I like big boats (and I cannot lie)

Like most of Sydney this weekend, I made the journey into the centre of town to catch the big show. Having no interest in the football, the cricket, Soundwave or Mardi Gras, I was there to see the arrival of Cunard's latest new toy, the Queen Victoria.

Fortunately, unlike most of Sydney, I went on Saturday morning, and more specifically, before dawn to catch Queen Victoria's arrival at Circular Quay. That meant a nice clear run down the M2 and over the Harbour Bridge, and a parking spot at Dawes Point (usually as rare as hen's teeth), just as the first light of day appeared over the horizon. This gave me about twenty minutes to take some atmosphere photos, mainly of the Opera House, as there were too many numpties standing in the way to take a good photo of the Harbour Bridge, before Queen Victoria rounded the headland and began final approach.

The 90000 tonne floating skyscraper was moored up alongside Circular Quay with impressive speed, and with the sun now fully risen and my first memory card full of pictures, I headed round to the Opera House for more pictures and a well-deserved breakfast.

In the excitement of taking this photo, I managed to dump most of my latté into my camera bag. After a lengthy clean-up operation, which left my bag suspiciously coffee-scented, albeit dry enough to pack everything into again, I headed back round the harbour to Dawes Point, and back home; and all before most people had got out of bed.

This next picture is for Damana, who sadly didn't make our predawn rendezvous, although she did come down later on.

P.S. Sorry about the title - it's a vague allusion to one of my favourite websites, as well as nod to Damana's post above.

A trip to Newcastle

Pasha Bulker Originally uploaded by DavidKeaveny

I'd been planning a trip up to Newcastle for the past few weeks, ever since I heard about this ship running aground during the bad weather we had in early June (finally something to put Newcastle on the world map! The locals must have been coining it from tourists). Well, this weekend I got the opportunity, as we all went up to visit the church in Newcastle. Rather selfishly, I'd been hoping that salvage attempts would continue to fail until we got there, so I was relieved when an attempt during the week failed when several of the tow ropes snapped, then attempts to reattach them could not be completed in time. Fortunately, the team was in no hurry to get the ship afloat again, with several good high tides still to come. From what I've seen in the news, they've now started to make some progress, so we got there in the nick of time. It was freezing cold, mainly from the wind chill, so I didn't take many photos, and even with the tripod, some were rather blurry. This was the best of the bunch.

Messing About In Boats

Believe me, my young friend, there is NOTHING - absolute nothing - half so much worth doing as simply messing about in boats.

Kenneth Graham could not have penned a truer word. There is something special about boats, or to be more precise, sailing boats. As a practical means of getting from A to B, they're not too practical, but if you're someone who believes that the journey is as important as the destination, then sailing is for you.

And so it proved for the Fairfax Digital Classifieds Services team. Having shipped a big software project some six weeks ahead of schedule, and under budget, we felt we were due a little bit of a letting down of hair before cracking on with the next big project. So with winter safely out of the way, the vote for sailing was pretty much unanimous. Seeing as our office building is only two minute's walk from the offices of Sydney By Sail, it couldn't be easier, and so here's some photographic evidence of people enjoying themselves, maybe helped a little by the cases of beer that found their way on board, maybe by the fact that it had been raining heavily for the past week and today was the first clear day, and maybe by the fact that the rest of our colleagues were still hard at it.

The conditions were pretty much spot on for us, with a light northerly wind, and the gentlest of swells coming in through the Heads. With only seven of us, we didn't need a big boat, so Charlotte, a Hunter 33, was more than sufficient - no jetski, but plenty of drinks holders... Anyhow, we motored out past the Harbour Bridge away from the traffic of ferries, shook the sails out and tacked our way up towards Manly. We then dropped the anchor for an hour while we finished lunch, then ran back down with the wind and back into harbour. Now we just need to finish the next project in record time too, catch the end of summer, and we can bring our bathers with us.