Anything that can happen

How was your Chrissie and New Year?

Mine got off to a rocky start. Surprise!

While it’s usually me that gets sick during the festive season (I’ve lost two Christmases to COVID-19) this year it was those around me who suffered.

The youngest was crook as Rookwood with tonsillitis, glandular fever and a cold, which meant she couldn’t join a road trip to Melbourne to spend Christmas with my ex’s family.

She came to stay with me for a few days instead, alternating between lying wanly on the spare bed and the couch.

Then, as I was stuffing the turkey on Christmas morning in preparation for taking it to my sister’s house to roast, I got a text message telling me to call her.

My mum, who was staying with her, had woken horribly ill with a vomiting virus.

(We later discovered that half the residents in Mum’s over-55s development caught the same bug, with one of them even ending up in hospital.)

But it was Christmas Day and we are tough, so we put on brave faces for present opening.

However, we didn’t make much of a dent in the maple syrup-slathered bird I’d hauled over there or the ham DD had glazed … not to mention the prawns, oysters and various salads we’d prepared. We didn’t even bother serving dessert, as my sister and nephew were also starting to feel a bit off at that point.

I drove home with the youngest, who went to bed for three hours before rallying briefly to watch ‘The Grinch Who Stole Christmas’ with me on the couch.

She also dragged herself out of bed at 7am on Boxing Day to take me to the shuttle bus stop for my latest – and fairly impromptu – cruise adventure.

I was having an escapist scroll through cruise websites in late November when I spotted a Coral Expeditions voyage that was following the Sydney to Hobart Yacht Race. Not something that would normally interest me, but it was departing on Boxing Day and returning on January 2, which dovetailed perfectly with DD’s days off work, so I convinced him to be wild and crazy and book a cabin together.

Fast forward to 7am on Boxing Day and I gathered with my fellow passengers on the Pacific Highway to wait for the aforementioned shuttle.

I started chatting to a little old lady called Barbara – I reckon she was about 90 – and gave her a hand with her two backpacks while another bloke helped wheel her suitcase to the check-in desk.

We were standing in the queue to get our bag tags when she suddenly held her hand out to me and said she wasn’t feeling well. She looked ghastly and very scared. I called out to a crew member who raced over to assist her.

The crew tried to get her onto the bus so she could sit down, but she was too wobbly, so they semi carried her into the lobby of a nearby hotel as I trailed behind with her luggage and mine.

An ambulance was called, with the verdict being that Barbara had probably had a stroke.

The cruise staff stayed with her until she was in the ambulance, then informed us the poor woman would not be well enough to join the ship.

Running about an hour behind schedule, the bus headed up the coast to collect DD on our way to Palm Beach to join our ship, the Coral Discoverer, which was anchored in Broken Bay.

The scheduled departure time had been too early for most passengers to get a coffee and there was extensive muttering on the bus about caffeine deprivation.

There was almost a mutiny when the bus pulled up at DD’s stop and he stepped on with a strong flat white for me …

We arrived at Palm Beach Wharf on the most stunningly beautiful day and I felt a little emotional as we climbed into the tender and crossed the water in such a gorgeous part of the world.

We clambered onto the Coral Discoverer (above – preview pic from later in trip), which is quite unique in Australian waters as it only has 36 cabins and capacity for a maximum of 72 passengers – though there were probably less than 60 people on our cruise due to a few solo travellers.

Our cabin was spacious and well appointed and we were pleasantly surprised by all the public spaces both inside and outside the vessel considering the ship’s small size.

After our safety briefing we cruised past Barrenjoey Lighthouse and down to Sydney Heads to have lunch and watch the start of the Sydney to Hobart Yacht Race.

It was amazing to sit at the rooftop bar on the ship and see the hundreds of boats head out to sea.

That little black triangle between us is the sail of one of the boats in the distance.

We followed the yachts down the coast but couldn’t keep up with the front-runners, which were hurtling along at breakneck speed.

We were lucky enough to have a few yachting experts on board, including a guest lecturer who had competed in the race nine times, while our Captain had crewed a yacht during the infamous 1998 race.

Their connections meant we got to eavesdrop on video calls between them and various famous vessels along the route, which was an exciting insider experience.

We also enjoyed Captain’s drinks before having delicious Cape Grim eye fillet dinner, followed by pavlova for dessert, then we ended the night sipping a couple of Old Fashioneds on the back deck at sunset.