Saturday 11th

Our destination for today was going to be Broken Bay, which is about 16nm north of Port Jackson (Sydney).

Early start as we needed to top up fuel and water before getting under Spit Bridge at 8:30am. The marina just to the west of the bridge had an easy fuel dock, especially as there was zero wind about.
We filled up 3 jerry cans of diesel, and another 10L of unleaded for the tender. We ended up just waiting on the fuel dock for the bridge to open.

With the light winds we motored all the way to the heads, then tried our luck at sailing. We sailed for 45min or so before the wind went more north and lighter. Iron Headsail back up/on.
Easy enough trip, we listened to a few audiobooks we’d downloaded.

We motored all the way in and around to America Bay and picked up a public mooring.

There’s no reception there, so I set up Starlink for the first time this trip.

Didn’t leave the boat otherwise.

Sunday 12th

Not too many boats about on this side.

We got in the tender to go checkout the walk at the end of America Bay. It leads up to the top of the waterfall.
However, we got there at high tide and there’s nowhere to land the tender. It’s oyster covered rocks all around.

Back to Lazuli to grab togs and get ready to head over to the beach at Refuge Bay.

This beach has a waterfall that you can stand under, and a track up to the top with some rock pools with “infinity views”.

We ended up chatting to another boating couple who had some niece/nephews with them. Their boat had been a few down from ours at CYCA!
They gave us a few more recommendations of things to do, and were going to head off to The Basin themselves later.

We were about to walk up when a group from another boat set off. We waited for them to come back down and set off ourselves.

It was a bit of bush bash, with the track not that clear in parts. We ended up at the “cascades” section, before heading back down to the cliff top.

We had the place to ourselves and enjoyed the pools and great views.

More swimming when we got back down, then back to Lazuli for lunch.

Tried more fishing, but only 3 small silver fish. Still fun.

We pumped up the SUP for the first time this trip, and Kristie set off for a late afternoon paddle around America Bay.

Our friends on Ambrosia had been up in Nelson Bay / Port Stephens since we left then in Coffs.
Kristie got a message that they were on the way into Broken Bay and had they seen us on AIS and were going to come to America Bay.
The girls were super excited to see Rona again, and ate dinner on the boat ready to spot them when they came around the headland.

They picked up a mooring near us, and we didn’t even give them time to settle before the girls wanted to head over to say hi.
We ended up on their boat for a few drinks. Finally back to our boat for dinner at 9:30pm.

Monday 13th

Another lovely morning with zero wind. Kristie set off to go SUP’ing around Refuge Bay. She was away for about an hour.

I sorted breakfast for the girls then took off when she got back. I did both bays, about 6.4km and 1:24hr in total.

Any opportunity to jump off the back is taken.

I had a work call at 11am, so the girls and Kristie had arranged to meet the others over at Refuge Beach for a swim; I’d SUP over after the meeting.

Kristina had been wanting to have a go starting the tender for a while, so she jumped in a had a few goes before she cracked it! Now she can do it every time! Very proud.

Starlink worked well for the call, despite the boat swinging about a bit.

By the time I’d SUP’d over to meet the others I was done paddling for the day :)

We had a swim, then climbed up the top to the pools with the other 3.

Back to Lazuli for a late lunch, and then a spot of cleaning/organising as the others would join us on board for drinks/dinner tonight.

Kristie baked some biscuits as we were out of all other snacks to share. The first lot in the oven were a bit brown on the bottom, but the rest were great if not a little salty.

The girls had dinner before our guests turned up, then spent the next 3hours playing lego/loom bands with Rona.

We enjoyed dinner/drinks up top until 9pm or so.

Tuesday 14th

I’d seen a few stingrays right up the end of Refuge Bay, so Kristie jumped on the SUP to head over to check them out.

We’d agreed to cast off at about 8am and head around the corner to The Basin while the winds were light (it’s no good there on a strong NE through SE).

We both picked up public moorings, and got in tenders to head in for a swim. It’s a national park/camping area, so a beach landing fee applies: $3/adult, $2/child.

