Bye-bye Sydney

We're home!

With Pegasos all wrapped-up and ready to face the cyclone season storms we departed Cairns on a series of long journeys back home via Sydney and Joburg. Sailing on a Boeing out of Cairns we got a glimpse of the islands and reefs from a different angle:

It's been something of a culture shock to leave the simple, slow, warm and jovial community of mostly retired late-middle-aged Queensland yachties and enter into the busy production line of the holiday air-travel industry. Obediently following crackling orders we joined the throngs of mildly-panicking tourists and their baggage being herded and penned into little clusters, segregated by nationality and destination, flight number and class.

First flight was Cairns to Sydney, both airports where the majority of passengers are on a once in a lifetime holiday from China. Their excitement, bewilderment and culture shock is extreme. The airports try to minimise the stress for everyone by placing extensive signboards and notices in Chinese, and even have instructions on how to use a western style loo in every toilet cubicle.

We so enjoyed Sydney on our brief stopover here six months ago that we decided to take a full week to explore the city on this our return journey. We spent a couple of days walking around the city and along the beaches and the waterfront trails of the harbour bay and ocean shoreline.

Marcelle taking pictures of the beach scene at Manly:

Though it was probably me that took this photo at Bondi:

Cliff-top Walkway between Bondi and Bronte:

Sydney Harbour Bay

The city is rich and expensive, clean and safe. Australia has experienced a longer period of continuous growth than any other developed nation. Minimum wages here are approximately double what they are in London. The public transport is extensive, fast, clean and reliable with an integrated system of suburban trains, several ferry routes, a light rail line through the CBD and a vast network of buses. But for me the special appeal of Sydney is its colourful and cosmopolitan make-up, with all the resident communities boldly displaying their presence.

The English colonial past:

The East-Asian dominated fish-market is vast, noisy (and somewhat malodorous) but serves the very best seafood:

Paddy's markets has a more South-Asian colour scheme:

And of course there’s tourists from everywhere.

A real treat was meeting up with my old friend Harry Fine.

We had breakfast at a trendy seaside outdoor restaurant.

And a walk along Cremorne Point in North Sydney:

We also visited Featherdale, a small zoo of Australian animals.

It's a bit of a relief that when we come back to continue our journey next year we'll be beyond the habitat of the Australian common or garden death adder!

Bye-bye Sydney ...

Totsiens Pegasos - until 2018

We sailed from Cairns to Green Island on choppy seas and into the wind. It was a bumpy ride but it felt good to sail again after a week at anchorage in Trinity Inlet. Pegasos managed 7 knots in 13 knot wind. Robert was very happy - he had all three sails out, fishing lines out and he swung down the keel too. Unfortunately, no fish this time although something sizeable bit clean through a lure leaving a little piece of hard lure on the line.

We were lucky enough to see the only buoy for us being vacated just as we arrived and picked it up immediately - we're getting good at this. So nice to see such clear water after the pea soup in Cairns. The choppy sea settled during the night and the next day we dinghied ashore to snorkel and walk around the island.

The snorkeling was possibly the best we've done so far. The water was warm and clear and lots of tropical fish were everywhere - all sorts and colours and sizes. They seem unperturbed by people in the water and swam around us doing their thing - which is mostly eating.

We had a picnic lunch next to the beach fending off the Banded Rail bird - initially friendly birds keen to come up to us which quickly became annoying pests as one jumped up and pecked off some of Robert's wrap as he was eating it. It became a stand-off with us flapping a towel at it while it attempted several stealth techniques.
  

 
The birds who are really sweet and who have been close to the boat throughout our trip are the Welcome Swallows. Apparently they were named Welcome Swallows as early sailors used to know land was close by when these birds appeared on the ships. They often visited Pegasos - usually Mr and Mrs, sitting on the side railing discussing a possible nesting site under our canopy and often a flying recce under the canopy and even into the galley. They would dart about the front of the boat while we were sailing and catch a ride on the rails.

