January 2020
Hello everyone,
Australia in the fog... and suddenly a New Year!
Without being really "smoked" by the fires raging inside Australia, we have been bathedg for a month now in a kind of dry fog; in one month, we have seen two or three times a bit of blue sky, and only one starry night!
So we caught up with the colours of Sydney Harbour's fireworks, one of the main reasons for our visit to Australia... A marvel, but a marvel well deserved, as an hour before the first salvoes, violent gusts of wind swept over Farm Cove's anchorage, where hundreds of boats had anchored to get a good view of the performance. Dozens of boats, including many catamarans, immediately began to drag their hooks; I was thinking of raising my anchor to reach the southern end of the bay, well protected from this violent southerly wind, when a large monohull, also drazgging, collided violently with us, fortunately we are solid, and its bow was too; a few difficulties afterwards in getting my chain back up, as it is in dire need of replacement, then we reached the right anchorage, from where the view, in fact, was even better over the opera house, dominated by the arch of the Harbour Bridge. After a trial run, at 9 p.m. for families with children, the show itself on the twelfth stroke of midnight was breathtaking, and thousands of rockets, as my friend Jimmy Buffet sings,wonderfully "painted the sky".
Tomorrow, we set sail again for less populated areas than Sydney, but it was worth the stopover. I wish you a wonderful year and a fireworks of happiness! Antoine
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