We spent quite a bit of time there before heading back to our boats for lunch. We’d planned on doing a 5km walk up to see some Aboriginal rock carvings later this arvo.

We met on the beach around 2pm, and made good use of the grounds facilities (including rubbish disposal!).

The walk had indicated the start was steep. It was more or less constant up to the top of the hill, about 150m above sea level (which is where we started!).
The first section was nice, good tree coverage and caves/rocks for the girls to play on.

The rest was open fire trails, exposed, no wind, and hot :(

We had numerous stops before we finally got to the site. Spent a bit of time reading the signs and checking out the carvings.

The only upside to the walk was that it was more or less downhill all the way back down.

Was relieved to get to the bottom of the track with no injuries for the girls.

The girls walked around the beach/rocks to the beach opposite our boats. I’d gone back to Lazuli to grab their togs. The wind was up, the sun was behind the hill: we didn’t last long.

Early/normal dinner by ourselves after the last few late nights.

Wednesday 15th

Kristie took the SUP for a paddle around The Basin first thing while the wind wasn’t too much.

I went up top a bit later to see if I could see Kristie, only to discover the tender was floating about 20m away from Lazuli, not attached as it’s supposed to be.
Nothing for it other than a quick swim to retrieve it. Refreshing way to start the day. Hoping not to make this mistake again!

We needed to do a grocery trip today. The plan was to head down to anchor off the SE corner of Scotland Island, then jump in the tender and head in.

Ambrosia had left earlier than us to go fuel up and top up water. We were anchored up when they came over and dropped their anchor not too far from us.
Turns out they dropped a little too much anchor… all of it in fact. They ended up calling a diver to come and get their chain back for them.
As they were going to be doing circles for a while, we took Rona into shore with us.

There is a great playground at Winnererremy Bay. There was a handy ramp to pull the tender up, and a big playground with a cafe attached.
Kristie set off to Woolies, while I stayed with the kids.

They had a good play, then quick break for ice cream/coffee, then more playing while waiting for Kristie to Uber back.

Guy and Cassie were not far away having a look at the berth they’d booked when they first lost the anchor. We dropped Rona off with them and got back to Lazuli to stow all the groceries and a late lunch.

We wanted to see Jerusalem Bay as everyone we’d met raved about it. Took us a few hours to motor around. It’s a lovely spot, but only 3 public moorings that were all taken.
We dropped anchor down the end, only one other boat out there.

We had dinner over sounds of thunder.

The storm then really turned up a few notches, lots of wind and lightning. The wind had swung 180degrees from when we’d originally anchored, and it wasn’t long before we started dragging.
With so much rain and wind, we needed to get the anchor up quick. The thought of trying to set it again during the middle of a lighting storm wasn’t that appealing: I could barely see Kristie at the front of the boat, let alone hear/talk to her.
Kristie got the anchor up, then we motored in the rain back to Refuge Bay. Autopilot is the easiest way to navigate in these conditions.

Spotlight out, we found a mooring (by pure chance more or less next to Ambrosia!) in amongst all the other boats. There seemed to be so many moorings during the day, but it was much harder to find one in the middle of a storm at night!
Once we were hooked up, it was time to dry off and have some Talisker and chocolate to recover.

Saw this article in the news the following morning. This is what hit us.

Thursday 16th

Rain.

Rain.

A bit more rain.

Guy and Cassie came by to see if anyone wanted to get off the boat and onto the beach (Refuge Beach). Only Kristina was up for that!
They’d been at the beach a while when the rain stopped and Kristie got on the SUP to go join them.
By this time Kristina was mostly blue and ready to come back to the boat!

More rain.

The Ambrosia crew came over for sip’s ‘n dips.

The girls had fun with games, lego, and Uno.

Friday 17th

After two (more) nights at Refuge Bay it was time to go somewhere else. There was some walking tracks and a playground at Bobbin Head, so we aimed for that.

