Broken Bay Rainy Day

0630 position 33-38S 151-17E. On a mooring off of Zappa and Marie's house, Scotland Island, Broken Bay, New South Wales, Australia

We had breakfast aboard Van Diemen yesterday and then went in to Marie and Zappa's at 9AM with our bags of laundry. At 11 we all jumped into Zappa's utility boat and went in to his office in Newport, about ten minutes away at the south end of the harbor. Zappa manages a marina there and also runs a boat brokerage. Zappa, Marie, and Matt keep their cars parked there, and we split up at that point.

Marie drove Geoff to the airport to fly back to Tasmania. Geoff will return to join us next week just before we head south, but in the meantime he has things to do at home.

Zappa, Rob, Michael, and I drove two towns south to the Telstra store where Rob and I bought SIM cards for our phones. From there we returned Zappa to his office and took his car to do some provisioning for Van Diemen.

Michael took off to spend a couple of days with his brother who lives on an arm of the bay and the rest of us returned to Zappa and Marie's in the early afternoon. I spent the rest of the rainy, cold, wet day standing in front of the fireplace trying to get warm.

At 7PM we all jumped in Zappa's boat again and zipped over to Church Point for dinnier in the same cafe that Piers and I had coffee earlier. We met Piers and his wife Suzanne there as well as a couple of Robbie's old sailing pals. A great time was had by all.

As I write this Rob and I are waiting aboard Van Diemen for Piers to pick us up. We are going for coffee again this morning. The rain has stopped and it looks like it will be a beautiful day.

Lori and I had looked at Broken Bay on Google satellite view when I was home in September to get a feel for the place, but satellite view didn't do it justice. You couldn't see the magnificent topography looking down from above. Scotland Island and the surrounding fingers of land are hilly and steep, fully wooded, and beautiful. There is a lot of action with folks coming and going in their small motor boats from their isolated homes around the bay, people working on and using their yachts moored around the bay, ferries and work boats. There are sailboat races every night of the week here. It is a busy place and it is fun to be a part of it.

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