The second night at Green Island was not great. The wind started at about 2.30 a.m. and got steadily stronger and the mooring became bouncier. We decided to leave earlier than planned and set off after breakfast for our final anchorage at Bluewater Marina at Yorkey's Knob slightly north of Cairns.

We sailed with the front sail only with the wind gusting up to 20 knots and a rather rough sea. It was Pegasos' last sail until we return next year.

The entrance to the inlet past Yorkey's Knob is narrow and shallow. Although it is dredged, we read 1.3 meters on the depth gauge before low tide. We narrowly passed a large catamaran along the entrance - well if it can get out, we can get in. And we did, inching along slowly with the now familiar sight of mangroves on both sides of the narrow inlet.

A half submerged boat didn't inspire much confidence.

We turned a corner and appearing out of the mangroves was a pretty marina with many boats and nice houses surrounding it and jungle covered hills in the background. Most of the houses have their own jetty at the water's edge and all kinds of boats line the edge.

 

Our allocated berth at the end of a finger required a 180 degree turn in a very narrow space. Something Pegasos can't do. So we inched past to a gap and Robert started to turn the boat. There was much manoeuvering forward and reversing in little increments while a mild panic set in for me. We attracted the attention of the owner of the nearest catamaran, Pelagic, who suggested we tie on to the outside of his finger berth until the wind dropped and he kindly came out to assist us by taking a rope I passed down and tying us on. It turns out he recognized us from Fitzroy Island when we were anchored nearby. Soon afterwards with the help from the marina manager and the kind man from Pelagic, we squeezed Pegasos into her berth.

On the way in Robert caught a fish, a Ribbon Fish. It was a bit bony and not very big but it tasted quite good and it was just enough for a light supper.

That evening we joined a group of other people on the marina for drinks and a chat. Australians are generally very friendly and outgoing and this bunch were no exception. We enjoyed the company and their stories and insight about the reefs. The next day Robert set about taking down the sails and taking off the anchor and the start of many things to pack away on the boat. We are leaving the boat for about six months in a hot and humid climate which is also cyclone season. There are lots of things to organize on the boat.

A few days later we collected our hired car and first stop for Robert was Whitworths for more fenders and Bunnings for pool salt to put in the storage hulls and small dehumidifier pots - an attempt to reduce the build up of mould in the closed up boat which is inevitable in this hot, humid and wet summer season. Following a tip from someone's blog, I wrapped linen and duvets in plastic cling wrap and hope it works to keep mould off the linen.

In sorting through the storage areas, we found more stuff to throw out. We became quite ruthless in tossing out things we initially kept thinking it may come in useful. Quite liberating. Our suppers became interesting creative combinations as we used up the remaining items in the grocery cupboard. The last few days passed very quickly as we worked our way through "battening down the hatches." We spent the last three nights in a nearby B&B as our bed on the boat became a storage area. The weather was already hot and humid, nowhere near as hot and humid as it's going to get, we were assured.

On the last day Pegasos looked strangely different with the covers off.

Goodbye Pegasos, we will be back next year, hopefully in March. We are looking forward to the next adventure already.

Around Cairns

Sunday 3rd September found us in Mission Bay just a stone's throw from Cairns, which is where we are going to leave Pegasos while we fly home for the summer. Not much to do here except admire the view.

This is aboriginal land so we're not allowed to go ashore without permission. It's full of crocodiles so we wouldn't really want to go ashore and it has a shallow muddy bay so we probably would not be able to get the dinghy ashore anyway. After only one night we moved on to Green Island.

Green Island will be the last island that we will visit on this trip. It is a pretty place with a healthy coral reef. It's also heavily infested with big fast ferries and tourist enterprises of the sort that aims at herding vast hordes of bewildered Asians thorough tourist experiences.

On Green Island there's snorkeling experience (with buoys and ropes partitioning off a safe zone) and coral island beach walking experience.