We got down there by about 9am, but no moorings were free. Lots of space to anchor, but with rain, more strong winds predicted, and the memory of the recent storm still quite fresh, a mooring for the night was the preferred option.

We both turned around and went back up to Waratah Bay, which has four moorings (three of which were free!).

Raining again.

Rona invited the girls over to watch a movie and hang out on their boat. Kristie and I got some jobs done. I went for a SUP, and got punished by the strong winds getting back to the boat.

Cassie suggest getting off the boat and going for a walk up the creek. We put our wet weather gear (back) on and headed into shore.
The walk up wasn’t too long, but we still found a few leeches!

We dropped the girls back onto their boat and went to ours to get some afternoon supplies, and spent the afternoon/evening in their nice protected centre cockpit!
(we are envious of the protection and clears that you can see through!)

Quite a lot of wind tonight. Sydney was recording 4m waves!

Saturday 18th

The wind eventually died down, but still a bit more rain.

We thought we’d be well protected from the SE winds in this bay. However the wind goes straight up Cowan Creek, then hits the headland and is funnelled and accelerated directly onto us as though coming from the North!

We wanted to get to Bobbin Head, and got ready to leave. We waited for a gap between guests, but the bullets were coming in thick and fast, so we stayed the night there again!

The only excitement for the day was a house boat coming and and missing their mooring, and then by the grace of some deity managed to not end up on the rocks (it must have been close!).

We found another paddle that had washed up on the rocks behind us.

Sunday 19th

Almost glass like conditions, so after a quick breakfast left for Bobbin Head. Luckily one mooring was free so we grabbed that.
Ambrosia took one in the last bay before Bobbin Head, about 0.5nm out from us (according to AIS).

We got geared up for a play in the playground and a short walk to the rainforest. All three girls had fun with their various games.

Eventually we managed to coax them out of the playground and off for the walk.

Boardwalk through the mangroves, before up and over a small hill and into a really nice rainforest like creek.

Kristina set off exploring up the creek; everyone else tried to keep up.

All up I think it was a 6-skittle-walk.

The public park there is well set up, with lots of free BBQ’s. I suggested we make use of these facilities, and cook up some saussages we had in the fridge.
I went back to Lazuli, and Guy to Ambrosia to get supplies.

Lunch was going well until I sat/leaned on the end of our table: it wasn’t up for that kind of punishment. Guy lost his lunch, and the chairs got Emma and Kristie on the way down.

We moved tables and eventually recovered from the shock. Kristie walked off to let the Parks team know, and wasn’t long before they showed up to tape it off and take details.

The girls spent more time in the playground, while the four of us enjoyed some beverages Guy had brought back from his boat.

It started to rain a few times, but every time we stood up and grabbed our gear it stopped. Until one time it didn’t stop :(

We made the most of a dry spell to get back to the boats. The others were going to come back to our boat: Guy had a laptop with a dead screen, so our TV with HDMI would work as an external screen so he could back it up and get everything he needed off it.

Once that was done it was time for more cheese and some Laphroaig. I would have shared, but sadly Guy isn’t into smokey peat, so I had it all to myself.

Monday 20th

We left Bobbin Head after breakfast with the intention to spend a bit of time at Cottage Rock, and then finally back around to The Basin for the night.

After all the wet days, it was a relief to finally see blue skies!

It was about an hour motor up Cowan Creek to get to Cottage Rock. The three moorings there were all taken, but there were four free at the next bay Hallets Beach.
We took the tender and paddle board into the beach.

It wasn’t long before Emma wanted back on the boat to be warm. Kristie paddled over to find the waterfall at Cottage Beach; Kristina and I hung out on the beach and made/moved some forts.

I then had a paddle over to the waterfall, and a refreshing dunk under it. Kristina wanted to see it, so we took the SUP back to Lazuli and picked up Emma for the ride.
The water was quite cold and coming down with some force. At high tide there wouldn’t be any beach there.

