One year ago today we arrived in Australia after a long passage from New Zealand. We traveled north on the east coast last winter, then back south to Sydney to prep for the 75th Annual Rolex Sydney Hobart Yacht Race, spent time in Tassie, then headed back to Sydney. My how things have changed.
March 20th; arrive Sydney from Hobart, Tasmania. March 23rd; Australia imposes nationwide "stay home" orders. May 30th; depart Sydney for the Pittwater area about 30 NM north of Sydney, berth at Akuna Bay marina in the Ku-Ring-Gai Chase National Park. Ten weeks in Sydney. In normal times that would have been great, the Opera House, theaters, dining, a terrific zoo, sailing around Sydney harbor, lots to see and do, except like every other place they were all closed. Recreational sailing along with most everything else was considered non-essential. When we did venture outside it was pretty intimidating, much like other places a walk in the park was interrupted with joggers huffing past, making one wonder if they were infected. Very unhealthy attitude and experience.
About the middle of May the Australian government started to unwind all the restrictions, tentatively at first and this past week most things were back to some semblance of normal. Restaurants are operating at limited capacity, requiring adherence to social distancing and providing a name and mobile number at the door as the price of admittance. "Allows us to contact you in the event there is an infection found here, at this time". Recreational sailing is allowed except we can not cross the state border between New South Wales and Queensland. Seems the QLD prime minister does not want anyone from NSW as that is where the largest number of infections occurred.
I doubt we endured any more hardship than anyone else and am delighted it is coming to an end. Sadly, for folks in the US and other parts of the world the re-opening has been marred by protests (good) and looting (bad). Being an optimist, my belief is that this too shall pass, perhaps I am wrong but we shall see.
OK, enough of that. This blog is supposed to be about sharing our adventures as we travel around the world. So, I want to tell you about this incredible place we are in. We are only about 30 miles north of Sydney CBD (Central Business District) yet we could be a million miles away from the city. To get here we went up the coast to what is known as The Pittwater. There is a river and several deep-water creeks meandering well inland; we are more than 5 NM inland from the coast. These creeks are very deep, and are very fiord like. The photo at the top gives some idea of the pristine natural landscape around us. We are surrounded by hills and trees, birds and critters and the utmost serenity. There are abundant fish and a very healthy population of sharks. No crocks, thankfully! There is an area just inside the park gates (about 2 miles from the marina) for public fishing. The couple of times I have been by there a hundred or more people were there fishing, thus one can assume the local fish population is more than edible.
The most astounding part of being here, as opposed to Sydney is the quiet. In Sydney, even at the height of the lockdown, we had the sounds of a city. Delivery trucks, ambulance and police sirens, the occasional motorbike delivering take away meals, and the occasional commercial aircraft (freight or charter) coming or going to the international airport. By contrast, here mostly all you hear is silence, interrupted by the shriek of a bird. There are boats that go in and out, small fishing boats up to some 100 foot + mega yachts. Even they seem quiet.
In the past I could be writing about our plans; conditions make planning nearly impossible. However, since the first day of winter is in a couple of weeks our goal is to get north to QLD where the climate is more tropical. As noted above we need to wait for the QLD PM to open the border. Some suggest July 1st that could happen. Currently every port in the south Pacific is closed to visiting yachts, even those in need of water, food, fuel or parts; if we were to leave, we literally would have no place to go. There are intense discussions, many being spearheaded by the Ocean Cruising Club, between Tonga, Fiji, New Zealand and Australia attempting to open at least one port in each country. There is discussion of creating a cross Tasman Sea bubble between Australia and New Zealand, and including the Pacific island nations of Tonga and Fiji. If and when that happens, we will have some ability to plan the next leg of this adventure. Meanwhile, our cruising permit was to expire today so we got that extended for a year last week. Charlene's visa expires today as well and Australia Immigration has issued a Bridge Visa which is good until they make a decision on providing her a new visitor's visa.
Thus, much as I would like to share our exciting plans for the next leg of this adventure there are none. This is very much a situation where planning is incremental and optimism essential. More....later