And of course these always going to be gift-shopping experience with lots of overpriced tacky crap that was probably made in China in the first place. But beyond the shop stalls there's a lovely board-walk path through the dense thicket of scrub-forest that gives Green Island its name.

The snorkeling was good. The coral is extensive and the water is the clearest we've seen on this trip.

It is very difficult to anchor here. It took a long time but eventually we found our Goldilocks anchorage: Not too deep; not too shallow; far enough from ferry traffic but not too far off the island; the bottom must be sand and not coral nor sea-grass and the clearing must be big enough for us to to place the anchor and swing around without bumping into bommies (coral covered boulders). In the end we landed up being quite far off the island, and hence not very well protected from the uncomfortable rolling and bumping of irregular steep choppy waves and so we only spent only one night there. Unfortunately the dinghy engine was still playing up. The carburettor blocked again. We had to row back from the island. Quite exhausting! Buried deep in the storage space of one of the side hulls is a weenie little old two-horsepower two-stroke engine, which I dug out, cleaned up, pulled the starter cord and Hey Presto! It works! So now I’ve installed it as a backup.

Our final destination for the season is Bluewater Marina a bit north of Cairns at Yorkies Knob. These Aussie names! I can’t say that last one without getting a disturbing mental image of some horrible randy pooch trying to hump everything that moves. Anyway, after a rough night of bouncing at Green Island we sailed on Tuesday 5^th to Trinity Inlet, the vast protected waterway adjacent to the Cairns CBD. It was a fairly short sail of only 15 miles and the sea was quite bumpy but it was still a very enjoyable sail. We were on a beam reach with all three sails out, genoa, staysail and mainsail, and sustained 6 to 7 knots with just over 10 knots of wind.

In Cairns we anchored across the waterway from the ritzy Marlin Marina quite close to extensive mangroves. For the third night in a row we’ve had some of the mackerel that I had caught for supper. It’s getting a bit boring now and so we tossed the rest overboard into the dark and murky water of Trinity Inlet. There were lots of crunching and clicking noises from crabs and things under the boat that night!

The waterway between where we’ve anchored Pegasos and where we need to land the dinghy when we go ashore is busy. Apart from all the tourist ferries racing each other and the armada of local fishing boats there’s navy ships, cargo ships, other yachts and even cruise ships to avoid.

Although I now have two engines on the back of the dinghy, neither is very reliable and I really don’t want to have to row out of the way of one of these giant ships! So our first mission on shore was to go to the Mercury agent for fuel filters and spark plugs. Next up was laundry, groceries and ice-cream, and only once we had sorted these urgent priorities could we play at being tourists. And Cairns is a great town for tourists. We started with a long stroll along the shore-front esplanade

Visiting botanic gardens is always on our must-do list, and the Cairns gardens are a real treat with spectacular examples of the wonderful extravagant vegetation of the wet tropics and rainforest.

There's no beach at Cairns. The coastline along the mainland is all mud and mangroves. Water visibility is about 3cm, ideal for saltwater crocodiles and bull sharks, but not for swimming. And so just a few meters above the seaside mud flats they've built a very pleasant swimming lagoon with clean, clear, warm water, a sandy beach, sunbathing lawns and shady trees and picnic facilities. And hot showers in the change rooms - a real boon for us. All bathing that we do on Pegasos is in water that I have to collect in jerry cans.

Its baby bat season in Cairns! All about the city are big sprawling fig trees, home to thousands of pigeon-sized bats (spectacled flying foxes) nesting, squeaking, peeing on pedestrians (including Marcelle) and giving birth to baby bats.

On the weekend we went to the colourful Rusty’s market.

The Cairns war memorial St Monica's Cathedral has superb stained glass windows with scenes of volcanoes, coral reefs and undersea wrecks of war-planes.

It’s been windy over the past week but now the forecast is that we should be getting a few calm days and so if all goes well we plan to leave Cairns and sail back to Green Island tomorrow.