Back to Lazuli for a nice hot shower and scrub. Late lunch and then got the tender back up on the davits for the trip around to The Basin.

We dropped the mooring just as Ambrosia was coming around the corner to moor at Cottage Rock for the night.

We picked up the last public mooring. Too much swell/waves for a SUP.

I had some more boat jobs to do, the nav devices were playing up a bit (voltage related).

Tuesday 21st

We are off back to Sydney today, with the intention of then getting to Botany Bay on Friday.

We needed groceries, and wanted to top up fuel and water. The fuel dock at the Royal Motor Yacht Club opens at 8am.
We were there about 8:30, and no other boats on the fuel dock so easy to come in and tie up. We only had two jerry cans to do, and about 250L of water.

Wasn’t long before we were on the way to anchor off Scotland Island again to tender into Mona Vale for shopping.

I had organised to catch up for a coffee with Mal, whom I worked with for many a year, many many years ago and lives just down the road from where we were stopping.

Kristie headed into Woolies and the bottle shop: we’ve been drinking more than intended thanks to hanging out with Guy and Cassie, and cider supplies were dwindling rapidly.

Was great to catch up with Mal over coffee, while the girls entertained themselves in the “all kids require supervision” playground (they had made friends and were having a great time).
Mal drove us to the shops to pick up Kristie and the shopping and ran us back to the tender (thanks Mal!).

We loaded up and made the slow (it doesnt get up and plane with the four of us unless there is flat water, down hill, and a tail wind) ride back to Lazuli.

Sushi for lunch, then up with the anchor and motored up to the heads: Kristie at the helm while I got the boat ready for sailing.

We poked our head out a bit past North Head then set sail. There was another similar-sized boat doing the same, only about 300m in front of us: race on!

The wind was maybe 10-12knts ENE, and a 1.5-2m gentle swell. We probably averaged 7nts the whole way down to Sydney.
We had overtaken the other boat, then they headed out to sea a little and appeared to catch up.

I finally got the chance to sail into Sydney Heads (on the way down last time it was night, and we were motoring).

At the end, we furled the jib and had main only and then gybed once we could reach back north through the heads to Manly.
The other boat was cutting a tighter angle through the heads (and much closer to the cliffs than I’d be comfortable with), so jib back out.

We dropped sails early and motored up to Manly Harbour to drop anchor not to far away from Ambrosia, who’d probably gotten here an hour before us.

We enjoyed the sun for a bit then time for dinner.

A short burst of rain came a bit after dinner.

Lovely spot, apart from all the ferry wash: more than any other spot we’ve stayed in yet.

The hustle and bustle of Manly is a bit of shock after the solitude of cruising Cowan Creek.

We’ll have a few days here before heading south (hopefully) early Friday.

Thursday 9th

Our stay at CYCA was up today. A few boat jobs in the morning before Kristie and I snuck off to the clubhouse by ourselves to get a Bacon and Egg roll and a coffee.

It was raining when we left so didn’t bother fueling up there.

We were aiming for Bantry Bay up in Middle Harbour. We’d have to time our passage to coincide with the opening times of Spit Bridge, which for us was either 1:15pm, or 2:15pm.

Given it was 10am, we decided to head over and grab a mooring at Rose Bay and wait out the rain there; I was also keen to have as much high tide as possible before going over the shallow area before we got to the bridge.

We took the opportunity to fine-tune the side walls for the rain. The poles didn’t have a great way of being fixed at one end, so out came the drill.

We had an early lunch and aimed to get there for the 2:15pm opening. The B14 (sailing dingy) were now having their World Titles and their start line was in the bay just north of our mooring.
I tried sneaking around the eastern side, but they were all sailing close to the headland, so we took the long detour around to the west to avoid the fleet.
(sadly we don’t have a flashing orange light so can’t just steam through the middle of them like the massive ferry did!)
Some good entertainment - fast sailing with their kites up, also lots of capsizes!

We picked up one of the two courtesy waiting moorings (2hr limit) just to the east of the bridge and waited 15min for it to open.
You could just about spit onto land from the back of the boat, but we still had 10m underneath us!

