Pope Cancels St Patricks Day
Saturday, March 15, 2008.
I got onto the boat and did a typical short circuit around the islands; around Goat, past Cockatoo, around Snapper and Spectacle.
Earlier in the day there was talk of meeting up with Andrew, Monique and their kids and going down to the marina at Cabarita point for dinner at the Thai restaurant. I gave Andrew a call but the call went through to message bank. So I decided to just sail down to Cabarita on the run.
I must admit, I did have a couple of beers along the way. When I got to Cabarita I found the two public moorings in Hen and Chicken Bay (as mentioned in an earlier post). There was a stiff afternoon wind and it took a few goes to sail up to the mooring.
With perfect timing Andrew and family zipped into the bay in their zodiac and picked me up. We tied up to the marina and went up to the restaurant. It was 6:30pm.
The bad news was that there was to be no sit down dinner for us. The restaurant was booked out. I grabbed the kids and we went for a walk along the shore as it seemed that Andrew and Monique had a few things they wanted to sort out between themselves. I had assumed they would just buy some takeaway and we would sit in the park and eat it. Alas, they came over to meet us without any food.
Soon we were bundled back into the zodiac and I was dropped off on the yacht.
I motored back down the Parramatta River. I must admit I did have a couple of beers on the way. As I approached Greenwich I telephoned Andrew and convinced him he should come down to the Wharf so I could pick him for a sail. There was a great post-twilight wind blowing. I love sailing at night on the harbour and too often there is not enough wind once the sun goes down to do so.
Andrew came down and brought me some dinner as well as snacks and booze. I didn’t need any more booze. As Andrew was at the helm and I was wondering about the deck getting the sails set up I managed to fall overboard. Andrew rescued me and we decided to pick up a mooring in the mouth of the Lane Cove River for a while. I got changed and collected my wits. Eventually we got the sails up and headed off down the harbour.
We sailed around Shark Island and headed back up the harbour. I opened a bottle of red. At some point I decided to disrobe and Andrew informs me I had a conversation with the Opera House.
We got back to the mooring at some time after 2am. I really enjoyed the sail but I don’t remember much about it. Conversely, Andrew remembers everything about the sail but didn’t seem to enjoy my company so much on this particular occasion.
The next morning I telephoned Andrew. He had already decided to write down a diary entry about the evening while it was fresh in his mind. The entry started “Last night I was held hostage on a boat by a drunk man.” He informed me that I had quite a bee in my bonnet last night about this new German Pope cancelling St. Patrick’s Day this year (because it falls during the unusually early Lent). I’m not even Irish.
Sunday, 16th March.
I woke up on the starboard aft berth, cold, naked and wrapped in the spare main sail. Wet cloths sat in a puddle on the cabin floor. For some reason I had a headache. I had a cuppa or two and some breakfast. Then I set off to pick up Luke and Tim from Greenwich Wharf.
With Luke and Tim on board, we motored over to the lee of Birchgrove and put up the sails. Luke had told me that he was only able to come out for a short sail before needing to head off to a party in Manly. So, I set off on the island tour; around Goat, past Cockatoo, around Snapper and Spectacle.
Having done the circuit I asked Luke – where to now? How much time did he have? We quickly decided that we should sail all the way to Manly and he could jump off there and his wife would pick him up.
So to Manly we went. The wind was moderate. My head hurt. I drank a beer with the lads on the way down the harbour and decided it was the last drink I would have today.
We probably got up to Manly by about 4pm. We dropped the sails and looked for a place to drop Luke off. I am not familiar with Manly so was not sure where the public wharfs were. We motored up to the wharf at Ocean World but this is private and there is no public access. We motored over to the Manly Pier. The wharf here was busy. There were people in sea-kayaks loitering around. A party boat was tied up along with other smaller vessels. Eventually I found a possy to nose my way into and Luke hopped off.
On the way back up the harbour I chatted away with Tim. I had not seen him for quite some time so we caught up.
When we finally tied up at the mooring and paddled back to shore; for once I was glad to be on land. I went home and straight to bed.
