'Straya day

We took Cheshire Cat to get blessed on Australia Day. The ASCC had organsed for the Sisters Of Perpetual Indulgence to bless the fleet at Store Beach near Manly. So Julie, Karina, Roger and Davey joined me for a lovely big day out. On the way down the harbour we nearly ran onto the Ferry Race coming towards us. But a nice maritime services man suggested we go round the back of the ginormous P&O liner parked off Athol Bay. We saw Mathilde all decked out in yellow and green balloons but they didn't see us. Just after that we looked up to see first a huge Australian flag towed by a helicopter, and then a skywriter writing "sorry" in the clear blue sky. That is sorry to the stolen aboriginal generation. It was great to see on what has also been called "Invasion Day".

When we arrived at Store Beach there was only one other club boat there, the newly aquired Quest, Laine's replacement for Topknot. There were two hire boats full of gay boys also in the vicinity which was the reason for the choice of location. Later Wayne turned up in his new stink boat.

After some trouble anchoring for which I blame helmsman Roger (not really) we had lunch (sushi courtesy of Karina and Julie) and then went ashore for the blessing.
The usual farting about and a swim while we waited and then a nice blessing although the obvious hand of Neil in our one referring to main sheets and fan belts.

And then a lovely cruise home downwind with just the jib out and doing 4 knots in 10 knots of breeze. Noice. But neither different nor unusual.

The pics are from Karina but they're very low res so they're little.