Alfred's Cruising

Last Friday was that night of nights, where some fun prizes were handed out, as well as the draw for the major and minor prize in the raffle for a Mariner Boating holiday to the Med! The major prize went to Graham Camier and the minor prize to Garry Holder, congratulations!

For Tim Armytage, a very satisfying part of the night was the "bucketing" of King Neptune.

For the full series of photographs of the night, have a look at the album in the centre column of this page (slideshow here). As usual, photos by Jim Cormack.

And of course thanks to Mariner Boating for a great prize!

By David Roberts

Just after midday on 30 December, Janet, our friend Graham Wells and I departed RPAYC for Port Jackson. The wind was about 12 knots from the south at the time of our departure and the barometer was reading 1026. By the time we arrived at Barrenjoey the wind had increased to 20 knots and so we had the wind on the nose all the way to the harbour. After anchoring at 17.20 hours at Quarantine Beach we settled for the evening and had a pleasant meal.

From the now famous Prawn Cook Off at Lake Macquarie, here are all the recipes:
(download in PDF format).

Thanks to everyone for sharing your culinary secrets. For a full description of the event and the winners, see our previous item.

[A special thanks to Rob Starkey for collating these]

By Margot Rathbone

This year's cruise started with a strong show of discipline - a 4am departure on the second day of 2010 from Barrenjoey to fit in with a high tide for the bar and, in particular, the newly dredged but still very shallow channel into Lake Macquarie. Dawn brought good N/NE winds of between 10 and 15 knots and it was a very pleasant sail until we encountered the forecast showers as we neared our destination.

Well, it was wet for someone last Friday! 

Jim and Adrene put on a great performance, together with Keith, as you can see in the album (centre column) or by watching the slideshow below. And yes, a few of us took a bath, even though we didn't even get close to the equator.

There were some interesting "door" prizes, good food and great company. Yes, we had a ball...

Later in the weekend, we had a bunch of boats at Smiths creek, where Jim Cormack and friends did their best to set a rafting record.

Anyway, Jim, Andrene and Keith were a class act and thanks to the others who helped make it a great night, particularly Janet Dell and Ann Asker. And of course a super special thanks to Jim Cormack for the fabulous pictures.

Margot Rathbone reports:

As you will know, a storm hit our area (Church Point and Bayview) last friday. There was a lot of damage to property and trees across the bay from us but luckily we sustained only minimal damage.
This boat at Holmeport marina - just around the corner - was not so lucky! I took this snap on the way to Yeoman's Bay for the get-together with the cruisers. The numbers were well down because of the weather forecast but those of us who braved the heat and wind had a marvelous get-together on Saturday night. One boat owner was heard to comment that he thought it was only house-boats that had that much fun!