Burning twilight is an ominous warning about the future of old Quarantine Station
Sunday 29th October 2006
Vogelsang has a new mooring in Woodford Bay, Lane Cove River.
Wiggled my arse over to Bias boating this morning to buy some bits and pieces for the dingy and the anchor. When we got to Greenwich Fausto and I motored the boat across to Woodford Bay while Jan drove my car there. I found a spot for the dingy and set up a chain and lock to secure it.
We motored out of the river and set up the sails near Birchgrove. No. 1 Genoa and main. Initially looked like there would be plenty of wind to sail the narrow and flukey passage to the bridge and past Circular Quay. It turned out the wind was quite flukey. The crew were learning the art of tacking the headsail, working the winches and trimming the sail. On a few tacks we only managed to go sideways. Soon the crew had things sorted out a bit more and we made our way down the harbour.
The wind is pretty much an easterly. We tack up to Mosman and then across to Rose Bay and then straight down the harbour across the heads to North Harbour. We sail into Quarantine Beach and drop the anchor and the sails.
This is my second trip to Quarantine Beach within one week. Today the wind is curling around the rocks and the southerly swell is managing to come into the harbour, refract off Middle head and back onto the beach. It is not as calm as last week. This does not stop us from relaxing for a while over lunch and a beer.
Once we raise the sails and the anchor and get on a reach up the harbour, Fausto takes the helm. For someone who has not sailed except once before on a catamaran, he is a natural. On the broad reach up the harbour I pull out the anchor and reorganise the anchor chain adding three meters of eight milimetre chain to the end. We head over to Clarke Island, gybe, then head under the bridge. Once past McMahon’s point I crank up the donk and lower the sails. The smoke from bushfires hangs low on the horizon and the sun turns a deep burnt orange as it drops behind it. A good time for another beer and a group photo as we chug into the Lane Cove River and back to the mooring.
Fausto is a natural at the helm
Mark, Jan and Fausto, Balmain and Cockatoo Island in background.
Post Script: I have heard on the radio that the NSW government has just signed a 45 year lease giving the old Quarantine Station over to some hotel group to build and run a hotel on the site. This is an outrage and a very sad situation. The Quarantine station and the whole North Head is both an historical and environmentally sensitive area. Fairy penguins nest and breed in North Harbour every year. The historic Quarantine station is a significant part of Sydney’s surviving heritage. The argument put by the relevant minister, Bob Devus that the development will pay for conservation of the area is complete joke. If this logic is applied to the substantial amounts of public lands around the harbour a lot of heritage, public bushland and beauty will be endangered and privatised. It is an outrage and from a government which has just about stuffed up every deal it has done with big business over public infrastructure in this state. It is not the right of the government as custodian of this significant site to hand it over to private development and use.
The transformation of old industrial land, the old power stations and the like, into ugly mechano high rise yuppie cocoons, a casino, and drab strips of sterile, heavily landscaped, public access waterside “parklands” over the past twenty years has disfigured Sydney Harbour and the Parammatta River enough already. It is a sad indictment of modern architecture and design that one hundred year old power stations and old decaying docks looked so aesthetic and sympathetic in the harbour side landscape in comparison with what has replaced them.
