having seen Sue sailing he set a Mills & Boon benchmark by asking her to be his 'ballast' - and they have basically been together ever since!
They have seen a whale giving birth off Hamilton Island. Apparantly the baby was not breathing so the mother balanced the baby on her head, and kept bringing it up and down from the water's surface to try and clear it's blowhole. When the baby finally took it's first breath and started swimming the crowd watching clapped. I would have become all teary..I think a few people did :-)
Another time a pod of killer whales swum close to their boat. One of them actually turned upside down and gently stroked the bottom of the hull with it's fins. Eventually the whale slowly turned around and swum off after making lingering eye contact. That would have been an amazing experience!
They shared some more anecdotes - but I have listed those with my Horror Stories :-)
Sumbawa
So...Mike and Sue told us that one of the boats anchored near us had a family living on board. A family of two parents..and 10 kids. My head promptly exploded. I live on the edge of the abyss of insanity with two kids, so I couldn't even imagine myself with 10.
However, over the next few days we spent a heap of time with them on the EBB beach and walking to the Whaling Station Historic Site at Brierly Point. They are an awesome family. Bec and Steve's tribe range from 13 years to 16 months, being Tash (the oldest), Ryan, Nikita, Azanyah, Amlayah, Hunter, Blade, Alec, Yahsha and Zeinobiyah.
Tash and Oscar hit it off! Ryan loves creating superhero comics and did some pretty fine artwork in the sand (plus has way more knowledge of elctrical circuits than me - which isn't hard I know, but is still pretty impressive). O&I, Nikita and Azanyah (approx 9 and 6) had heaps of fun playing tag on the beach, and Isobel adopted Azanyah as the baby brother she wishes Mike and I would give her (sorry Bel, but no matter how cool the Sumbawa family is....2 is our limit....critical mass has been reached for the Paech/Campbell Clan).
They plan to sail north up the East Coast of Australia, once they have finished learning to sail at Eden :-) Although the general consensus is that they need a Cat for the space. Sumbawa has two bedrooms, so many of the kids sleep on the floor and put away their bedding during the day. The kids take turn making dinner, and there is no automatic way of pulling up the anchor so the children stand in a row and manually lift it up. Seriously - this family is 10x better behaved and independent than mine!!!
The children have also embraced living on a boat. It was entertaining in the morning having my coffee and watching them climb up the mast....and slide head first down the stays (wires that run from the deck up the mast to help stabilise it).
Having spent time with all these people it was pretty hard to leave Eden - very cool group of people! :-)
Bermagui Banter!
Had an awesome day sail from Eden to Bermagui. Blue skies, southerly wind so sailing wing on wing, calm seas.
Oscar caught a Benito, which is a 3 Chef's Hat sushi eating fish. Perfecto Benito! This might have been our downfall...!!!! :-) Maybe it was the cocky hubris of a brilliant day sailing, feeling like Masters of our salty Domain. Morons!!!!!
Entering Bermagui is via a narrow and shallow entrance. I was tired so nonsensical, emotional right hand brain was overwhelming logical left hand brain. Mike...apparantly.....was trying to remember where the wasabi and soy was so he could devour his Benito sushi for sundowners.
As we entered we saw two green bouys. These mean keep them to your starboard (right). But the entrance on that direction looked so narrow (my thoughts), 'where is that wasabi' (Mike's thoughts)...ignored the green buoys...passed them on our port (left)
and....
bam.....MOLI totally grounded on a sand shallow. The extact sand shallow that the green buoys (and the Harbourmaster) had warned us about. Did I say Morons!!!!?
A grounded boat is not pleasant. A rock wall was a metre or so behind us. The boat was making groaning, creaking, unpleasant sounds. I had visions of MOLI splintering into a million pieces and us floating in our lifejackets to impending doom ( which is pretty stupid considering the water was totally calm and it was still daylight and we were literally 200m from shore). I put in some pretty frantic calls to Marine Resuce Bermagui on open Channel 16. Marine Rescue volunteers were called up in case we started taking on water. A 'Securite' alert was issued against us for being a naviagational hazard for vessels entering/departing port. There are 3 all channel 16 warning calls. Mayday Mayday (imminent death possible), Pan Pan (life's not so good at the moment) and Securite (navigational hazard, weather warning etc etc etc).
Fortunately though we grounded at almost full low tide. So ultimately we (on the recommendation of Marine Rescue) decided to wait for the tide to rise a bit, so we could float off. At this point panic subsided into complete embarrassment. I wondered if it was really bad etiquette to have a glass of wine while waiting for tide to rise while marine rescue volunteers were on standby (decided it was :-) ).
Finally, the water rose, Mike throttled the engine and we slipped free and motored in...heads hung in total shame. We made a beeline for the nearest place that could ply us with booze and the Benito stayed in the fridge bypassing peak sushi time to become just a common all garden cooked fish fillet for another day.
The next couple of days local fishermen would see me and yell out "Hey Moli, how you going?". They had been listening to my Channel 16 calls from the harbour, watching us sitting there and pissing themselves laughing at us. We were infamous! Pretty sure this wasn't one of our aspirations when planning this trip.
Bermagui itself was great. We were docked on Fisherman's Wharf, so we were there when the fishing boats came in with hauls of tuna to be unloaded. We met Glen (refer to 'Tasmanians have Viking blood'), I had the best sourdough ever from Honorbread - in fact I bought heaps freshly baked every morning, so the boat was loaded with Rye & Carraway Sourdough, and Wholemeal Sourdough and Porridge & Almond Sourdough. We had to eat our way through ALOT of sourdough. Oscar was temporarily best mates with a similarly aged boy (Henry) on the boat docked near us, and they spent days fishing off the back of Henry's boat - C'est la Vie. This is when Oscar covered his clothes with revolting fish guts and all our clothes ended up smelling like revolting fish guts (refer to my extended rant in 'What is driving me B@tshit' - gripping reading ;-) ). We met Henry's Dad, Wes, and through Wes a local called Andy. Both were awesome, told me some sailing horror stories and cooked us fantastic Albacore tuna for dinner which had been freshly caught that morning. The marina was cute, the coastal scenery was stunning, and the locals were incredibly friendly - even when they were laughing at us :-D
Loved beautiful Bermagui!!