They let the boats on the western side come through first, then us.

We were the last of four boats going through from ourside, and the bridge started lowering more or less as we went through!

It’s only a short trip around the corner to Bantry Bay, but we enjoyed checking out the amazing houses/units built into the steep hills of Middle Harbour.
(Quite a few had chair-lift style access to the jetty at the bottom of their land/cliff).

There are eight public moorings up there, and it was quiet so we had no trouble getting one (we won’t talk about the botched job I did of getting us onto it!)

Bantry Bay feels like a million miles from anywhere as you can’t see any houses/civilisation, however it’s smack in the middle of Sydney and only about 5nm north from Taronga Zoo.

I tried fishing, but still I’m only good at catching small silver fish.

Friday 10th

We took our time to get ready in the morning and then set out to do the walk to the lookout on the Bay Track.

Quick tender ride to the landing, toilet stop, then off we went.

We’d only gone about 20m when the first leech struck.

Then they continued smashing us until we got to higher/drier ground.

The path isn’t that well-used, and lots of wet/overgrown spiky trees. I ended up carrying Emma on my shoulders for most of the walk up, and quite a bit of they way down.

Great view at the top, but just as we got there we could start to hear the thunder getting closer. A quick check of BOM indicted the rain was just about on us!

Emma had declined to do the last 200m to the top lookout, so we got back to her quickly and got ready for the rain
The Exped Typhoon backpacks we have are fully waterproof (I got them intended for our boat life!) so phones went in there, and down we went in the rain.

More leeches came out to greet us and wriggle all over our shoes and socks.

By the time we got back to the tender I found two that had drawn blood, but otherwise no physical damage was done (maybe a bit of mental scaring for future walks - “is this going to be a leech walk?”).

We tried our best to de-leech on the pontoon before getting in the tender, but still one or two made it back to the boat :(

Shower on the back of the boat to clean off from the walk: all the boats behind us had left so we could have a proper shower!

We spent a bit of time making plans for the next week.

After working out we’d leave early tomorrow, we jumped in the tender to go checkout the waterfall that was just around the corner.
Apparently you could walk up to it, but after this morning’s walk nobody was super keen to step foot on leech-land again.
The waterfall wasn’t that spectacular, and as we could see it from the tender we didn’t even have to stop :)

On the way back we noticed the couple from Woy Woy (that had taken our mooring at Taronga Zoo last week) were also on a mooring near us. We stopped for another chat with them on the way back to Lazuli.

Tomorrow we head off to Broken Bay to explore that area for a week or so as it has more options for avoiding the strong winds that are coming.

Thursday 2nd

We were still at Athol Bay, and the Meade’s were off to catch up with some of their other friends today.
We dropped them off to shore so they could catch the ferry back into the city. Hugs and goodbyes for everyone - we’ll see them again on the boat when we’re a long way north of here!

It was a bit overcast today, which made it a good day to walk around the zoo. A very short ride in the tender, a set of steps up from the beach and we were inside Taronga Zoo.

We failed at getting into see any actual shows as it was really busy, and we were taking it slow.

We more or less saw everything there was to see. Emma was excited to see the Capybara, and both girls loved the Red Panda and the big African animals.

By 5pm we were spent and needed to get back on the boat to relax. It took us a while to get out past the gift shop (one toy Capybara and tiger in tow).

When we got down to the tender we found some #@$%heads had flipped it upside down :( It was padlocked to a tree and the engine padlocked on. It started up 1st go and doesn’t seem to have had any lasting physical damage (only a little mental anguish).

Back on board and one of the many party boats (~35ft cat) turned up with a dozen or so young guests. Lots of loud music, and lots of posing for photos. Good entertainment for us knowing they only have a few hours of charter and weren’t hanging around all night.
One of the revellers exclaimed: “this is even better than NYE”.

Friday 3rd

After a BIG few days, we all needed a bit of a day off from doing anything. We moved to a free mooring to reset our 24hr time limit and that’s as much boating as we did that day.

