Year 2 –20 January 2024 -Exploring Sydney

It was a beautiful sunny blue-sky day when we woke and this was the weather we had hoped we would get when we arrived in Sydney!!. We had a good breakfast of poached eggs with avocado on toast.

I had done some thinking and we needed to fill up with diesel and fill our tanks with water. I rang the local marina and arranged to go there at 11.00am. We therefore prepared and upped anchor and headed over to the marina. We were served by one of the men in the marina who turned out to be Italian and from Rome. I explained what we were doing and he showed interest in joining as crew in the future. We put in nearly 500 lts of diesel and managed to fill the water tanks which was good.  

We returned to our anchor point and then headed ashore to collect our laundry and get some more provisions. I had made a lot of phone calls to try and get an electrician to sort out the Tricolour and Anchor light and managed to get one who asked me to call him tomorrow. We thought of going to Watson’s Bay where the famous Doyle’s the famous seafood restaurant was but decided to leave Stormbird where it was and take the ferry there.

We went to the ferry dock and missed the last ferry there but a helpful local explained about the buses and before long we were wending our way on the bus which took us all the way to Watson’s Bay. We passed some lovely houses and there is a lot of construction going on here with house being pulled down and rebuilt probably in a more modern fashion.

We arrived in Watson’s Bay which has a lovely sandy beach with a park behind some of it. We walked through the park which has some amazing trees and I have noticed in Sydney how big and healthy the trees look. Many of them are Moreton Bay Figs which have roots which come out like fingers. We saw some people with ice creams and well we have not had one here so we grabbed one and walked up the beach. It is odd but despite the sharks here people do swim and there were signs saying no swimming. Yet there were people in the water and I would not take the risk. We came across an area which had shark nets so I hope that is safer.

We walked along both ways of the beach and this beach has great views across to the centre of Sydney. We had a drink at the local hotel which had a lot of students enjoying themselves. I had booked Doyles fish restaurant which is famous and in Watson’s Bay. Doyles originally started off as a hut on the beach and then after some time it started serving fish fare. This started in 1885 and has been going over since.

We went over initially to the garden bar and had a drink. We then had a table right on the beach and had a wonderful fish meal. We started off with garlic prawns with calamari which we shared and were delicious. We then had John Dory fish which was delicious. It was a wonderful meal and our vista was the sun going down over Sydney – see the picture of the day.

We returned to Rose Bay on the bus and came back by dinghy. It had been a great day.

Need/Opportunity Year Two

I am in need of more crew from April to September so if of interest do email me at  hine.nick9@gmail.com  

In year two I will be going from New Zealand to Sydney and hen up the Eastern Australian Coast, Indonesia and then through Bali, Singapore and on to Thailand to end year two about the end of November 2025.

The blog will continue as we continue the journey. If you have any comments or suggestions about the blog then do email me on hine.nick9@gmail.com