Saturday 18^th February

This evening we are in Hardy’s Bay, tied up to an alien mooring and waiting for one of the free ones to become vacant.  Hardy’s Bay is very populated, and looks like a pleasant little place, with houses nestled in the trees right down to the shore.  We haven’t set foot on land but have admired it from our vantage point on the water.

We left beautiful Smith’s Creek in the late morning and had a beautiful trip out around Lion Island and into Bathurst Waters to get to this bay, which had been recommended to us by our friend Annie Currant.  Coming up through Bathurst Waters was amazing – a narrow, shallow bit of water, full of excitement.  We went around the low cliffs and were amazed at all of the water activity: fishing, waterskiing, speedboats, pleasure boats, yachts, hang-gliders, jet skis, kayaks and canoes, houseboats.  It was all GO, like a Child’s Action Book of Inner-Shore Activity.  It was a beautiful, sparkling, blue-sky day, and everyone seemed to be in a very good mood, with much waving, smiling, raising of beer cans.

As we were having our breakfast in our beautiful shallow Smith’s Creek anchorage, we had a visit from people off a nearby yacht, Pachelbel.  Chris and Greg were paddling around in their little blue canoes, and stopped to chat to Pete, who was eating his cereal on deck.  We persuaded them to come on board for a cup of coffee – Chris was a bit nervous, getting out of her canoer and onto 2XS, because she is still a bit wobbly and fearful of tipping out of her canoe into the briny, but all went well, with no loss of dignity.  After they had gone Pete said, “Isn’t it amazing how the people we meet, who make an effort to come out to talk to us, are always nice?”  Very true!!

We exchanged sailing stories, and life histories, at high speed for an hour or so, then we decanted Chris and Greg into their canoes and went on our way.  They are hoping to go on some long trips in their yacht, once Chris has managed to retire properly from her hypnotherapy practice.  Last year they had been planning on going to the Whitsundays.  Unfortunately they were unable to go because…their boat was stolen!  They have it on a mooring in Brooklyn (?) and the first they heard about it, the water police rang them  on their little farm and said the boat had been found bobbing about, all bereft and untied.  Well it hadn’t actually been untied… The people who stole it didn’t even have the nous to unhitch the mooring, they chopped at it with a hacksaw, and, cut their hands, and left blood all over the deck… They stole absolutely everything they could lay their hands on, including all of Greg and Chris’s wet-weather gear, and they damaged the engine so badly it had to be replaced.  Very depressing and discouraging!

Greg and Chris also told us that they just hate having houseboats nearby.  We had been speaking very admiringly of the houseboats, which look like great fun for a family holiday in calm waterways.  “But they are so noisy!” said Chris, despairingly.  They told us that on one occasion they were moored near a houseboat on which there was a Pirate Party, with a great deal of rum and a great deal of AARRRGGGHHH AAARRGGHHH!  At one stage the party moved to the upper deck, ie the roof, of the poor little houseboat, and the pirates flung all of the moveable objects into the sea – tables, chairs, potplants, whatever.  Splishy splash!  Oh what fun!  And oh what NOT fun when they returned the houseboat to the company they had rented it from and had to pay for all of the loss and damage… Pete and I were very surprised; we have often been in the company of houseboats moored nearby and they have always been as quiet as…well as quiet as we are…