Day 196, Year 2: Melbourne Cup Day
Date: Tuesday, November 6, 2007
Weather: Rainy, Rainy, Rainy
Location: Bundaberg Port Marina, Australia
Although there is an official Australia Day, most Aussie’s refer to Melbourne Cup Day as the official Australian national day. This is one horse race that is taken most seriously and the whole nation stops to watch. So it was a perfect day to have the final Port-2-Port rally celebration as well. We all dressed in our yachtie best and attended a Champagne and Chicken luncheon just before race time. Wearing a fancy hat is a tradition for Cup Day, so many of us found most creative ways to decorate
otherwise nondescript sun hats. Kathy of Two by Sea won the hat competition with a hat of balloons topped off by a BCYC (Bundaberg Cruising Yacht Club) pendant. By race time, we had all placed our bets and were ready to root for our horse. I dressed in purple today, so I was rooting for Purple Moon. This was the favored horse, but Efficient came in at the end and won the race leaving Purple Moon in second place. After the race and appropriate amount of celebrating, we returned to Windbird to
work on projects. But by 5:30 PM we were back up in the rally tent for a final farewell to our wonderful hosts from the Bundaberg Cruising Yacht Club and to all of the other rally participants. Some of us are staying here in Bundaberg, but most are moving on to other locations on the east coast of Australia. Some of us will meet again in Darwin next July for the Sail Indonesia Rally, but most we will not see again. The Port-2-Port Rally has been great fun. The BCYC does a wonderful job of organizing
the rally and providing opportunities for cruisers to meet and have fun together. We have really enjoyed our first week here in Australia and have felt most welcomed by the people here.
My early morning hours were spent in the marina laundromat. I have not been in a laundromat since New Zealand, but with the forecast of days of rain, I decided that using a laundromat was better than having wet clothes hanging all around. Windbird still looks like a cyclone hit, and I didn’t need to add wet laundry hanging to the chaos. Mark launched into the fun project today of removing one of our toilets and replacing the wooden base it sits on. That project will not be completed until tomorrow,
so that added just a little more chaos. Maybe we will get things straightened out tomorrow.
