June 11th here in Australia marked the Queen's Birthday, one of the many public holidays in this country. Although it is not really Queen Elizabeth's birthday, Australia and most of the other countries in the Commonwealth have chosen a day over the years to serve as this national holiday. Most importantly, June 11th is the day that the ski season commences, which just gets us more excited about our ski trip to New Zealand at the end of the month.
Given that Mark had the day off and we are still trying to churn through a list of "must-sees" before the end of the year, we followed a recommendation from one of Mark's co-workers and a taxi driver (probably after a little too much wine) and rented a sailboat for the weekend. No, we do not know how to sail. How hard can it really be?, we thought. Stories on that later.
The venue for the adventure was an area called the Gippsland Lakes, which are about a 3.5 hour drive east of Melbourne. The intriguing aspect of the lake, and one of the reasons that it is an ideal spot to sail, is its location. The system of lakes have a small entrance to the Bass Strait (ocean) and then continue on for some 600 sq. km. with only a tiny strip of land between their bodies of water and the Strait. To put the size of Gippsland Lakes into perspective for you Georgians and South Carolinians, Lake Hartwell is only 230 sq. km. and Lake Lanier has a water area of about 155 sq. km.
Putting only two people that have limited sailing experience on a 32-foot sailboat seems like a pretty risky idea. However, the experience was fabulous. A few things that we learned/stressed about/saw along the way:
- Mark is an excellent 1st mate, mainly because he knows a little about sailing from his Clemson days and is strong enough to get the sails up. Julie is an excellent captain because she now understands that turning the wheel for an extended period of time will take the boat into a 360, and she only ran the boat aground once (story to follow).
- Not to overshadow the great experience, but we must mention one amusing story that marked a check in the sailing novice box. Really one of the most challenging things to sailing is navigating. Navigating on the Gippsland Lakes means differentiating between red buoys ("Don't go into the marsh!") and green buoys and even seeing the buoys at all. The first day we got going just a bit late and were struggling to get to our spot for the night before the 5:00 p.m. deadline. Julie had been driving but had turned the reigns over to Mark while she went to radio for an alternative spot to stay. The boat jerked to an almost complete stop, and it was then apparent that the sailboat had landed on a sandbar. Just about then the conversation had earlier with the sailing instructor about the worth of the boat (a mere $225K at least) came back to light. Julie compounded the dingdong factor by saying to the radio operator after requesting help, "Ok. We'll just sit right here." Like there was any other choice! Everything was fine after the rescue guy towed the sailboat, while Mark and Julie held on for dear life, off the sandbar by the top of the mast.
- We were sailing at the "salty" time of year, meaning that a lot of sea creatures have traveled into the Lakes. Just a few moments after we left the marina on the first day, we saw a school of six dolphins following a yacht. Dolphins are really cool, but one of the highlights of the trip happened on the first night out on the Lakes. As the rain came down, the water started to glow. A pair of black swans (only see these in Australia, by the way) were swimming through the water, and their trail through the water was glowing. Our educated guess wasthat it was some sort of plankton. Talking to the folks back at marina led us to believe that it doesn't happen very often and that we lucked out.
- Kangaroos are literally everywhere in Australia. One afternoon we walked from the jetty on Rotamah Island to the beach on the Bass Strait and saw two kangaroos along the way. Still no koalas!
- Mark and Julie still love each other (Julie can only speak for herself) after spending 3 days sleeping in a little cubby hole, sharing a tiny bathroom with a toilet that has to be pumped out after each use, and learning how to steer clear of other big boats while keeping our own boat afloat. Comic relief is abundant in all of this, and we always love a good laugh at something silly we have done!
