Sydney, Australia

24. May. 2016
/
Australia
/
No Comments

Author: Pete

Location: Sydney, Australia

We all flew down to Sydney for a couple days’ city fix before my folks headed back to the northern hemisphere. It felt a bit sacrilegious to be flying into one of the most spectacular harbor cities in the world with a perfectly good boat just a few (hundred) miles up the coast. But, better to see the city by land then not at all though.

Sydney is a stunning city, perfect for a couple days of nose-following. There are landmarks, topography, and waterfront to keep one’s orientation. Most of our time was spent finding new places to eat! You’d think we’d been on a diet of fish and coconut for years!

As we promenaded along the wharves one of the days we passed a floating building which turned out to be the cruise ship Carnival Spirit. It’s the enormous white monster in the picture that’s the as big as the Harbor Bridge. That was the same ship that almost ran us down at night in the Tasman Sea on our crossing! Okay, okay. He was four miles away, lit up like a Vegas Christmas, and very courteous on the radio. Still, I really wanted to knock on the hull and see if I could meet their radio officer. Thought that might not go over so well. Move along, small fry.

Another day we walked the Harbor Bridge with its sweeping views of the iconic Sydney Harbor. Ferries muscle through the waters throwing heavy wake and turning the protected bays into chop even on the windless day. I didn’t want to sail into the harbor anyway, says the fox of the grapes…

In our wanderings we met many of the white, feathered locals gathering to picnic in the parks around the city. These rambunctious cockatoos seemed to always congregate near dusk. Apparently people bring snacks for them often enough that the birds will alight on your shoulders or head looking for munchies. Cockatoos love munchies. Who doesn’t?

We happened to be in town when a David Bowe tribute was going on at the Sydney Opera House and got tickets to see the show. The Sydney Philharmonic was playing behind a rock band with ostentatious vocalists. I’m not sure if the professional orchestra musicians were incensed to be performing behind the oppressive screech of rock music (“Ugh. Really? Three notes in the whole song?”) or loved the novelty of it (“Yes! So sick of Chopin!“). Some got really into it, like the timpani player, hammering away on the kettle drums and the sax player who got to rip out on a screeching, jazzy solo. How often does he get to do that? Others, like the bassoonist, sat stock still, even through his solo. Bowe loved a good bassoon solo! Who doesn’t?

We also went to our first rugby match! It was very exciting to watch, something like a guessing game of what the rules might be. Despite our ignorance, it was a gorgeous evening to witness head injuries. Plus, Miranda loves the short shorts and huge legs on rugby guys. Who doesn’t?

And then it was time to head out! Back to the states for my folks, back to Brisbane keep working on selling the boat for us! Ciao Sydney! Thank you, and goodnight!

Keppel Island Road Trip, Australia

19. May. 2016
/
Australia
/
1 Comment

Author: Pete

Location: Queensland, Australia

Miranda and I made sure Tayrona was being looked after and then flew north to Rockhampton to meet up with my parents. With favorable winds the trip would’ve taken us just under a week of day-sailing to get up there, but we made it in an hour and a half. God bless jet engines. Then next morning we took a speedy ferry ten miles offshore to Great Keppel Island for a couple of days on the beach, decompressing from our whirlwind week. Finally got to meet an Australian possum face to face. Where North American opossums look like shaggy, overfed rats, these svelte tree-dwellers might be the love-child of a house cat and a chinchilla. Inquisitive critters…

Great Keppel Island is a sleepy, sandy spit with gorgeous beaches interconnected with trails through the wooded interior. We spent a couple of days exploring the reefs off several of the beaches. The snorkeling was pretty good, the coral was pretty good, and the water clarity was pretty good. Geeze, what aquatic snobs we’ve become, pooh-poohing the Great Barrier Reef. The fish, though, were fat and plentiful, with walls of silver fingerlings, rays, and turtles.

There was some coral dieback that we’ve been hearing about, but nothing too bad. On the topic of dying marine life, it appears that my wetsuit has contracted leprosy or is dating Edward Scissor-Hands. Or both. Man, salt and sun is an evil combination! This’ll undoubtedly be its swan song trip.

