Monday 13^th February

Late G & T time again…

We are now moored in Shoal Bay, poised ready for an early getaway tomorrow morning.  We are heading for Lake Macquarie, slowly inching our way down the coast to Sydney.

I am sad to have left Fame Cove.  I just loved it, so peaceful, surrounded by thick forest and rocky little beaches.  It was beautiful swimming there, in the smooth brown water.  I have been told that usually the water is not brown, it is a gorgeous turquoise, but at the moment all water close to shore seems to be chocolatey, from all the heavy flooding rain.

We seem to have missed a huge storm in Coff’s Harbour.  I saw it on the TV news – a big black cloud swirling down onto the town, trees, crashing to the ground, water gushing down the streets.  Oh lordy!!!

And how does the BBQ look, I hear you cry?  Well…it looks just glorious.  Shiny and gleaming.  I wish I had taken photos of it before it got The Treatment.  Ghastly, it was, with grease and grime and hideous blackness.  I can’t claim credit for the splendour that now perches on the back of the boat… My project was taken over by two men with power tools!  Pete and Leanne arrived around 10.00 this morning, for a cup of coffee, after they had moored near us in beautiful Fame Cove.  Leanne was quite happy to sit and chat, not so Pete N. Or Pete H… They watched me scrubbing away delicately and within minutes I had been just as delicately moved aside.  Pete N went back to his boat to get big weapons – a power sander with attachments.  Pete had already removed the big greasy yucky lid, and I kept on working on that on my girly side of the deck, with moral support from Leanne.  I used bicarb with white vinegar and then Jif, and a paint scraper, and several green scourers.  It was all GO on 2XS!

Eventually all was perfection.  Pete and Pete relaxed over a beer, and poured some white wine for Leanne and me.  I encouraged Pete to cook the carbonara he had been planning for the evening meal, and we had a delicious lunch – possibly our last meal together until we meet again in Tasmania…

We were very much pestered by virulent March flies – how offensive, it’s not even March!  A less than charming feature of Fame Cove, these flies… Pete H and Leanne are very attractive to all bitey insects, and the two of them played a lively game of March Fly Tennis, batting the flies from one side of the boat to the other, with the occasional startled squawk as a random fly landed a vicious bite.  Pete N and I are largely immune to bitey creatures, especially when delicious people like Pete H and Leanne are around to attract them, but every now and then one of the flies would have to temerity to bite US!!  Oh the horror!  On the other hand, and much more beautiful and desirable, we had a pair of sea eagles lazily drifting overhead.

We were very happy to see Leanne. I have asked her permission to tell you why they weren’t with us in Fame Cove last night… They were stuck in Nelson Bay, with Leanne in hospital.  After our cheery dinner together they had gone back to Plan Four…and NO Leanne did NOT have food poisoning!!!  It was NOT our festy pre-clean BBQ; it was a bad pain in her arm…a scary symptom!!  Pete N took her off to hospital quick smart, from their mooring in Nelson Bay.  She was diagnosed with angina and given some medication, and put to bed, in a ward where she had to share a small space with a very noisy old man.  Lovely.  Pete went back to Plan Four, where he went straight to bed and straight to sleep…not realising he had left his mobile phone with Leanne… At 9pm the doctor came to see Leanne, to tell her she was discharged forthwith.  She tried to explain she was on a boat on a mooring in the bay, and that she couldn’t reach her husband, but nobody seemed to care very much.  They did have to courtesy to call a taxi for her… The driver was a curmudgeonly fellow, as drivers sometimes, unfortunately, are, and he showed very little interest in getting her to anywhere very useful.  Eventually he dropped her on the beach, possibly within earshot of Plan Four.  She stood there, somewhat fruitlessly calling out to Pete, who was in SleepyBoboLand.  I think this is absolutely disgraceful, that Leanne should have been cast out into the dark night of Nelson Bay, with no help at all.  She is a resourceful woman and took herself off to a not-very-nice motel, but – this is NOT GOOD ENOUGH!!!

On a more cheery note… I have just talked to Michael, in Townsville.  He was cooking his dinner – he is on a low-carb diet… “I had better go and finish preparing my curry, Ma,” he said, as we wound up our conversation.  “I just have to add the feta, olives and anchovies.”  Oh goodness what a curry it will be!  Beef and capsicum, with a mountain of steamed veggies, and…olives, anchovies, feta…