Friday 4 October
The cruise for the October long weekend commenced with First Friday dinner in Halyards. We were served with a feast of roast pork, crackly, crispy baked potatoes and baked vegetables. A rousing applause of thanks to the staff for making such an effort concluded the dinner. Appreciation was also expressed to Kylie Brown, our marina manager, who had kindly loaned her personal table tennis table for use in games after dinner. Thanks also to the boys who went to Kylie’s home and collected it and to the club for setting it up in Halyards with bats, balls and net ready to go.
First game was elimination ping pong. The game is a simple one. Every one lines up around the table and the game is started by a player at one end serving to a player at the other end. After hitting the ball the player is supposed to put the bat down on the table for the next player to pick up and take their turn hitting back the ball. Any player who misses is eliminated. Simple, right? Well ….. wrong. Do you think that anyone could remember to put the bat down on the table after they hit the ball. No, they couldn’t. After a short period of hilarity and humiliation, we moved to the next game.
The second game was ‘blow ball’. In this game, grown adults kneel at the side of the table tennis table and blow the ping pong ball off the edge of the other half of the table to win a point for the team on their half of the table. First team to five wins. This turned out to be a boys versus girls game with all the girls around the table at one end and the boys around the table at the other. The boy’s secret weapon was Murray Glase whose wind power was like a small hurricane due probably to his many years of concert singing. For some inexplicable reason, the ladies did not quite realise the need to adjust their strategy and not blow the ball to Murray. The best player on the ladies team, Jo Shaw, just couldn’t make up for this deficiency in strategy. A number found it hard to blow whilst laughing and some players became so lacking in wind power that the ball actually hit them in the face despite their most valiant efforts to blow air toward it. That of course was a loss of point. Preventing the ball from falling off the table by using your face was prohibited.
Enough was enough and both teams congratulated each other on their respective pathetic efforts and retired to their vessels for the cruise next day to La Perouse.
Saturday 5 October
Seven boats participated in the cruise. Two left earlier in the week and the remaining 5 left on Saturday morning at 7 am from the Palm beach port pile. This day had everything from 3 knots of wind at the start increasing to 15 knots from the north west at Collaroy to the Harbour. From the Harbour to La Perouse the wind turned South West building to 25Kts with 30Kt gusts. Upon entering Frenchman’s beach the wind dropped markedly with some taking up moorings and others preferring to anchor. Some explored the local walks and beaches while others preferred to rest on their boats for the remainder of the day.
Sunday 6 October
After free time in the morning 18 club members met at the La Perouse Boatshed for a pre booked lunch. Following this the whole of the group made the short walk over to Bare Island Fort for a one hour guided tour. This was really interesting. I have attached some photos of that tour. The fort was built after the British recalled all of their troops from Sydney to fight in the Crimean war against Russia. This left the colony unprotected with the result that the colonists decided to form the Sydney Volunteer Rifles to take the place of the British troops. Part of this process was the construction of the fort at Bare Island and also at fort Denison. Another fun fact was that when Governor Phillip arrived with the first fleet in 1788 at port Botany a French exploratory group of 2 boats arrived while they were there. They were captained by La Perouse whose boats needed repair and so the British allowed them to stay at the beach at La Perouse to carry out the repairs. Hence, they called it the Frenchman’s beach. After leaving Botany Bay the La Perouse ships were never heard from again and it was only recently discovered that all were lost in the Solomon Islands. An interesting fact is that there was an officer who had applied to be part of the La Perouse expedition who had been declined participation because he failed his mathematics examination. That officer who could have been on the expedition and who could have perished in the Solmon islands with the others was none other than Napoleon Bonaparte.
(Napoleon Bonaparte (1769-1821), Emperor of the French, was one of the most successful military commanders of the modern era. From relatively humble beginnings, he rose to prominence during the tumultuous wars of the French Revolution, ultimately fighting in over 60 battles, of which he lost only seven.)
Monday 7 October
With an impending strong south easterly on Tuesday, and strong north easters due on Thursday through to Saturday, the group decided to sail back to Blackwattle/Rozelle Bay in the Harbour with the exception of Boree Creek which sailed non-stop to Pittwater due to work commitments. This was a decent sail up to the harbour in a 17 kt north westerly. Sundowners at Blackwattle Bay was hosted by Murray Glase on Gypsy Princess. At midnight the forecast south easterly hit with our boats swinging 180 degrees but still relatively sheltered from the very strong southeasterly.
Tuesday 8 October
Tuesday was basically hunkering down in our boats out of the wind and the rain. As these were forecast to abate, a communal meal at the Textoth hotel in Glebe was arranged and all boats dinghied to shore for the short walk up Glebe Point road.
Wednesday
With the weather still overcast but the wind having dropped to about 15 Kts the fleet set off for home at about 8.30 am. The conditions at the Heads were the usual horrible bumpy slop in which the main objective is just to stop loose items being cast onto the floor of one’s boat with every jolting motion from the unruly tossing from wind and waves. Adding to this degree of difficulty two whales decided to stop and frolic right in the path of every one of us. Stationed nearby was a maritime and a police vessel. Unless one had seen the whales, which were not always obvious, one would have had no idea why the maritime and police vessels were there and sitting smack bang in the middle of the exit out of the heads. Next thing Nirvana’s Kitchen was approached by one of them and sternly told that he was in a restricted area!! My goodness, how would Nirvana’s Kitchen know in the commotion of leaving through the waves and chop in strong south easterly winds that this was some sort of ‘pop up’ exclusion zone. The poor guys had to head up with their headsails luffing and flapping vigorously until they were past the zone.
When I say that the fleet left at 8.30, I mean everyone except Fridays Child which left 40 minutes earlier on a mission of not turning on their motors once from Darling Harbour to Pittwater. The rest of us who had left forty minutes later, were doing decent speeds offshore touching 10 kts over ground at one point, but still did not catch him. The first to Barrenjoey amongst the scratch starters was Belissimo, (although it wasn’t a race). (Smiley face)
Following return to Pittwater, most stopped for a short break in Coasters and then returned to the club.
PS The Clarence river cruisers arrive in Yamba today (11th) with the rendezvous starting on the 12th. It sounds like it will be an interesting cruise with one of the skippers already having been struck by a flying fish. The flying fish came off worst and no harm to our skipper. More details to follow. Photo of said fish below.