After a few days crisping on Keppel’s beaches we headed slowly south back to Brisbane, stopping in little towns along the way. We passed through Montville with steep, shady streets and pressed on to nearby Mary Cairncross Scenic Reserve which has a great rainforest hike with oozing vines, rowdy bats, and pademelons nosing about. Pademelons are tiny wallabies, which in turn are tiny kangaroos. So pademelons are tiny-tiny kangaroos. We even saw one with a joey sticking out of her pouch! Joeys are not only baby kangaroos, but any baby marsupial, including koalas, wombats, possums, opossums, bandicoots, and Tasmanian devils. Okay, fine, I’ll stop nerding-out now.

I shouldn’t speak for the group, but I got a good gravitational hiding the next day hiking Mount Ngungun. It’s one of the volcanic plugs popping out of the flatlands that makes up the Glasshouse Mountains. It’s a great trek to the top and a killer view of all the other mesa-like monoliths and the Tasman sea beyond.

The eco-lodge we stayed in that night recycles rain water, grows its own fruit, and is accessed through fields of pineapples. We made sure to erase any benefits of our day’s physical exertion by playing cards, mowing pizza, and smoking Cuban cigars just for good measure.

Also along the way south, Eumundi’s busy market was a hit, as well as Noosa Head’s riverside park in the evening as the bats streaked overhead. Eventually we made it back to Brisbane. Miranda and I shanghaied the car to check on Tayrona in Coomera before we headed to Sydney the following day.

We found her with ‘flash’ new bottom paint and buffed out hull so shiny it reflected the jealously of the other boats in the yard. It’s odd to find your boat in a different spot from where you left it. After doing some work on Tay-Tay, The Boat Works guys had placed her in a prime location in the show yard, ready to be scooped up by a good sailor looking for a worthy vessel.

Tayrona’s Last Haul

12. May. 2016
/
Australia
/
5 Comments

Author: Pete

Location: Coomera, Australia

The last days have been spent readying Tayrona for show. We purged the boat again of our old sailing belongings, goods, food, tidbits. All our sunburned clothes, salted footwear, and tattered hats not even worth donating went overboard. The ocean is a tough place for leather, cotton, metal, skin, electronics, zippers, plastics… It feels decidedly good to shed our worldly possessions like lizards doffing cracked skin, cathartic somehow. We didn’t have too much clutter or junk aboard really, but without the little bits of our personalities spilling over into the cabins and salon it feels empty. Maybe not empty so much as awaiting.

Miranda and I did some deep cleaning, fixed this and that, met with brokers and workers. We were at it from sunrise well into the night. That’s not too great of a feat, seeing as the sun sets at five, but after a few days we felt the fatigue of cumulative grind. I was almost too wiped out to have a heavy heart when suddenly it was our last night afloat.

The morning came and I pulled Tayrona around and docked her for the last time. It makes you feel like a docking hero when there’s no current or wind and four line hands are helping bring the boat in. The travel lift hauled Tayrona from the water, drove her by remote control (!!!!) for a few hundred yards, and gently placed her in the work yard next to several other boat friends. These guys at The Boat Works are pros.

Miranda and I too made boat friends in the yard as we worked on peeling off the old blue bootstripes and putting on spanky new silver ones. It was our last big project, a nice mix of geometry and turpentine. We’re having professionals bottom paint and buff the topsides while we’re gone. She’ll look a lot better when we get back!

We worked into the evening on the bootstripes, packed or jettisoned a few last tidbits, and then spent our very last night aboard our fearless Tayrona. Laying in our cozy berth where we had sheltered through so many miles of ocean, we sleeplessly recalling all the glittering memories she has given us, revisiting stories, sorrows and triumphs until our eyes would stay open no longer and we slept without rising to check the anchor.

When morning broke, we emptied Tayrona of our last vestiges and left her in the hands of our capable brokers. It’s not yet goodbye; we’ll see her again in a few days after some touristing along the coast, but we need to let Tay-Tay speak for herself in the upcoming boat show without her obnoxiously proud owners glowing all over her decks. Shake your tail feather, pretty girl!