Checking in at Eden
28 December 2022
• Twofold Bay, Australia
by Karl Coplan
Creeping into Snug Harbor in Eden in the dark brought back our worst nightmare of entering a unknown harbor at night and finding it looked nothing like the chart because major construction was going on. Dim amber flashing lights and looming structures where the chart showed open water made finding our way in a little nerve wracking. But we eventually found the tiny fixed landing stage we were supposed to tie up to and tied up the first half of the Mabel Rose to it, with fenders positioned as best we could to line up with the piling. Then we both collapsed into a deep sleep
Mick, the ABF customs inspector arrived at around 830 local time, as promised. He was very friendly and talkative, just asked to see our passports to do a “face check”,” didn’t have any forms for us to fill out and sign, did not ask what kind of food we had on board or whether we had been hiking in sheep fields anywhere. Mick said that since we were coming from New Zealand, who were Australia’s “mates,” he wasn’t worried about us bringing in pests. He did poke his head into each cabin of the boat. Mice had a dossier on each of us. Mine included my Facebook profile picture. He also had a picture of the Mabel Rose from my Facebook page. They don’t get very many yachts checking in to Eden, just a handful of boats coming from New Zealand. Most of the time he is looking for drug traffickers and checking in the occasional cruise ship.
Mick promised to send us our “control permit” or cruising permit, which we will need while we are in Australia. Which will be a while.
After we were cleared in, we dropped the yellow Q flag and hoisted the Australian courtesy flag - identical to New Zealand, but with one extra star by the southern cross. We dropped in at the information center, right by our dock, and I went upstairs to check in with David the Harbor Master, and to thank inox for finding space for us. David was very kind, but he said we really had to leave the landing stage by tonight, since the wind was going to come from the south and it would not be comfortable, and because they needed the space. With all the construction, the visitors wharf is completely closed, and they had several Sydney Hobart breakdown boats arriving in the harbor under tow tonight.
We had also been advised by a local on the wharf that we ought to move to Nullica Bay or Boyd Harbor tonight, since the wharf would be uncomfortable in a southerly. I was worried, too, since there was no place to tie off the stern of the Mabel Rose on the short dock. She was fine as long as the wind blew her back against the bow lines. But a south wind would blow the stern out and drive the bow into the pickings and the pier.
Robin was upset when I told her we would have to move at the end of the day- after two weeks and a Christmas holiday at sea with no one but me to talk to, she was looking forward to dockside socializing for a few days. But we were pretty emphatically being told we had to move.
Even though we can come back and anchor out at Eden when the wind turns northerly again on Friday, we made a list of things to see and do in one day in Eden. The list included the Eden Museum, lunch at Sprouts (a local farm too table cafe), a walk to Aslings Beach with its rock pool, essential grocery shopping, and dinner at the classic Art Deco Austral Asian Hotel. All that, and being ready to depart before sundown to move across Twofold Bay to Nullica.
The Eden Museum was interesting. It had the skeleton of Old atom, a massive Killer Whale (Orca) that led his pod in cooperative whale hunts with Eden’s human whale hunters for decades, continuing well into the 20th century. Apparently, orcas and aboriginal humans hunted whales together in Eden for centuries. The orcas would herd and drive the whales into the confines of Twofold Bay, where people could harpoon them. The people then left the whale carcasses in the water long enough food the orcas to feast on the whale tongues and lips - their share of the joint whale hunt kill. The people then harvested the blubber.
European settlers learned this practice and continued it. One particular European, by the name of Davidson, apparently developed a close partnership with old Tom. For Old Tom would herd whales towards Davidson’s green whale boats, but wouldn’t help out Davidsons competitors in their white whale boats.
Robin had mentioned at the visitors center that we really wanted to see kangaroos. The woman at the counter laughed - “just go to the golf course,” she said. So I added “bike two miles to the Eden Golf Course” to the list of things we absolutely had to do to day. When we got there, there no kangaroos visible from the parking lot. We headed towards the fairways, and asked the first golfer we passed if there were any kangaroos out. He laughed. “I just played through a pack of about two hundred of them on the sixth hole,” he said.
I guess this would be sort of like showing up at a golf course in the northeastern United States and saying, “we would really like to see some Canada Geese, do you think we can find any?” The difference was that none of the golfers had the slightest objection to our taking our bicycles out on the cart paths to find our mob of roos.
Which we did. I only counted about seventy though. One giant (I assume it was the male), and a whole bunch of mom’s with baby roos poking their heads out of mom’s pouches, and little kid kangaroos. All standing erect like some cross between a rabbit and a person and maybe a dinosaur. Until they started hopping about hysterically.
After dinner on the porch of the Austral Asia hotel, we packed our bikes on board and motored the two miles across the bay just as the south wind picked up. We watched the sailboat Koa being towed into Snug Harbor - a 56’ Hobart race boat that dropped out when their rudder snapped. We heard the whole story on the VHF radio as they arranged for the tow last night - so they have been under tow in nasty seas and fifth knot gusts offshore for twenty four hours.
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