However, Andrew was in Sydney, so we invited him onboard for breakfast - he came bring baked delights.

Great to catch up with him even if it was brief.

The rest of the day I spent catching up on blogs from the last two weeks.

We eventually persuaded the girls to leave the boat at 3pm, and went in to walk out to the end of Bradleys Head, and do the loop back around past Athol Hall.

The B14’s (dingy) were having their nationals (and then followed by the worlds).

We went for a swim on the beach, but it was low tide and we discovered a lot of broken glass. We spent about 10min picking it up, then swam a bit further down away from the rocks.

Saturday 4th

We’d been in Athol Bay since midnight of the 30th, so figured it was time to move somewhere else in the harbour.

We the winds light and mostly NE, we motored across to “Milk Beach”, which is between Rose Bay and Watson Bay (it’s out from Strickland House).
We picked up one of the public moorings and got sorted to do some walking. We got in the tender and looked for somewhere to come ashore that had somewhere secure to lock it up.
The end of “Hermit Beach” had a ramp of sorts and a dingy storage rack that looked ideal. We only discovered the oyster covering when we got out (no injuries).

With the tender high and dry and locked up, we walked up to Strickland House to have a look at that. An Uber then whisked us away up to Camp Cove so we could do the walk to South Head.

It’s only about 700m each way, and we were lucky enough to have good views of the headlands; and unlucky enough to cop some unsightly views of the “clothing optional beach” along the way.

The light here, “Hornby Lighthouse” had been very prominent when coming into through the Heads at night on the 30th.

We hiked back into Camp Cove, then up the hill to start the clifftop walk down towards Macquarie Lighthouse. We got just past that to the park and we reached our limit of walking (~5km) so stopped in the park for a good 30min.

We’d promised the girls ice cream, but with no shops insight we ended up walking to Woolies to do a quick shop and get ice creams there.
Uber back to the beach to enjoy our ice creams where we had tied up the tender (thankfully still the correct way up!).

We took the groceries back to the boat and got changed for a quick swim in at Milk Beach. Plenty of foreign tourists there.

By 5pm we were cold and ready for sip’s ‘n dips. Just about to crack open a beer when the wind came up, and more from the North. It was going to be a bit uncomfortable here, so we left that mooring and headed back to Athol Bay, which is great in the Northerlies.
We scored a mooring straight up, so got stuck into the beer with minimal disruption.

More evening entertainment from another party boat.

Sunday 5th

Woke up and saw another mooring was vacant, so we jumped onto that.

Kristie had tried booking the Bridge Climb the night before, but it wasn’t going through online. They opened at 9am, so shortly after that we were locked in for a 12:25 climb.

Being a Sunday with blue skies and not much wind, the bay/beach got busy very quickly. We took the tender into the beach just near our boat (and more public) and locked it up to the national park sign.
A quick walk and ferry and we were in Circular Quay. We had some time to kill so walked around to get a photo of us with the Opera House in the background.
We had to try several times before we could find someone who could take reasonable photos (one lady had cut Emma out of the photo altogether!)

Quick packed lunch before getting to the bridge climb and filling in forms.

We were lucky and had a fun guide, and there were 3 other kids on our walk: we didn’t see any on the other walks immediately before or after us - good timing.

We had great weather, and a marvellous view from the top - yes we could spot Lazuli on the way up: being blue she stands out from all the white boats around her :)

We had a voucher to use at The Squire’s Landing. Despite a cruise ship being in port, it was still ok to look back at the bridge. Early dinner there before getting one of the last ferries back to Athol Bay (that ferry only really runs when the zoo is open).

We then moved inside as we thought rain was coming:

Monday 6th

The girls had declared Monday was going to be a “rest day”.

After a bit of hassling/prompting from my dad, I finally got around to getting my fishing rod out. The braid on mine was a bit heavy, so I ended up using one of the girls new rods.

