Lucky Day
22 January 2019 | Rozelle Bay
Helen/Mark
I woke up around 5 after hearing voices outside. It was just getting light. There were many canoes and paddlers on the water. Not sure how they could even see where they were going. Solos and multiple paddlers. Each of the boats had lights on them. I could hear the noise from the many vehicles going over the bridge on their way to downtown and work. One rower was very close to our boat, but thankfully missed hitting us with their oars. Until around 7 when a solo paddler that hit the back of our boat. She ended up in the water and couldn't get back in, despite trying. Mark finally went out and put down our swim ladder for her to climb back into her rowing scull. She said she was sorry. She wasn't looking. Yikes! Mark had already picked out another anchorage for us to move to. Maybe it was a push to get out faster than we planned. After breakfast, Mark hauled anchor and we motored back towards the Sydney Harbour Bridge, but turned to the right before we got there. One nice thing in this area, heading toward downtown, was that there was a lower speed limit and event the ferry boats were going slower. Not sure what was going on, but we had to dodge items in the water. Most of them were logs, branches, pieces of wood, but the sad part was all the pieces of plastic in the water. We motored thru the Gleve Bridge which is a swing bridge that is no longer used. It is always in the open position except during the Sydney Marathon. The next bridge was the Anzac Bridge which is 87 feet high with plenty of clearance for Charabia's mast. We have driven over this toll bridge when we rented our car last month. We anchored at the end of the Rozelle Bay. The anchor held nicely in 14 feet of water. Three other boats came and anchored after us. Mark launched the dinghy. We got ready to head as close as we could to Darling Harbour. There is a huge park beside us. We planned to drop off our trash bag in the park. As we headed in that direction, we were hailed by the power boat owner. He was kind enough to tell us the lay of the land. Mark had already did some researched. We also stopped by the cat named, Norman and visited with Peter, who we met on the Gold Coast. We dinghied two bays over and tried to tie up close to the Fish Market, but there was no place to do that. We headed back to an area with steps into the water. Some of the steps were under water as it was high tide. Mark got the dinghy close enough so I could step up and not get my shoes wet. Then he secured our lines to the railing. We were able to remove a few things from our trash bag and fit everything into the trash bin. We walked several blocks and stopped at Long Kin restaurant for a very tasty Thai lunch. Then we walked the rest of the way to The Star Casino. Mark dropped me off and then headed to the Maritime Museum to tour the many ships that were docked there. He toured a submarine, a destroyer and an Endeavor replica. I walked around the huge casino. They had about 10 tables of roulette open. I selected a $5 minimum table. They gave me $5 coins for my cash. I was looking for $1 coins, but they didn't have any. I was able to box a few numbers and actually had better luck than yesterday. I cashed out $40 up. Good thing because the next number of spins were not my numbers. I also played an automated machine and made another $15. I was happy!! One nice perk about The Star Casino is that they had a machine which would charge your phone for free and also offered free wifi. So, I took advantage of that too. Mark met up with me at the prearranged time. He played one of the slots for a while as he was hot from his walk. He eventually got his money back and cashed out. Today was sunny and hot. My phone said it was 87 degrees. We had a lovely breeze on the water. We walked back to the dinghy. At this point it's almost low tide and our dinghy is hanging down the stairs. At least it didn't flip or get damaged. We dragged it down the steps into the water. Mark held it close to the stairs so I could just step in. Headed back to the boat. By this time we noticed the catamaran that anchored beside us was now way behind us. Then we saw the brown colored water very close behind our boat. There was not much water there. Thankfully, our boat was in 7 foot of water, which is plenty. The area behind us was totally exposed at low tide. Our salon temperature was 91 degrees. Opened the hatches to let in the nice cool breeze. We took a break for a short nap until our anchor alarm went off. Then an interesting thing happened. There were several dragon boats with 12-14 paddlers on board practicing here in our bay. When the tide started coming back, one of the boats got stuck in the shallows behind our boat. I took a few pictures. They asked if we could give them a line to pull them out. Someone eventually got out of the boat and pushed them off. Everyone was laughing. They said it has never happened before. It's still nice and sunny out. Our sunset last night was spectacular. Then maybe we will get a view of the full moon as it's been total cloud cover that past two nights. Thanks for all the emails, messages & FB comments. It's nice and flat water here, so I give kudos to Mark for selecting a perfect anchorage.