Sailing Around Australia; A Dozen Good Folk

PaynesvilleGippsland lakes, Victoria

4/4/2015 A Dozen Good Folk

I have written several blogs on the topic of the great people we have met on our sailing around Australia adventures. So many people have been a great help or comfort to us without expecting any return. Paying it forward as Leanne calls it.

Also there are many people that we have met where we have enjoyed simply having a meal together or even a few hours of some friendly conversation. This has also one of the highlights of our adventure.

While taking Easy Tiger around the Gippsland Lakes, we have made acquaintance with a dozen people and enjoyed finding out about their lives and stories.

There are many trailer sailers in the Gipplsand lakes particularly as we arrived during the weekend of a huge annual trailer sailor regatta. While sharing a jetty with a couple of these small yachts, we met Lois and Ken, who were a wealth of information about the lakes they had had been visiting for twenty plus years.

Leanne has become an avid watcher of an app called Marine traffic. This app tracks ships and boats through their AIS signals. While scouring the lakes for boat movement near us, Leanne found a signal from a catamaran nearby called Bossa Nova, which, is a Fusion 40, the same make as our Easy Tiger. We planned our route for the next day to be in the same area, and found Bossa Nova on the hard stand.

After introductions etc, Neville and Amanda joined us on Easy Tiger for a sundowner. The next day we had a tour of Bossa Nova, which we would have to say is the best designed and well finished Fusion 40 we have seen.

For the past few days we have been moored next to Zofia in an area called Duck Arm. Duck arm is a narrow inlet, in the valley of some rolling hills with semi rural properties on one side and a 300metre wide peninsula on the other.

On the peninsula are a number of school camp properties and 12 houses that are privately owned. These properties have their own private jetties and on one a catamaran is moored. The owner of the catamaran came and introduces himself to us one evening.

Brook and his family have owned a property on this small peninsular for a number of years. On a tour of his property and a look at the lake on the other side of the peninsular, we were astounded at the damage that galahs were doing to the buildings. These quite large birds were literally chewing through any wood they could find, such as verandah poles, window sills and roofing joists. Brook had spent the week before Easter covering his house in chicken wire from the eaves to the ground to try and stop further damage by the galahs.

Next day it was nice to host fellow catamaran owners Brook, Lyn and their son Jack who is an accomplished sailor on Easy Tiger. We may become future customers of Brook and Lyn’s as they run a boat charter business booking people on charters like sailing in the Med, French canal boats and all sorts of other adventures that sound amazing.

At the other end of Duck Arm, we saw a couple of power boats tied on to the beach. During our dingy tour of duck arm, we stopped by to ask these guys about their luck with fishing and were invited back for a sundowner. With the Zofians, we thoroughly enjoyed a beach sundowner with Shane and Julie, Yani and Gayle. These folk are all Paynesville and Lakes regulars and again a wealth of information on the best spots to see.

Yesterday, it was time to head into the town of Paynseville. Brian (b2) on Zofia is continuing his quest to find the best sausage rolls in Australia, besides his mum’s and his wife’s. So morning tea at the bakery was scheduled. Here we met Phil and Leanne who had encountered Brain and Eva when they were at Portland. Phil and Leanne recently purchased a Roberts yacht, which they are renovating and preparing to set off on their own sailing adventure following Phil’s approaching retirement.

Leanne and I spent a lovely afternoon at Phil and Leanne’s shack on Raymond Island chatting about all manner of topics. We then followed up with a nice barbecue on Zofia in the evening.

It does seem like we are meeting people every day and that is definitely a real highlight of our sailing adventure. During our reunion with the Zofians, Brian has mentioned that they have always seemed to team up with people on a catamaran during their sailing around Tasmania. He thinks that it might be because he is a cat magnet.

But I think that because we have boating in common, because we are happy to share the tales of our adventure and we are genuinely interested in people and the places that we are visiting, that we have become people magnets.