So, part of the social life of cruising is the sharing of horror stories! It's kind of like when someone has something that smells really bad and says "Hey...smell this!!". You don't want to, and you know you shouldn't, and you know it's going to be really gross and disgusting - but for some reason you can't help yourself and smell it anyway and then go "WHOA..that's really GROSS and disgusting" and completely regret it and wish you had listened to yourself!!!
So, here are the horror stories so far ranked on the gross/distressing/tragic scale...
#! - Courtesy of Mike from Yaraando II in Eden
So...a couple were sailing together in the Atlantic. The husband climbed to the top of the mast, clipped himself in and then unfortunately suffered from a heart attack and died! Unfortunately the boat was weeks from shore and there was no way for the wife to lower the husband's body.
Weeks later, when she arrived at shore the body was (these are Mike's words)...dripping!!
D R I P P I N G!!!
It is the use of that word that means that horrible, traumatic story is etched in my brain forever!
Sharing is caring! :-)
#2 - Courtesy again of Mike!!
A sailor went on shore, got mindlessly drunk and was helped back to the boat by his mates who thoughtfully left him hanging over the toilet bowl to throw up. The poor guy fell asleep hanging over the toilet bowl.
Unfortunately the marine toilet hadn't been installed properly, so all the methane gases etc didn't expel properly and escaped back up the toilet bowl. The poor guy was found dead in the morning from methane poisoning....head still over the toilet bowl. That is one very unfortunate obituary!
#3 - Courtesy of Andy Huk from Bermagui
When nightsailing you really need to know the configurations of lights which identify different types of vessels. Many people are either ignorant of the lights of towing/towed vessels, or the length of the towing lines. It is also easy to be disorientated at night time.
Andy knew two people who misread/misjudged towing lights and unfortunately quickly departed this mortal coil. Their boats rammed onto the towing line (which apparantly is almost impossible to untangle a boat from), travelled down the line, ultimately to be obliterated on the bow of the towed vessel. I place this highly because I'm pretty sure at some point those people were fully aware of their probable imminent demise!
#4 - Courtesy of Glenn from Tiger One
Glenn was sailing from Flinder's Island to Bermagui, but out far east from the coast line. Five metre waves (I consider that big), nighttime, miles from anywhere and just on the edge of the continental shelf where ocean depth starts getting really..REALLY deep..and dark..and cold!!!!
As he was surfing down a wave a whale connected with his rudder and disabled the whole system. (If a whale rips out your rudder, then there is no way of fixing a hole that big and you probably have less than 10 minutes to get into your liferaft!)
The thought of not being able to steer while sailing in big seas, in the dark...alone..puts this one high on the list for me! He ultimately fixed it, and has lived to sail another day.
OK - so let's immediately dispel the notion that this experience is all about calm seas, blue skies, champagne sailing with dolphins bounding out of sparkling turquoise waves near the bow every morning and relaxed sundowners every night viewing a magnificent sunset, before retiring under a starlit sky, to wake up and perform yoga as the sun gently rises to greet the day!...
This has all happened (except the yoga bit)....BUT...here is the Top Ten so far of what is making my head explode!
1. Big swells - especially when it has confused sea on top!
Swells are not swell. There is NOTHING swell about sailing/motoring in a little 37 foot yacht in a big steep swell. If Trump was tweeting about some of the swells we've encountered it would be something incredibly articulate and thought provoking like this - "Swells. Terrible! BAD!!!!"
In fact I am of the strong opinion that 'swells' should be renamed 'Spew Rolls'.
They should not be measured in metres, but via the 'Chunder Thunder Index'. Of course everyone's 'Chunder Thunder Index' is highly individual (so it would have to be averaged out for use by the Bureau of Meterology), but here is my personal 'Chunder Thunder Index' for now! Further, this Index gradually morphs into the "Terror Index'!.
1 to 3 - OK, can cook and read downstairs. Tummy ok.
3 to 5 - Decreasing ability to stay downstairs. Probably to be found outside in the cockpit gazing longingly at the horizon after scoffing a few seasickness tablets.
5.5 - Get's a special mention. When it's not that bad, but you're tired and haven't had a shower for a few days and it's cold and you're just over it, so you stay outside and yell obscenities at the next oncoming wave and think it would actually be very satisfying to throw up in the ocean, because it seriously deserves it! (Jervis Bay to Sydney).
6 - Stupidly attempt to cook breakfast. Throw down bread and sharp knife as stomach heaves into throat. Bolt upstairs, fix gaze at the horizon (which is appearing and disappearing behind the waves), Mike kindly feeds me vegemite toast while I spend the day outside watching the passing coastline as we approach Bermagui from Eden.
7 - Upstairs, eyes fixed on horizon, cuddling a winch with stomach rolling and heaving.
8 - Enter the swell from the serenity of Jervis Bay with intent to reach Sydney, Family spends ten minutes imitating cowboys at a rodeo with MOLI playing nasty as the grumpy, obnoxious bull. Mutual decision to race back into Jervis Bay. As I contact Marine Rescue Jervis Bay on the radio to inform them of our return, the phone rings with a wrong number at the exact same time a wave breaks and slams over the top of the boat. Person on the other end of the phone hears screaming and a VERY loud "F @ C K!!!" before being hung up on (bet they don't ring the wrong number again :-D ). Fear has removed need to throw up, but adrenal gland has imploded.
9 - I convince Mike to marry me just so I can put him through a nasty divorce for making me go through this hell.
10 - I stay with Mike and make the rest of his life hell!!!
So far we've had one 8, one 6 and a few 3 to 5s.
2. Kids constantly demanding food anytime they are conscious.
This is no different than normal life, BUT if this occurs while I'm anything above a 5 on the 'Chunder Thunder Index' (or I haven't had my morning coffee) then the kids are told to fend for themselves on musli bars, or whatever else they find, because I seriously don't care at that point!!
3. Smell of fish on clothes
So Oscar has developed a love of fishing. Which is great!
However, when he spends a day cutting up a whole mullet for bait and smears blood and fish guts all over his clothes...and then I wash those clothes with heaps of others (including towels) - and they ALL come out smelling of rancid fish guts. And then those rancid fish gut infested clothes stink out the entire boat and increase my susceptibility to a high ranking on the 'Chunder Thunder Index' - I AM NOT HAPPY!!!
