May 2003 Archives

The weather did its best to make up for the past 4 weeks or so. It was one "out of the box". OK, a little more wind would have been nice... Apart from the perfect autumn weather, I had the real pleasure of the company of a good friend, Tammy Beatty. Just the kind of day I needed to charge the batteries and get ready for three weeks away from the boat.

No, in Australia the rain doesn't fall in he plains, but on the coast. After a very dry, warm summer we're paying for it now. It feels as though we've had 6 weeks of continuous rain. This was my last weekend for a while as I'm off to the US again next week and it was another wet one. On our way our we accompanied the RPAYC race and I started a fotolog with the pictures. I'm hoping others will also post pictures to this site.

We still enjoyed ourselves, however. The Kuringai Chase, the National Park which surrounds our home cruising ground has countless quiet spots to spend a lazy, rainy weekend. We read a lot, listened to CD's and just enjoyed the view. On the way home we even sailed for 30 minutes...

The photo above is from last year's Pearl Beach cruise, which was very popular and the first club cruise for Te Moana. Last weekend, after weeks of drought breaking rain, we had hoped for some sun and a return to Pearl Beach. It wasn't to be. The weather on Sunday was so-so and when we arrived at Pearl Beach, the surf was up. Rather than drowning when going ashore, the decision was to adjourn to Hungry Beach, further up the river and away from the swell.

Hungry Beach, I couldn't think of a more appropriately named spot to have lunch with some friends...
While the weather was less than glorious, there was still a good turn-up. I didn't count the boats, but there would have been around fifteen(?), about half the number in the Pearl Beach picture above.
As we headed back around 4 O'clock, the sky finally cleared. Pittwater had an erie quality about it, which I tried to capture (below) but failed. I'm simply not a good enough photgrapher to reflect such moments. But I was there and remember it.

Last weekend, we spent most of our time going in and out of the marina, fine tuning our skills. The newly spliced ropes are working well and Joy and I have worked out our routine. I realise that I need to get better at manoevering Te Moana, particularly reversing, but it just takes practice. The nice thing about having a boat is that there always is more to learn.

We went to Towlers Bay for lunch on Saturday and noticed Belage pick up a buoy a short distance away. Unfortunately, we were too far away for decent pictures, but the pictures below show how smooth it went. I just wish my photoshop skills were better and that we'd have been closer, but here are the pictures anyway:

Having Te Moana alongside at the marina gives me a chance to show off my newly found rope splicing skills. Splicing is an ancient craft, but not that hard to learn. Very satisfying to create and useful to boot.