The spirit of Christmas

The Bloke knows how much I obsess about Christmas and since we were to be in Two People's Bay at least until after Boxing Day, it was terrific to return to the boat from a shore excursion with Maree to discover that my solar lights had been hoisted up a couple of halyards. Our anchor light would give the star effect as if at the top of a tree. Fantastic.  The arrival of the lights at the boat the previous year, as a 'never to be missed bargain' from Bunnings post-Xmas sale was met with derision and try as I might, no occasion seemed important enough to soften the Bloke's attitude, until now anyway. What a fun way to brighten up our anchorage at night.

Tidy paths on the reserve

It turns out that Two People's Bay is a nature reserve with a heritage trail, visitors centre (very, very  interesting but the Bloke dragged me away), boat ramp, spotless gas barbecues and spotless amenities block. We'd observed people walking up the hills and popping up at what must have been look-outs. My trip to shore with Maree confirmed this was the case. Everything is immaculate. We couldn't help feeling that the custodians of Rottnest could visit this site plus the Big Four holiday park at Middleton Beach for a meaningful lesson. Forget lavish overseas junkets, the people of the Great Southern have nailed it! To keep the public from tramping willy nilly through the bush, designated and well gravelled paths have been created. Where necessary on steep gradients, steps have been made with small logs that have been staked into place. There was an interesting mauve bottlebrush that I'd not seen before that we were able to look at close up. From the ocean the large clumps of this bottle brush on the slopes gave a 'heatherish' look. On our way back, our progress was delayed the appearance of a large metre long monitor lizard that ambled along the path ahead of us for around 10 minutes before at last ducking off. We were a bit alarmed that it might take fright and try to climb us or something: bungarra style. It looked like the Lilliput version of a Komodo Dragon so we just kept our distance and wondered how long before it would relinquish it's occupation of OUR path.

As usual nobody reads signs! 4Wheel drive vehicles are parked all along the beach.

We were satisfied that there was quite a lot we could do and see in the bay and after the hectic week in Albany we were glad to think we could catch our breath, so long as the wind didn't blow in with an 'N' in it. We always had an early indication if the day would be mild or inclement because the fishermen came when the weather would be fair and were a 'no show' on the bad days. Christmas Eve was a 'no show' day.

Our boys like to taunt me at census time "So Mum" they begin "...where did you say you came from on the forms?". OK, if your Mum is Polish and your Dad is too, then that makes me 100% even if I'm UK born (and for the record boys, that makes you 50% Polish so you can quit taunting me!!). Our Christmas traditions then are somewhat different from our travel companions. Urchin and Easy Tiger for now, are our kin and were about to be introduced to what goes on at Christmas Eve albeit with a couple of adaptations. But by hell and high water there WOULD  at least be barszcz, rollmops, ogurki, rye bread and mizeria as a minimum! 12 Courses would be unreasonable and pączki (dohnuts) and Makowiec would definitely be beyond capacity.

Weather predictions counter indicated a normal Wigilia commencing with the sighting of the first evening star, so a luncheon start it would have to be. I can compromise. To make ourselves feel better we all nodded at one another when we tried to be dismissive with the comment that "Christmas is just another day....Isn't it?". Well no, it's not!

The previous day we were treated to a flypast by B5! We all happened to be aboard Zofia at the time. Rushing up on deck to acknowledge the aerial visitation heralded by a growling engine overhead, we delivered a Mexican waive to reciprocate! This was then followed by txt from B5 asking why the heck were all anchored so far from shore? It turns out that the depth drops off very rapidly and the arrival of a local and beautiful version of the African Nile called Sebastina demonstrated the point.

We had an early start on Xmas Eve. Cooking, cooking, cooking. We'd invited everyone for a more or less traditional Polish Christmas Eve meal. While I was flapping about with food prep, the Bloke was zigzagging about the Bay (in the now pur r r r ring dinghy- Yup! outboard definitely fixed now) with the hand-held depth gauge checking for better pozzies. (Dale, we bought one just like yours and it's our new most favourite thing!) Where to go, where to go?.. Decision: to shift or to stay put? At least we knew that the anchor was set where we were. Mmmmm pondering, what about that Drunken Sailor reef to our lee? I was getting flash backs of anchoring 2 days earlier.  Anguishing. The weed, the weed!! By 10:00 the breeze was freshening and the Bloke decided to up my complication factors and relocate to a new anchoring position, to a lovely looking blue patch discernible with our new S U P E R R R  sunglasses. (Mum, the Maui Jims have proved to be great and worth the $'s.. a good spend of my birthday pineapples). The Bloke had picked his target and in contrast to the anchoring effort of a couple of days previous, we performed the dark art of anchoring without incident or unkind words. A perfect illustration of the adverse effect of tension. I was back in the galley in a flash.

Urchin had also decided to move in closer. But then again perhaps not. They sampled multiple anchoring spots, first here and then there and for all the world appeared eventually to be even further out than they'd been in the first place. What the heck! With the soundings fresh in his mind, the Bloke decided to intervene and escorted them into a nice sandy patch where they eventually locked on to the bottom. It was great pre-meal entertainment for Easy Tiger and ourselves. Guys - not laughing at you, laughing with you... honest!

As it turned out we had to entertain in the cockpit aboard Zofia so we could all do an anchor watch. The wind whipped up across Two People's Bay sometimes gusting to 30 and 40 knots in bright sunshine with hardly a cloud. How odd.  Odder still was the wind gauge we used. The Blokes jeans got drenched during the escort work and were still pegged up and flapping when we were all assembled. One inflated leg seemed to calibrate with the wind instrument's reading of 20knots, two legs 30knots and full legs and seat was 35-40knots. Easy entertained by this stage with only a cautious amount of alcohol on board, we roared laughing with each inflation thus masking any underlying nervousness about what was occurring at the end of our anchor chains. All we knew was that it was blowing dogs off chains.

But wait! Easy Tiger was moving oddly. Steve and Leanne were sent off to quell everyone's anxiety. Inspection revealed they were snagged on some GIANT chain. Possibly the legacy of a long  abandoned mooring. They were attached to the bottom in a manner they'd not anticipated. The chances of this happening as slim as a lotto win and it would have to be a job for calmer conditions...probably tomorrow so with nothing else to be done we ate and were merry.

Such good sports... they ate all the weird food with good grace.