Sailing Around Australia; Ying and Yang

Lakes Entrance, Victoria

The Tambo River, peace and tranquility one day.

The next day triple ropes and every available fender on guard during a storm

8/4/2015 Ying and Yang

This week have had a taste of both sides, or the ying and the yang of our sailing adventures aboard Easy Tiger.

To continually remind ourselves that we are on an adventure we keep using the word. This is because if there wasn’t two sides to what we are doing, such as comfort and discomfort, then it would simply be a journey, not an adventure.

There is definetly two sides to our sailing adventure. One is when you are in a beautiful location on a bright sunny day with good company, the other is with wind howling around you, waves slapping the boat and rain coming in at 45 degrees, while you are huddled up alone waiting for it to go away.

Like two weeks ago, we lazily drifted up the Tambo River, saying gidday to the groups of people sitting on the grassed river banks while they fished. It was a cloudy day but no wind to speak of. It was scenes of what I imagine the French canals would be like.

The next day we had returned to Paynseville. We tied on to a floating jetty to hide from the forecast storm. We didn’t have to wait long. The storm blew over in a fury of 40knots plus. Fortunately we had double lines on to the floating jetty as Easy Tiger was prancing and bucking like a thoroughbred in the mounting yard. The floating jetty we were tied to wobbled and contorted, expanded and contracted like a caterpillar trying to escape.

Fortunately we had a lunch date with my Aunt Delys, so that took us to the relative comfort of the closest café. Didn’t do much for our nerves though as we could clearly see Easy Tiger’s mast was swinging back and forward like a pendulum.

Then the next morning, almost apologetically, the wind was calm, the sky’s turned blue and we had two days of peaceful, flat waters.

This meant we could resume our program of sundowners with other sailors and boaties of all descriptions.

Such is the ying and yang, that after three days of nice weather, again it turned unpleasant with strong winds and potential heavy rain. Being in the company of Zofia for this weather would make it a lot more bearable. We decided to have a photo viewing day.

I was a little apprehensive about this though as we have 500 photo’s of our sailing adventure saved. This was going to be a marathon for any one to sit through… or so I thought.

Leanne and I insisted that Brain and Eva should put their few photos on first, that way they may be able to stay awake through our 500 marathon.

I plugged in their hard drive and waited for it to load. We had morning tea while our media player scanned their hard drive. We had Brook, Lyn and Jack aboard for another round of scones and jam while Brian and Eva’s photo’s loaded for viewing. The wind blew. The earth turned. Finally the first photo came on to the screen.

Then the titles came on to the screen. They proudly announced that the first photo was 1 of 4473. I did come out in a slight sweat as I looked at this number. I looked at Leanne. She seemed unaware of what we were about to endure. 4473 photos...and that was just from 2014!!

For five and a half hours we didn’t really notice the wind whistling through the trees. We were engrossed in beautiful pictures of the rugged beauty of the Tasmanian coast, the excitement and action of the finish line for the Sydney to Hobart Yacht race and 241 photos of the town of Robe disappearing behind Zofia’s stern.

We now understand that when Brian and Eva talk of their time in Tasmania it is both sweet and sour, or ying and yang. The geographical beauty and the warm friendly people they encountered were equally balanced by the cold climate and tough sailing conditions.

Even as I write this, we are sitting out the effects of another passing cold front, triple tied on to a solid jetty in Lakes Entrance after a very pleasant few days over Easter. The wind is ferocious, the waves are slapping and we are being jostled, bumped, pushed and yanked in several directions.

But we know that this is the Yang. We just have to sit it out until the Ying that will take us out of the Gippsland lakes and north into the coastal waters of New South Wales.