Moments of magic in Moreton Bay

As sailing is my passion, I leapt at the chance for a morning cruise around Moreton Bay aboard a 30ft catamaran, courtesy of skipper Bill McLennan (pictured at right), a good friend of my brother-in-law Colin Boyle.

Also on board were Bill’s wife Cheryl, a friend Pamela, who kindly provided the champagne and dips, and Col.

Carol declined, having lost her zest for sailing long ago.

In glorious sunshine we skimmed at 5-6 knots in the light airs over to Stradbroke Island and back to Victoria Point.

I was most impressed by the living space on board this ocean going yacht, which has a large open cabin and wide hulls each with room for double berths and lots of storage.

I asked Bill, who has sailed both, what was the essential difference between sailing monohull yachts and cats.

“With a monohull, you know when the wind gets up,” he said, “whereas with a cat, you may not even notice you’re in a gale.

“You’ll be powering along and may only find out you’re going too fast when you flip, and then it’s too late. So you have to monitor your wind speed regularly and shorten sail accordingly.”

Bill has never ‘flipped’ – he’s too experienced for that. Thanks for the advice Bill, and many thanks for the sail.

Sausage sizzle at Kath's

Immediately afterwards we proceeded to Birkdale where Colin’s eldest daughter, my niece Kathy Casley had arranged a sausage sizzle lunch in the gardens of her spacious high-set home for us to reconnect with more family.

It was great to see nieces and nephews whom we haven’t seen for some years, and meet their children.

Pictured (from left, back row: Niece Kathy Boyle, Jasmine Delta and Phoenix (daughter and son of nephew Steven Boyle and Mickey), Robert Boyle (nephew Peter and Katrina), Charlie Green (nephew Thomas and Kellie), Zachary Boyle (Steven and Mickey), Toby Green (Thomas and Kellie) and Tia (Steven and Mickey); front row: Marley Bugeja (niece Kara and Paul), Grace and Xavier Boyle (Kathy and Zac), David Boyle (sister Mary and Col) and Peter Boyle with daughter Stella Mary.

Carol with Jasmine Delta Wolf-Boyle and Stella Mary Boyle. Right, Steven and Mickey with Jasmine, Kara Bugeja and Marley, niece Jocelyn Boyle and her brother David.

Naturally chaos reigned and coherent pictures were obtained only with extreme difficulty. Clearly another baby boom is under way.

My sister Bet and family pictured in the previous web log also attended.

Many thanks to you Kathy and to Zachary who cooked the snags.

Right: I'm with niece Kathy and husband Zac, and their children Xavier and Grace.

Below: In the midst of nephews Peter Boyle, Daniel Green and David Boyle, and on the other side David Dique and Steven Boyle, and Steve's dad Colin -- useful people to call on if you're punching above your weight in a fracas.





Trivia

It was a long day, culminating in a trivia night at the local school hall to raise funds for a community project in Equador. Some of the questions were hard especially the ones on collective nouns, like:

What do you call a group of nuns? A flap. I kid you not!

What do you call a group of cockroaches? An intrusion.

And a group of army tanks? A clank. And there were lots more like that.

Next time we’ll report on Mother’s Day – quite eventful so stay tuned.