4. Surrounded by the kids 24/7
Ok - so we have never been a family oozing serenity and mindfulness. But in a confined area where no rhythm has been found yet and everything is new then everything is louder, more intense and more immediate. It's like all the interlocking and tessellating pieces of our family jigsaw have changed, and while sometimes they sort of fit together, other times they have to be jiggled, cajoled or pounded into place. However, in writing this I know now the proper names of jigsaw edges - so that's a silver lining :-). Further, being surrounded by the kids 24/7 also rates in my Top Ten of Awesome (just like normal life really!).
5. Can't think of anything yet, but I'm sure the next few hours/days/months will provide ample fodder for me to rant about!
So despite my 'What is driving me B@tshit' entry, there is no doubt that so far this experience has been pretty awesome (I'll ignore the fact that I had just finished writing this entry and the kids started fighting and yelling, and when I jumped up to separate them I deleted everything by mistake!!!).
So, so far I have loved:
Waking up most mornings and having my morning coffee watching the sunrise in complete serenity, surrounded by nature.
The bioluminesnce I have experienced for the first time during the night sails. On the second overnight sail the water was completely calm, so the bioluminesce bouncing off the bow waves created fluorescent green wavey lines resembling aurora lights in the ocean. The other water surrounding MOLI sparkled. Oscar and I were both on watch, when I saw green streaks, like underwater missiles, approaching the boat. After a momentary panic of having no idea what it was I realised that it was.....dolphins. They leapt out of the water right beside us, and were so brightly lit up that you could see them clearly surrounded by glowing green and glittering water. It was seriously that awesome!!! Oscar and I have nicknamed them Radioactive Dolphins!
Being with Mike and the kids. Despite the occcasional (?) grumpiness and yelling (and threats in Jervis Bay that if the kid's behaviour didn't improve asap that we were calling it quits in Sydney) - there has also been a lot of good times, laughs and cuddles. It will all be worth it in the end......
I love being rocked to sleep when at anchor. It's incredibly calming and completely distracts you from having those crazy, stressful, circular thoughts that keep you awake. I googled and there are rocking beds for adults! Rocking also apparantly increases blood lymphatic circulation. I am so getting one of those when I get back to Melbourne :-) :-)
Some of the really stupid things we've done. On my first nightwatch I was incredibly vigilent (read paranoid), jumping up every five minutes to check the horizon for approaching boats (10-12 minutes is the standard). I was checking again when I saw something bizarre on the horizon, looking like a giant, flaming, burning red sail looming bigger towards us every second. It was confusing and made no sense! I freaked out and yelled at Mike to 'wake up and get upstairs NOW because something REALLY big and scary was approaching and I had NO idea what it was'. We both stood there for a while, then I said "Ummm....I think it's the moon". After about a minute Mike said "I think you're right" (which is probably a first within itself ;-) ). Yep, we managed to avoid a near collision with the moon. However, apparantly it's pretty common for newbies to call "all hands on deck" when completely spooked by the moon. Venus, and other little red stars close to the horizon have also been known to cause panic! Who would have thought :-)
1. How much this is like backpacking!
There's lots of travel time (although often complimented by great scenery or experiences - refer to radioactive dolphins viewed during night sail from Refuge Cove to Eden), you spend a fairly significant amount of time feeling kind of grotty, and your first thoughts regarding some destinations (Sydney for example) are 'awesome...showers and a laundromat'. An enormous amount of time is spent trying to work out where things are and how to get there! You end up walking through the main streets of town with bags full of dirty laundry.
2. How rarely we get to wash the kids' hair!
We are seriously bad parents, and they are seriously turning into little ferals. Both are developing dreadlocks for goodness sake. Not stylish dreadlocks, but the matted knotty mess type dreadlocks. However, I'm a bit torn as it kind of simultaneously looks both funky and skanky. Fanky perhaps? Yep - my kids are Fanky!
However, I think Sydney shall prove to be the place of the Great Hair Washing of May 2017. Then they can turn Fanky again before next Great Hair Washing Event in Brisbane! We're hoping to stop in Bryon Bay, so their Fankiness can just help them blend into the general Hippie Fanky Vibe (as I've been told).
3. How incredibly social yachting can be!
In every place we have stopped in so far (except Refuge Cove - which was pretty isolated and quiet) there have been so many friendly and interesting people to talk to. You anchor, and they turn up in their dinghy to say hello. You tie up at a wharf and locals stop to ask you about your boat, and what you are up to and then share their often incredible stories.
At the wharf in Bermagui, over my morning coffee, I ended up chatting with a guy who, it turned out was Jim Hawke. He helped train Jessica Watson for her attempt to set a record being the youngest person to solo navigate the world by guiding her on a sail from Queensland across the Tasman to New Zealand. That was cool considering we've seen her around a few times at the Sandy Yacht Club.
There's heaps of other great stories and people, but I'll save those for later :-)
Cruising through Sydney Harbour on your own boat is pretty damn cool.
I now have a real appreciation of how incredible the first European settlers must have found it, and what a beautiful home it was for the original Aboriginal tribes! It's beautiful as it winds it's way around little islands, is surrounded by hills, and snakes off into a multitude of little bays with enough depth to sail into (MOLI's keel is 2m under the hull).
We entered Sydney Harbour through the pretty imposing North and South headlands as the sun came up behind us from the East, and a huge, fat, round yellow full moon slowly disappeared over the South Headland. The disappearing moon would have been a magnificent photo, but as Mike bolted downstairs to get his camera the Man in the Moon clearly decided it was time for sleep and Luna Maximus said 'So Long Sucker' and bolted below the horizon. However, the sight of it did improve my mood after a night of 5.5 on the Chunder Thunder Index!!!
Sidenote - The current full moon was called the Flower Moon in Native American and Colonial times. Also called Mother's Moon, Milk Moon and Corn Planting Moon it marked a time of increasing fertility and time for planting spring crops. The next Full Moon in June is the Stawberry Moon. :-) Yeah - I know we're Southern hemisphere, but cool trivia anyway :-D !!
Taking MOLI past the Sydney Opera House and under the Harbour Bridge just after sunrise was suprisingly exicting (I thought I would be more jaded considering their exposure on media, postcards etc and having visited them before). It was fun negotiating our way past all the ferries zipping past from/to Circular Quay (and satisfying to think of all the people on them heading off to work - WHICH WASN'T ME :-) :-) ). Fun for me anyway, think Mike found it slightly stressful as the ferries are big, and fast and ooze 'Get Out Of My Face' attitude.