Back in November I’d booked to stay at the Cruising Yacht Club of Australia for three nights from Boxing Day onwards (I’d assumed we’d be down there!).
However, back in Yamba when we knew we weren’t going to make it I’d opted to have the booking changed to the 6/7/8th Jan (the marina has been really good to deal with). CYCA is just the otherside of the harbour from Athol Bay.

We were about to head for a swim with a guy from another smaller boat came over and said they were off to the zoo, and if we could call him (he gave us his business card) if it looked like they were starting to drag anchor.
We countered that with a “we’re leaving in an hour, how about you have our mooring?”. That suited them, and we ended up having a good chat with him about stuff to see in Broken Bay / Pittwater (where they are from) and an offer to catch up when we get there!

We had a quick swim, then back to the boat and cast off the mooring at pretty much 10am on the dot. They were ready with boat hook out - you gotta be quick as other boats pounce as soon as they see you starting to leave.

We got to the marina with fenders and lines ready. Thankfully nobody was in the other side of our allotted pen - I’m don’t think I would have got in as the berths are narrow: we’d have less than a small fender space between us and another Lazuli!

We (Kristie) caught up on a few weeks worth of washing, and I had a few boat jobs/cleaning to do.
Noteably, our fridge was in dire need of defrosting: it nearly had an inch of ice around the top freezer/cooling compartment!
I followed up with a trip to Woolies while the girls were on their devices and Kristie had a nap - it was up hill all the way, which meant downhill on the return.

The girls only left the boat to go have a shower.

Tuesday 7th

Kristie had booked tickets to Sea Life the night before. The 10:45am slot was the cheapest, and also most convenient for us (cheaper Uber out of peak rush hour).

We had a quick walk on Prymont Bridge before heading in at 10:30.

We were all really impressed with Sea Life. It was busy, but the displays and variety of sea life was great (doesn’t beat diving!).
I think we enjoyed it more than Taronga Zoo, but I guess we are more sea inclined anyway (the girls are part mermaid).

Our highlights:

• the Dugong pit - one of only 2 Dugong’s in captivity.
• Seahorses
• Penguins
• Large fish tanks - fish + rays + GNS

The penguin cruise - you have to queue for about 30min for a 2min boat ride… we weren’t in a rush so didn’t bother us.

We ended up taking 3.5hrs to get through.

Walked home via Pitt Street (shopping), Hyde Park, and Kings Cross.

We’d lost 2 items the day before - the head for my electric shaver (I was tapping the hair out and tapped the head to the bottom of Athol Bay), and one of the tender tie down straps came loose and ended up in the same spot :(

I got the replacement for my shaver easily, but had no luck for the strap: I tried the chandlery here but the recent Sydney to Hobart start had left them depleted of a few items!

Back to the boat for a drizzly/raining afternoon/evening.

Wednesday 8th

The day started off overcast, but no rain. Running gear on, I managed a 5km run along the footpath along Rushcutters Bay, and around Rushcuttesr Bay Park.

Kristie had booked a show at the Opera House: we were off to see “Josephine wants to dance” at 10:30am. We’re finding that Ubering is much more convenient than walking/public transport for the four of us.
It’s only $15 or so to get into the city.

We were all dressed up when the rain started. It was only light, so we left the umbrellas on the boat much to Kristina’s protests (she turned out to be right!).
We had to use the walkway underneath to avoid the rain.

The show was fun, only 45min or so.

We had a quick packed lunch while avoiding the rain and expensive food.

Though it was raining, we headed up for a quick photo in front of the Opera House.

Another Uber to the Art Gallery as the girls wanted to do the kids crafting for a bit. I walked around and enjoyed the free sections.

A final Uber back to the boat to hang up wet cloths.

This is our last night in the CYCA marina. We’ll make good use of the facilities here before we leave:

• washing
• fuel
• water
• shopping

The rest of the week and most of the next week looks to be wet. Sprinkled with a mix of wind from SE and then from NE we’re not sure where we’ll end up tomorrow or after.