Sydney – 3^rd – 17^th September 2007

Cammeray Marina, situated just off Middle Harbour, Sydney is where Kanaloa is sitting on a mooring,

She is the larger white boat in the center of this photo.  After the Winter storms, the wind comes from where I took this photo, so she was well protected and floated there comfortably.

She was covered in guano from the seagulls and cormorants who decided to use her as the party boat!  After a week of scrubbing, David strung up CDs around the boat, which sparkle in the sunlight, and netted her all over with fruit netting.  The most important thing was to put fishing line just above the cross trees, to stop the cormorants using them as their perches!

Hence the ariel photo of Kanaloa David took from the top of the mast!

This painting of Cammeray Marina gives a better idea of how we get ashore, either at the dock or on the shore at Tunks park on the LHS, where there is a pontoon and boat ramp, one of the few in Sydney Harbour

Our friends, Norbert and Sharon Wyzembeek live in this house during the Summer, which looks directly over Kanaloa.  Just wonderful to have them or their children keep an eye on her whilst we are away. (They’re in the process of having their swimming pool renovated underneath!)

We also have Gerry and her husband Chris, who live aboard Tahiri, in the photo just behind her dinghy we’re towing ashore to save her rowing!

It was great to meet up again with John and Sally Delaney, whom we met at the Royal Sydney Yacht squadron in May, when we found out she was the bridesmaid of one of our very good friends in Finchingfield, Essex where we used to live in the 1980’s!

They kindly invited us to lunch, with Doug and Faye overlooking Lane Cove River, which

Exits into Sydney Harbour just after the Bridge

Sydney is such an exciting to place to be able to enjoy, from the comfort of our floating home!

We went to the opera with our friends Simon and Kitty Van Haguen

Who also have their boat, Duet on a mooring just behind us

Feyona Van Stom had an exhibition opening in a gallery which she has just opened, close to the Sydney Art Gallery in Woolloomooloo

It was a super opportunity to meet her other two sons, Andre and Wilhem whom we’d heard such a lot about from Feyona and her twin sister, Consie whom we had originally met in Auckland in 2001.

Also a great opportunity to meet up with her Mum again, still smiling despite so many health set-backs.

This is Tunks Park, with a cricket match in full swing.  It’s where we land the dinghy every morning and take a walk under the Northbridge into the bush alongside the river and waterfall, full of rainbow lorikeets amongst an large assortment of other birds.

This man at Sydney Airport was trying to get me to buy a parachute and crash helmet on our Jet Star flight to Phuket!  We flew just 24 hours after the serious plane crash there killed 90 people, trying to land in seriously heavy rain and severe wind shear.

Weren’t we lucky not to have been on the wrong plane?