I found it incredible that we could sail past Sydney's major waterfront landmarks, then only 500m from the Harbour Bridge find a secluded little bay to anchor in. It was also pretty funny to find that we had found Glenn from Tiger One again, and I promised him that we were not stalking him (after he rafted beside us in Bermagui we inadvertantly followed him to Jervis Bay and then again in Sydney - he's heading north up to Whitsundays as well, so it's kind of becoming a personal challenge as to how often we can inadvertently bump into him)!
Kids were pretty impressed by Sydney, and Isobel decided that the Sydney Opera House is actually "The Corn Chip Building' (having eaten a few while my Chunder Thunder Index has been high). Oscar looked at The Corn Chip building, and did a big 'been there done that'. Which is weird because Mike and I have NO recollection whatsoever of ever having taken him to Sydney. Besides - it's disturbing that a 10 year old is so jaded!!!
We also stayed a few days at the Cruising Yacht Club of Australia - where many yachts which race the Sydney to Hobart are docked. In the entrance are the two big cannons that essentially start the race.
Oscar and I got up early and went to the Sydney Fish Market Tour - which was really interesting. They stop eels escaping their boxes by getting them drunk. Yep, they mix vodka and clove oil with seawater, shake it like a cocktail and then pour it in with the eels. It sedates them as apparantly they are total Houdini's otherwise!!
And....I found a laundromat that for $15 washed, dried AND folded my clothes. Totally awesome!!!
But, even though Sydney was cool, it was kind of like being back at Melbourne. I missed the interesting and more unusual little fishing stops like Eden and Bermagui. So, eventually it was ciao to Sydney and time to do a day sail to Pittwater.
yeah - will write about this later. Am suffering blog overload.
it was very nice though :-)
OK....I promise this is my last massive whinge about swells and seasickness..for a while anyway :-) But whinging can be very therapeutic and cleansing so I feel it is a moral obligation to myself to let my whingey, whiney self run free for a while.
'Finding Nemo' is scarred to me forever! I will never watch it with the same childlike ignorance again. Why.....because of the bloody East Australian Current. Remember how Marlin and Dory ride the EAC from Q'land to Sydney to find Nemo, and they rock it with Crush the turtle and it's all like 'Whoa dude" and totally cool like a theme park ride.
Yeah....it might be that way if you're heading from North to South. Here is the story of banging into this southerly heading current from the opposite direction with a south westerly swell behind you.
It's crap! Totally unpleasant crap! ("Oscar - crap is a naughty word and you are not allowed to use it. I am allowed to use it because I am an adult and I have suffered and it is the most polite swear world out of the plethora of swearwords I would rather be using right now"). The swell and wind induced sea on top collides with the EAC and cause tall, pitchy, confused, rolly waves. The southerly flowing current also reduces your boat speed of 6 knots to 3-4 knots overground. So it can not only make you feel sick, but it makes sure you feel sick for a long, long time. Sadistic b@stard!!!!
For me seasickness starts with a massive onset of fatigue, followed by a cold clammy sweat, which then mixes with the moist salty air to make skin feel slimy, itchy, moist, dirty, and sticky. Then the low-grade nausea sets in. Then the fatigue increases. There was one nightwatch I had to wake Mike early as I almost had no energy to even lift my arms. Sailing in Port Phillip Bay can not prepare you for the cumulative effect of swell induced tiredness. Tiredness makes you more susceptible to sea sickness. It's just Blugh!!!!
The worst I have felt was heading from Pittwater to Port Stephens. A long, long overnighter of Blugh! Heading past Newcastle at dusk/nightime is actually pretty bizarre. Massive tankers are anchored out at sea in a long row up the coast. It's like a graveyard of tankers all brightly lit up. It was about here that I felt my most miserable and shared my upbeat facebook entry that "I'm so effing sick of effing swell that if we slam into a tanker and effing die I don't effing care"!!!!! I was only joking a little bit.
So, the Chunder Thunder Index has a new rating of 8.5 - which is when misery and despair sets in and you have a little cry all by yourself and think horrible boat smashing thoughts.
However, I do have to grudgingly admit that even though I may have considered slamming MOLI into a Newcastle tanker, that there were some really cool things during that overnight sail. There was no moon and minimal light pollution so the Mily Way looked amazing. There were shooting stars galore, and over to the west way out at sea were huge flashes of orange lightning from the Cumulonimbus clouds that had earlier glowed spectacularly at sunset. Even sailing past the Newcastle tankers was cool as they looked so eerie and surreal.
However, immediately upon arriving in Port Stephens I put in an urgent, Express Post delivery on-line order for a Relief Band. It's worn like a watch and is meant to prevent seasickness by sending 4 second electrical pulses through your wrist via your median nerve to the brain which has a rebalancing effect, normalizes nerve messages to the stomach and reduces symptoms of nausea. I was 100% sceptical, but so utterly, completely and totally over feeling massively crap that I threw down $200 - and zapped myself on the next big overnighter from Port Stephens to Coffs Harbour. Seriously, I had it on near maximum setting and every 4 seconds half my hand and middle finger would vibrate from electrical shock. But it seemed to work, and a little constant electrocution was way more enjoyable than what I had previously been experiencing!!
So....why is Finding Nemo ruined for me???? Because, they never, EVER explain how Dory, Nemo and Marlin would have battled the EAC heading back North. Even if they hugged the coast line to avoid the EAC it would have taken them years. Marlin and Dory would be dead of old age. Actually - so would Nemo! Totally 100% dead! Hmpfffff! And I thought this movie was factually correct!!! :-P
Oh - I also found an awesome wave map on the BOM site. You click on the 'Marine and Ocean' icon on the home page and then the green 'Interactive Weather and Wave Maps' icon. You can access a map that animates wave height over several days, and clearly shows how massive 10m+ swells (I would vomit and die in those - even if I was constantly electrocuting myself) develop in the Southern Ocean and then slam into the west coast of Tasmania and funnel up the east coast of Australia to Q'land.
After the somewhat less than awesome overnight sail from Pittwater to Port Stephens (ranted about in previous entry) I learned the true value of the $1 coin.
