Tuesday 29 April 2008

Amanda's visit - Yamba to Surfers

We were a little unprepared for my good friend Amanda's arrival and despite promising we would meet in Balina, we were still at Yamba just getting back in the water from our haul out! Scooter (the sail maker at Yamba) was kind enough to lend his car for the hour and a half journey to pick Amanda up from Balina airport. We then welcomed Amanda to the boating life by sitting on the bottom at low tide - at an angle of about 40 degrees! We did get to show of my nice paint job on the waterline though.


With the weather forecast being so bad, we tried to entertain Amanda as best we could. We managed to get caught in a hail storm in the dinghy, rough the foul weather for a 10km hike, break down in the narrow Yamba channel and pester other boaties to play board games with us. Meeting other boaties did introduce Amanda to the rather handy skill of peeing overboard while standing up - for girls that is!?!?!












A week later we eventually left in the middle of the night, heading for Byron Bay to spend a day. Unfortunately Simon was sick most of the way so Amanda and I enjoyed the lively sail north in relatively large seas and numerous squalls. We anchored in a surprisingly calm Byron Bay to spend the day sampling the local fare.











We again headed off during the night, this time in much calmer conditions. So calm in fact, if you look carefully at this picture of Amanda you notice she's carrying some beer bottles which Simon smuggled up to her en route while I was napping. Simon was still too delicate to partake!


After spending a week at sleepy Yamba/Iluka the entrance on Sunday morning into Surfers was an assault on the senses! There was surf boarders paddling across the bar, power boats at full throttle churning up a huge wake and jet skis flying every which way. Never again will I enter Surfers on a weekend.


We were keen to make up for lost time on site seeing and had an action packed week between more bouts of bad weather. We visited the CUB brewery and enjoyed one or two cleansing ales, Amanda and I hit wet and wild for a splashtastic day, we visited the hinterland (another one of my short hikes), checked out the action on main beach and managed to squeeze in 100 shots of beer in 100 minutes. The competition was between Amanda and Simon and neither of them made it more than half way. This photo was taken only 1 minute in - they didn't look that fresh at the end!






















So we've finally managed to cross the border!
Amanda's cousin - who was kind enough to lend us his car during our stay ended up taking Amanda to Brisbane for her flight home and we continued to battle the weather up the Gold Coast seaway.


Thyme out.

2 comments:

theotherbear said...

I am laughing like mad reading this, and all my coworkers think I am completely mad. Very kind of you to not mention the burley over the side which caused my failure in the 100 in 100 game. Thanks for a wonderful holiday guys, so many people have commented on how relaxed I look since I came home. Much love to you both xo

Anonymous said...

hay, had a quick look through ,,am imprest with you both,try and get some red meat in to you.ring me if you get this H