Friday 17^th February

Once again…G & T time, writing time.  Pete is cooking an enormous mince dish, using up many of our less-than-new tins of beans, tomatoes and the like.  He has also resurrected a fairly ancient hunk of cabbage from the depths of the fridge…I am sure the meal will be delicious, and never to be repeated.  It will also be a total, and not unwelcome, contrast to my sparse chicken and avocado salads of the past few nights…

We are anchored in some soft, shallow sea grass at the very end of Smith’s Creek, in the middle of Kuringai-Chase National Park.  It is just beautiful.  A lone sea eagle just flew overhead, and there are cormorants happily fishing around the boat, with just their heads popping up, occasionally.  In the thick bush surrounding us, there are other, unidentifiable birds making very strange sounds.  The gum trees are flowering, and some are just wonderful, with pink bark and mysteriously twisting branches.  Very much like the trees in Hans Heysen’s paintings, says Pete.

I went for a swim when we got here.  It had been very hot earlier but was cooling down rapidly.  I snorkeled around for a while, spying on shy little grey fish, enjoying the beautiful, waving sea grass.  But it actually wasn’t all that warm in the water and I had to have a swift and effective hot shower when I came out.

We left our red and white PRIVATE mooring early enough not to cause offence or anger.  Pete later noticed, when we came back up Cowan Creek, that a speedy tour boat was moored there…thank goodness we had left before it turned up, with a load of fee-paying sightseers aboard!  (Cowan Creek is an offshoot of the Hawkesbury River; Smith’s Creek is an offshoot of Cowan Creek – and so it goes.)

We went back past fabulous Lion Rock – a wonderfully sphinx-shaped island at the head of Broken Bay, which Pete and I always admire most extravagantly – and cruised slowly down to Pittwater.  We tied up to the end of a pontoon at a big marina – Royal Prince Alfred, maybe??  They were very pleasant there and were perfectly happy for us to tie up for as long as we needed to go to the chandlery to replace…ahem…the gas cylinder for Pete’s life jacket.  I was also looking – my eternal quest, it seems – for a letter box, and the receptionist at the marina removed my problem by offering to post Holly Scott’s 6^th birthday card forthwith, on her way home.  These random acts of kindness!

A man on D Pontoon helped us tie up, and followed us to the chandlery, where there was much repartee with the very pleasant shop owner.  (They were competing for our laughter…)  I asked his name, because he told me he is a boating journalist, and I think I have completely forgotten it – Bruce Pollard??  Pollan??  He also has a business renovating wooden boats.  I was going to Google his published articles so…if this rings a bell, please tell me.  (Googling is not, as they say, a happening thing in Smith’s Creek.  No reception at all.)  Anyway, we are very grateful to him, because it was his suggestion for us to go past Refuge Cove and up here, to gorgeous Smith’s Creek.