$1 coins become a coveted commodity, worth more than their weight in gold.
Why????
Because they operate showers and washing machines and dryers. And after feeling absolutely blugh and shite, a shower and washing of clothes is Nirvana. It's a purging of the soul and a return to skin that doesn't feel gross and sweet smells and order and control over my fate. I'm totally not being melodramatic here!!!! More experienced cruisers keep separate wallets for $1 and $2 coins so they always have a stash ready to go.
Anyway - Port Stephens was cool. The coastline near Port Stephens is known as 'Shipwreck coast'. You sail past beachs with delightful names such as 'Wreck Beach'. Guaranteed to instil feelings of calm and serenity. The entry is between two steep headlands and looks benign and wide. Looks are totally deceiving. Before entering you have to sight the shore lead light and position the boat so the light is white. Too far left and it turns red meaning you are on your way to running aground on a hidden shallow shoal - too far right and it turns green meaning you are going to smash onto rocks on the northern headland. So...you enter with eyes glued on the light, making sure it stays white. After pondering in abject misery the night before whether to let MOLI splinter into a million pieces on the side of a Newcastle Tanker it seemed totally appropriate that dawn entry into Port Stephens felt akin to 'seeing the light at the end of the tunnel'. Anyway - we safely navigated through. Yay us!
While at the marina we had little penguins chasing our fish under the boat. Oscar learnt to row the dingy and he and Isobel would row to shore to muck around in the playground and pat as many dogs as they humanly could. The people moored beside us (Chris and Tracy on Strega) gave me a lesson on interpreting wind and swell info on the BOM site - knowledge is power!!. We basically just stayed at the marina and chilled and cleaned and ate prawns freshly caught that morning sauted in ginger, garlic, chilli and butter (YUM!!!). Apart from visiting Stockton Beach sand dunes it was a completely awesome sludge!
Oh - we also went to Bunnings (there were no sausages :-( ). The kids and I stayed in the taxi while Mike went shopping. Taxi driver was really nice and chatty and kept saying things like "yeah, and I told Kev that..and we reckon that ...", or "Kev reckons that....".
Who is Kev?????
I do know Kev is not her boyfriend (she's 60). Her boyfriend lives in the Blue Mountains and drives a Harley. They met as members of the same motorbike club. I never found out whether Kev has a motorbike!!!! I will never meet Kev, but I now know about Kev and what he reckons!!!! And I reckon that's pretty cool :-)
Went sand boarding at Stockton Beach at Port Stephens (home of the largest continuous mobile coastal sand mass in the Southern Hemisphere). Silly good fun - or as Oscar said 'EPIC!!!'.
I fell off and experienced sand penetration of biblical proportions and full body exfoliation on unprecedented levels. 😀 Then we all got sucked into full tourist mode and went for a camel ride along the beach. Sitting on a camel as they stand up is a bizarre experience. You pitch forwards, you pitch back! Seeing Mike schlepping along on a camel was worth every penny!
Victoria Sandringham - Queenscliffe - Refuge Cove - NSW Eden - Bermagui - Brulee Island - Jervis Bay - Sydney - Port Stephens Nelson Bay - Coffs Harbour - Q'land South Port Surfers Paradise - Peel Island Moreton Bay - Deception Bay Moreton Bay - Mooloolaba - Double Island Point - Fraser Island - Bundaberg - Lady Musgrave Island - Great Keppel Island - Keppel Bay Marina Rosslyn Bay
Did a L O N G overnighter from Port Stephens to Coffs. Left Port Stephens at 7.30am on 25th May and arrived Coffs around 4pm next day - 32 hours at sea!!!!
Had a fantastic blue sky sail on the first day with a southerly behind us, so the sails were out wing on wing and the seas felt calm beneath us.
Next morning almost killed a couple of fisherman in a little tinny!!!
Dawn and dusk are when fisherman zip around, anchor whereever they want, and pull out their fishing rods. Mike was asleep, I was on watch, went downstairs to make a coffee, moseyed upstairs to have another look - and about 20 metres directly infront of me were two slack jawed yokels in a tinny just staring at MOLI as she beared down on them.
I hurled my coffee, did a superman leap to the other side of the helm, switched off the autopilot and veered hard left. To see a string of fishing bouys with nets under them in front of me and MOLI's prop. Swore profusely and loudly and swung hard right....passed them and continued yelling out a few F@CKs as my heart rate slowly returned to normal.
I had been doing my watches properly, but the swell had picked up early morning so their little boat had been hidden by rolling waves on my previous lookout. They probably aren't slack jawed yokels, and it would have been my fault it I had oblitered them and their boat - but I still can't believe they didn't start making a move when they saw a 6 tonne yacht motoring for them with no apparant change of direction planned. I am now totally and utterly paranoid about little fishing boats!
Anyway...my collision tally so far is:
Louise hitting Moon - 0
Louise hitting Fisherman in Tinny - 0
Yay me :-)
Anyhoo - the rest of the day was calm motoring with blue skies and blue water. In fact hours and hours and hours of blue.
So much blue.
Blue when you looked up, blue when you looked down.
Blue to the left of me , blue to the right..here I am stuck in the middle of blue!!!
Got sick of blue.
Wrote this poem......
"Blue, blue, blue as far as the eye can see
Blue, blue, blue induced melanchoy"
Pullitzer if you ask me! I'm such a happy little soul :-)
Saw some whales in the distance, which seemed epic at the time as we hadn't experienced the mind blowing experience with whales near Fraser Island almost a month later.
More blue.
Entered Coffs, felt buggered, had a shower, faceplanted my one glass of wine due to exhaustion (hey - I had to deal with ALOT of blue), went to bed :-)
Victoria Sandringham - Queenscliffe - Refuge Cove - NSW Eden - Bermagui - Brulee Island - Jervis Bay - Sydney - Port Stephens Nelson Bay - COFFS HARBOUR - Q'land South Port Surfers Paradise - Peel Island Moreton Bay - Deception Bay Moreton Bay - Mooloolaba - Double Island Point - Fraser Island - Bundaberg - Lady Musgrave Island - Great Keppel Island - Keppel Bay Marina Rosslyn Bay
It was here that Oscar and Isobel (Turd 1 and Turd 2) sacked us as parents.
