Saturday, June 9, 2012

So I went sailing on the Endeavour and stuff

Now that the histrionics of my last post have passed, I can get on with actually telling you about my trip on the Endeavour.

And what holiday re-telling is complete without a turgid holiday snap slide-show? None that's what, so here we find ourselves, turgid slide-show and all. So I entreat you to settle down with a nice cup of tea (or a beer if it's after 10am). Ready? Great, let's get started.

Slide number one, please.


Like all good holidays on the high seas, mine started with an interstate trip to the library. But not just any library, the National Library in Canberra which very conveniently happened to be showing an exhibition on Patrick White the day I was passing through (en route Sydney to Eden, where the Endeavour was docked).

My darling parents very conveniently live in Canberra so accompanied me to the exhibition where we nerded up a storm then ate Nicoise salads and drank wine at the library's cafe. It was a very, very good several hours.

After the Patrick White nerdgasm subsided I got back on the bus to Eden. We rattled south through Canberra then on to Cooma, where we stopped for a meal break.


In Cooma it was inhumanly cold; the little sign above says six degrees. I would have taken a better photo but my fingers froze so this was all I could do. Sorry about that.

We eventually made it to Eden at some late hour. I had the nine-hours-on-a-bus crazies:


But sent my family this photo instead, so they wouldn't worry:


Then I slept and had a nightmare about being stuck on a bus for nine hours and having to stop at Cooma and freeze my arse off and then getting the crazies in a budget hotel room in Eden (no wait).

The next morning started with instant coffee (which we won't speak of), then, goodness, this:


And look! This:


Is it not the most beautiful boat you've ever seen? I think so too.

On the boat there was lots of rope.


We eased it and hauled it, then we coiled it. Rope is cool.


When we weren't on watch (four hours on, eight hours off) we were scoffing food down in the teeny weeny galley (or, more likely, playing cards):


Or trying to get some sleep in the hammocks:


Or up on deck enjoying the wonder of it all:




[Thank you, dear crew member Foremast Number Six, for helping me climb aloft. You rock Mr P.]

Despite the sleep deprivation, the non-surfeit of showers, the sometimes-we-work toilets and the constant rolling of the boat under our feet, coming home was very hard and I wasn't at all sure I wanted the voyage to end. Sailing into Sydney harbour (almost) made the end bearable:




And after a week at sea nothing, absolutely freakin' nothing, could have tasted better than this did:


Where to from here? My small boy and I were out on the ferries again the following Sunday, and I'm busily planning my next trip into the great blue. Huzzah.

4 comments:

Elephant's Child said...

If my jealous eyes get any greener they will be able to use me at traffic lights.
That looked AMAZING. OH. WOW. And other superlatives.

Kettle said...

Dear TEC, no-one would have been jealous of me at 2am one morning when I was on bow look-out and the rain was coming horizontally across the starboard bow. No-one, guaranteed.

Anonymous said...

Great photos Ms Kettle! They make me feel as though I could have been there too! FM6

squib said...

yellow harness crow's nest pic très super cool, Kettle