Docked near us were Catherine and Neville Hockey on their yacht Dreamtime. They departed the U.S in 2007 and have been sailing for 10 years with no intention to stop yet. Neville built an advertising and design business, which he ran remotely from his yacht. Catherine, for a while, was a nanny for a movie star and was required to pack a firearm as part of the job!! They are both incredibly interesting, kind and happy people. I understand why the kids left of us for them most of the time in Coffs - I would have left us too!!! :-)
Their initial intention was to circumnavigate the globe in 6 years. That has been replaced by the joy and freedom of simply living in the moment of each day, and letting the horizon determine their path. They have spent 10 years cruising the Pacific. It's nauseatingly awesome...I hate them.... ;-)
Their blog www.zeroxte.com is worth reading, while feeling yourself turn into a puddle of green, oozing, but also inspired, envy. Neville also regularly writes for sailing and cruising publications, which are in the 'Press' section of their blog.
Two of my favourties are 'Nautical Drifters' in Ocean Navigators Magazine published this year. In it Neville writes how their 6 year navigation plan has become 'freestyle'. He says about his and Catherine's current life that:
"It's a pace and lifestyle we never could have possibly imagined back in New York when time was resented for it's brevity and life was consumed in great, distracted, unappreciated gulps...Life is no longer a dizzing blur, but rather a colourful, vivid, mesmerizing and exciting kaleidoscope of experiences."
It's a bit sad that I can relate to his description of the gulping consumption of life, but I guess most of us can.
I also like 'Creative Nut' written for Blue Water Sailing Magazine in 2012 in response to the question "What exactly do you do all day?" There's alot about the joy and freedom of carving coconuts! :-) I saw some of his whale bone and Nautilus shell carvings on their boat, and they are beautiful (pictures included). One of his coconut carvings auctioned off for over $2000, with all the proceeds going to the Oceana Foundation.
It was awesome to meet them, and hear about a life so different from my own.
Oh - in my previous entry I mention having to change direction to avoid buoys attached to underwater large fishing nets, whicle trying to avoid decimating some fisherman in a little tinny. A few hours later Dreamtime (we hadn't met them yet, but they heading to Coffs just infront of us after achoring overnight in a nearby bay), ground to an abrupt halt after a submerged fishing net wound around their prop and stopped the propellors. Neville had to jump overboard and cut it loose as they had no motor (no easy task as those fishing nets are big, strong and heavy). Strega, who was behind them and following their course to Coffs had to make a sudden and dramatic turn to avoid slamming into them. There is often a constant dilemma of which course to take from A to B. Going further offshore can mean bigger waves, uncomfortable swell and losing ground speed due to an opposing current. Going further inshore heightens the risk of snagging a fishing net and damaging the prop (or ramming some fishing boats). This is why sailing up the coast is often not the fully relaxing experience people imagine :-) The buoys that identify fishing nets are also very small round balls that can be easily hidden behind waves until too late.....and are in such helpful, easily identifiable and visible colours as blue.....white.....black. I personally think they should be solar operated disco balls!!!!
We were in Coffs for a short time, but the marina and surrounding area is beautiful. We ate delicious prawns and Blue Eye fresh from the local fisherman's co-op, got soaked from rain at the local market, and climbed the lookout for some incredible views. Had sundowners with Tracy and Chris from Strega (we met them in Port Stephens and Chris gave me a lesson in the Bureau of Meterology website). Neville and Catherine took Oscar and Isobel for a game of beach tennis, where Isobel decided it would be a good idea to bury the ball under the sand and wander away before remembering where she had hidden it. We all spent close to an hour racking large sections of the beach trying to find it, with no success. Ultimately Oscar donated one of his balls to them.
Strega, MOLI, Dreamtime and about four other boats all left Coffs at 7am on to do an overnighter past the NSW border to Surfers Paradise. Which proved to be a rather long, bumpy and VERY fast night. In fact the wind was so good we struggled to slow MOLI down, and consistently did around 7 knots overnight. Unfortunately the wind also kicked up the sea and made it very confused. So it was a very fast and very bumpy and very erratic ride. You may ask why we didn't take the sails down and motor to slow us down? However, the sails help to balance and stop the rolling of the boat, so it was better they were up. Plus, it was kind of fun!
Anyway, arrived South Port Marina in Q'land feeling salty, sticky and very, VERY windblown :-)
Victoria Sandringham - Queenscliffe - Refuge Cove - NSW Eden - Bermagui - Brulee Island - Jervis Bay - Sydney - Port Stephens Nelson Bay - Coffs Harbour - Q'land SOUTH PORT SURFERS PARADISE - Peel Island Moreton Bay - Deception Bay Moreton Bay - Mooloolaba - Double Island Point - Fraser Island - Bundaberg - Lady Musgrave Island - Great Keppel Island - Keppel Bay Marina Rosslyn Bay
Arrived Southport Marina after a long, fast, dark and bumpy night.
Hunger beat filfth cleansing and we immediately went out for an early lunch at the rather posh Marina restuarant and probably offended the entire clientele due to looking skanky, salty, and greasy and probably smelly.
Next morning an incredible super yacht moored near us. Seriously awe inspiring.
Named Pumula (Zulu for 'rest' or 'peace'), it is 37 metres long and the owner requested that it be built as a 'Gentleman's yacht' - "...romance with features a gentleman would recognise". Once built the judges of the World Superyacht Awards awarded Pumula best in her category and best sailing yacht of the year. The owners, a European family with no sailing or racing history (but clearly huge, gigantic, mammoth wads of cash) wanted a yacht built to travel the world. They don't really sail it - the 4 or so crew members do that. When hiring their own personal Captain (Captain van Bregt who we talked to on the dock) they handed him a folder of magazine cut outs and pictures of all the places they wanted to visit and asked him to organise a 5 year travel itinery. The owners don't live on the boat the whole time, they just fly in to a convenient location and then go off sightseeing - on their big, beautiful, crewed yacht (yep - jealous much!!)! I love the way the owners came up with the name - They thought of the yacht as a 'self-contained sliver on a big sea, a tiny world within a very large one'. Now, that is romantic :-)
They have sailed along the Norwegian fjords, French Polynesia, Florida, Alaska....... They have sailed....as in sailed not motored...whilst winding through iceburgs in Antartica.....
[Sidenote:- as I try and write this Isobel has done something so disgusting on the toilet that the smell is pervading MOLI and I think I may vomit...or pass out....maybe both. Hopefully this blog entry makes sense...I'm beginning to feel delerious!!]
Anyway - the kids were actually invited onto Pumula and help wash the glowing wooden deck and polish the metalwork. Which they jumped at the chance to do. Little turds - wish they could clean MOLI with the same enthusiasm!! Actually it would be a start of they did ANY cleaning on MOLI at all!
Aside from drooling over Pumula we also went to SeaWorld, where kids loved handfeeding the rays and watched the dolphin show. Went to Wet 'n' Wild (where I didn't go down any of the waterslides because I had a cold and was grumpy) - where Isobel said to Mike, after initially being scared to go down one of the rides, that "first I was scared, then I just chillaxed and styled it"!!! Cracked us up! Watched a fireworks competition between 3 of the world's best fireworks display designers. One of the three entrants had created fireworks that actually look like love hearts and smily faces. Pretty impressive.
Had dinner at the Marina (now washed so far less skanky) where a singer/guitarist played all of Isobel and Oscar's song requests - from AC/DC to Taylor Swfit. Isobel actually got Mike up on the dance floor!!!! He might have been a wee bit intoxicated :-)
So...a friend just asked me how the leisure life was going (Hi Lara :-) )?
Now.....I can only talk from personal perspective obviously. And my personal perspective is founded in being someone who has severely limited sailing skill (I have bluntly told Mike that if he fell off the boat at night in a big swell that he would probably die if he had to rely on me to save him - even if he has been nice to me), has a significant talent for imagining worst case scenarios (probably derived from an unhealthy obsession with disaster and horror movies), feels a large sense of responsibility in keeping my two young turds alive and is slowly building a sense of trust and understanding with MOLI. So, leisure is not a word I would predominantly use to describe this adventure so far. :-) And here is why......
You can't say where you'll be in two weeks time (which sounds very leisurely......Ha! Ha! Ha! Haaaaaaaa!), but so much in the short term is micro-managed. Significant time is spent on the BOM checking out upcoming weather windows to move from A to B. What is the wind and swell like where you are when you want to leave? What will it be like in 30 hours after an overnight sail at the destination you are going to? Where are the safe harbours to stop in the middle if something goes wrong (and are there actually any in the first place??)! Sometimes, even though you desperately want to stop in a beautiful area and recharge you can't because you'll miss the upcoming weather window and be stuck in the same place for a week. Which, even with a six month time frame, could really knock out plans to reach the Whitsundays, or see the next amazing place just up the Coast.
When you get to a new place where is the closest laundromat and supermarket to provision? How do I get there? Life without a car is a new challenge. Many provisioning places are too close to taxi, but far enough that lugging around groceries can become pretty painful (so should have bought a collapsable shopping trolley). Where can I get my gas cylinders filled since they are of a stupid size that you can't swap 'n' go at a servo? Where is the nearest public space so the kids can go unleash their inner ape after being confined in a small space for over 24 hours!!
Experienced sailors say being on a boat is learning about constant patience (and that is totally NOT one of my strong points at all!!!) and continual compromise. It's about having to wait for good weather windows, and where is the edge of what's good and what's tolerable.
Something, somewhere on a boat always needs to be fixed. The headbanging buck'n broncho swell we had coming out of (and then quickly re-entering) Jervis Bay shook loose the control box for the anchor (potentially exposing live wires) - which took hours to fix. During one sail the hook connecting the mailsail to the boom broke off, meaning we temporarily were losing control of our sail (Mike was a legend and quickly worked out how to fix it). On the overnighter from Coffs Harbour to Southport Q'Land we heard and felt strange vibrations and rattling. Issues which took a while to find and fix while we were screaming along at over 8 knots (damn fast for MOLI) with wind gusts reaching close to 25 knots. We found out that bolts on our autopilot AND steering wheel were coming loose - which had to be fixed by Mike while I manually steered through some big wind, gusts and swell (big for me anyway :-) ).
We were concerned in another overnighter that we had lost our VHF radio - which is something you definitely don't want to lose. For a newbie like me all the above can lead to hours and hours of varying levels of anxiety.
Getting into a new place after having a challenging overnighter is like arriving off a long haul flight. It's similar to being jetlagged. You're exhausted and grotty and everything feels too bright and too loud. Mike and I have spent a whole day crashed out in total mental and physical exhaustion.
While you don't get much cardiovascual exercise when cruising on a boat, you can actually feel tired and sore from having to adjust your balance for hours on end, Especially when in a big swell. Trying to go up the stairs from inside and stand up to go on top to check the surrounds can actually be hard work. At the end of one 24 hour overnighter my legs felt like jelly.
Also, being with your partner and munckins all the time holds a mirror to all your strengths and weaknesses. And not a normal mirror, but one of those shaving/make-up mirrors that dramatically magnifies EVERYTHING! It is sometimes a challenging experience to find yourself so laid bare! There is very little room for laziness, either physically or emotionally, especially when dealing with a 10 year old who is asserting independence, a tendency for risky behaviour and challenges everything. But it is also invigorating to try and turn things around and make yourself a better person and parent. And I have never had so many cuddles in my life!
So....is this a leisurable experience? Nope!!!!! In the same way that climbing Mount Everest probably isn't a leisurable experience! :-) Is it exciting, interesting, tiring, scary, exhausting, exhilarating, occasionally boring, busy, challenging and eye opening? Definitely!!
People ask me if I'm 'living the dream'? What I can say is that travelling from Vic to the Q'land border has been a love/hate relationship. Kind of like having a newborn. There's times of awesome, and there's times when you feel so tired and crap that you wonder why you ever did it in the first place. It's a dream, but a pretty emotionally charged and varied one!! :-)
It is unbelievable how many Tasmanians, or honourary Tasmanians, we have met who are on sailing adventures. Some people say they are escaping. I prefer to think Tasmanians are explorers with adventurous Viking blood :-)
In Eden we met the family with a tribe of 10 awesome children on 'Sumbawa'. They had previously lived on a predominantly self-sustaining farm in Oatlands after moving from Melbourne. They are about to depart Eden to start their adventure, and their stories and reflections are captured in www.thelargefamilyaroundtheworldadventure.com.
In Bermagui a yacht rafted onto us. After talking for a while I found out Glenn was from Launceston, had gone to my school, knew the street I grew up on in Norwood until the age of 10, and had friends who lived in St Leonards up Ables Hill Road where my parents have lived for 30 years. Glenn's boat - Tiger One - is his home and office. We have a similar goal to reach Whitsunday's this winter, so we completely inadvertently met him again in Jervis Bay and had sundowners in Sydney. I had to reassure him we were absolutely not stalking him!!!
In Jervis Bay a Catamaran called Bella Luna moored beside us. We met them on the beach and spent heaps of time with them as they had two daughters similar in age to Oscar and Isobel. Mike kept saying "I recognise this guy...how do I know him????" - was driving him nuts. Then we found out it was Mark Adams from Tassie bands 'The Fish John West Reject' and 'Hurdy Gurdy'. Two bands that Mike saw in Hobart while at Uni, and had a member who was one of Mike's ex's friends. Mark spend 13 years building Bella Luna, and now he and his family are sailling whereever for however long they can. Their daughters, Daisy and Zoe, are fantastic at the violin and raise money for the adventure by busking. They have an interesting blog called www.bellalunaboat.com
Today Mike's glutes and southern most sphincter got a good workout from being tightly clenched tight for 6 hours or so while we took the inland river channel between Surfers Paradise to Peel Island anchorage in Moreton Bay.
After seeing over 100m depth out at sea, we now had to navigate through long narrow twisty channels where at times we saw less than 20cm under the keel.The night before Mike paced around, talking to himself, repeating such inspiring and comforting monologue as "if we run aground it's OK, it's just mud and we can wait for tide to float us off'. Yeah - cause it's been my life ambition to run aground in mud and wait for the rising tide while being a navigational hazard for other boats.Besides, I had already ticked that off my Bucket List in Bermagui!!!!.
We made it through, but MOLI did give the muddy bottom a little kiss once - well who am I to stand in the way of a blossoming romance??We did see a little bright yellow tinnie zip past us, then grind to a halt as they bogged themselves about 20 metres away. Two guys jumped out, and the last I saw they were still trying to push their boat free. It's cruel, but I laughed. They did look pretty stupid! Besides, I am developing a hate relationship with little fishing boats (stay tuned for another blog rant 😤). Mike also neglected to tell me that we would be travelling quite closely under huge power lines. We had at least 3 metres clearance, but we still all stood well away from metal items as the wires passed overhead. My butt muscles got a good workout at this time too! We anchored at Peel Island which has now defunct Leper Colony buildings on it. We celebrated the gradual unclenching of Mike's buttocks due to successful avoidance of grounding the boat, or being electrocuted, by drinking wine and educating the kids on Leprosy!!!!!So rock'n this distance education thing.
Victoria Sandringham - Queenscliffe - Refuge Cove - NSW Eden - Bermagui - Brulee Island - Jervis Bay - Sydney - Port Stephens - Coffs Harbour - Q'land South Port Surfers Paradise - Peel Island Moreton Bay - Deception Bay Moreton Bay - Mooloolaba - Double Island Point - Fraser Island - Bundaberg - LADY MUSGRAVE ISLAND - Great Keppel Island - Keppel Bay Marina Rosslyn Bay
Ahhhhh......so THIS is the leisure life people probably imagined us experiencing for the last four months :-)
Lady Musgrave Island is a coral cay (an island formed over thousands of years on top of coral) and along with Lady Elliot Island marks the beginning of the Great Barrier Reef. It is the gem on top of a huge ring of coral reef, with a small entrance channel for boats. A circular lagoon of ocean located about 70kms from the mainland. The water inside is usually incredibly clear and sapphire blue, with visability metres below to the bottom as the ring of coral reef protects it from the swell outside. The island is thickly vegetated, and the surrounding sandy beach is covered in coral, deposited by the tides and bleached white by the sun.
Yeah - I know I sound pretty nauseating and like a try hard travel magazine - but it is seriously that beautiful!!
It is the home of tropical fish, birds and Green Sea and Loggerhead turtles. Each November to January turtles lay their eggs on the island, and a few months later baby turtles emerge from their eggs to make their way to their hopefully longlived future.
On my first morning I had my coffee watching the whales in the distance beyond the reef. Meandered off for a lazy kayak, to have 3 turtles swim around me snorting as they exhaled. Went for a snorkle on a nearby coral bommie and watched little tropical fishies busy doing their little fishy things. My favourites are the little wrasses, little long fish brightly coloured with greens, pinks and blues. They mostly swim not with their tails, but by flapping the little fins on their side so they move like birds under water. I also love the small black and white striped Humbugs. Little dudes that live in a big family on a head of coral.
There is also the Turtle Cleaning Station. Another coral bommie that turtles swim up to, lie on and spend a lazy hour or so being cleaned by busy little fish. Essentially, it's a turtles day spa.
So - what did we do for five days there with no internet/phone reception!!?
Snorkled with the little fishies, swam, kayacked, walked the island, looked at coral, fished, drank wine, watched the full moon rise, saw some more beautiful sunsets, lazed in a hammock, watched whales swim around the reef each morning, spotted turtles, swum with turtles, played Five Hundred with the kids, got kicked in the head by Oscar's fins while snorkling, had sundowners with neighbouring boats!
The one day that some Northerlies kicked in and it did actually get a bit windy and rolly I spent the day reading trashy Mills and Boon that I had picked up in the laundromat at Bundaberg Marina.
Kids absolutely loved it.
Mike and I loved it.
Only downside is the name of the Island. Lady Musgrave was the wife of one of the Governors in Q'land. When he died she went back to England in the early 1900's, was stongly opposed to women getting the vote and was a vocal and active member of the Anti-Suffragette League. Apparantly, in relation to women voting, she said something like "Put not this additional burden upon us...women were not equal to men in endurance or nervous energy and...in intellect."
WTF???? She can sit beside Trump in my Dinner Party of Hell. She can blather her crap while Trump beats his chest about removing funding from abortion clinics in the third world and effectively hampering disenfranchised women from maternal health and family planning.
Morons!
Rant over - ignoring the name and the fact that Trump hasn't been impeached yet, Lady Musgrave was absolutely brilliant!!