Diving on Rotto wrecks. Discussing lesbianism with my sister.

Friday August 1^st.

We went to Aqua Jetty again with the kids (even Jeff came this time) and then back home for our breakfast and planning the day. Pete, Laura and I drove the kids to school. A bit of a squash but we managed. We drove on up to Freo to get the yacht sorted for this arvo.

Suze finishes early shift before the kids finish school so she’ll get their stuff and then pick them up from school to join us in Fremantle.

In Freo we drove straight to the marina and did a thorough clean of everything that needed cleaning and some stuff that didn’t. Pete sailed us out using the donk to get some diesel and we topped up the freshwater tanks too. We asked him to chuck us out at the E-Shed market, so he did. Fortunately not literally.

I used the rest of the morning to look around E-Shed, then we went into town and I showed her Myers (didn’t go in but I have planned a rendezvous with Heidi later in the hols). We looked at the shops in town and then I went to my favourite spot of all Fremantle Market. It is in an olde worlde building (OK, it’s only Victorian) and is full of bustle and life. When Suze and Pete lived in Bicton I used to spend a lot of time in Freo centre during my Gap year frequenting the market every day of the weekend. [OK, I was dating a local guy who worked there though; Mino (Carmine). I dumped him when I came back to the UK to take up my University place.]

Laura was as enchanted as I was when I first saw the market as a child. It is bustling and busy and full of nooks and crannies where stalls have been squeezed in. The Victorian bit is quite small but through a wide passageway you end up in the fruit and veg section which is quite a lot bigger. We were actually on a mission to get fruit and veg so we set about it with gusto. There used to be a lot of Italian stall holders (hence me dating Carmine) but they seemed to be in a minority now. We stocked up with a mountain of fruit and salad for the weekend. My family can get through grub like locusts.

I took Laura to the best food court on the planet, next door to Freo market and she was totally impressed. It knocks Meadowhall’s pathetic attempt into a cocked hat. There are no franchise names in this building just small, independent food producers cooking up their national cuisine. You are spoiled for choice, unless you are one of those people who won’t touch any food that isn’t from their own culture. [Yes, that is a big dig at Brits abroad!] I had an amazing selection of Thai dishes and Loll surprising me by having a tray filled with food from the Vietnamese stall. We did trade mouthfuls of each dish and I think we chose wisely.

We had to get back to the marina on the other side of the Swan so we headed back, again via E-Shed. I wanted us to get a new pair of Uggs each. I told Laura we would buy a new pair out here to use here and take home rather than bring ours from the UK all the way back to Aus, which seemed a bit silly. The Rousabout stall was still there (we had recced it on our way into town) and Laura bought a pair of pale pink ones and I bought a deep lavender coloured pair. They will be useful on the boat and on Rotto.

It seems a long way to Pier 21 marina over the Queen Victoria Street bridge, much longer than I had anticipated to be honest. It is called the Freo Traffic Bridge but there is a pedestrian section to the east side which looks up the Swan River. Laura was just amazed by how beautiful it all looks, I guess over the years of my visits and then living here twice you just get used to it. The Swan is line with houses, marinas, parks, beaches and play areas. It is a true aquatic playground. It is now wonder that Suze and Pete bought a small boat as soon as they arrived here in 2001. When they lived in Bicton their first boat was moored at the East Fremantle Yacht Club. It sounds very posh but is just an ordinary marina and club house. (It used to do great food, though.) Pier 21 is much closer to the Indian Ocean than EFYC which was why they moved.

Their first boat was an aluminium 18 footer with a single outboard motor. Instead of parking in on the trailer at their house they decided to get their foot in the marina door, so to speak, by getting themselves a birth at EFYC. Over the years they traded up boats in the same way that people trade up houses. Despite the fact their current vessel cost nearly $2 million; they sold their previous boat (a cabin cruiser) for over one and a half million dollars in order to buy it. Gran’s legacy helped too.

If you drive down the road to the Marina you’d have no idea it was there. It is a good job Pete drove us to it because I had forgotten where the entrance was. On the way back we could take the riverside walk instead. Laura has fallen in love with Fremantle.

Suze arrived with the kids at about 4pm and we set of for Rottnest Island straight away. It took about an hour and a half across the 11 nautical miles as the wind was a bit variable in both strength and direction! Coming back is usually much quicker and you can often put out a full set of canvas and sleigh ride back to Freo. We’ll miss that as we are going to be staying over when the family have gone back for school and work.

We used the SMS system to snag a mooring in Thompson bay as the wind wasn’t too favourable to go right round to Stark. They are pretty empty at this time of year anyway but the shared mooring system is a great idea for out of season visitors. I piloted the tender onto the jetty as we all wanted to have a bite at the brilliant seafood restaurant for our evening meal. It brought back so many memories of two Christmases ago when I went up to Broome with the rellies and we ate fresh fish and sea food almost everyday.

Annabelle and I shared the seafood platter for two on the understanding that she ate the calamari (I don’t like the texture!). Laura tried the dhufish, Jeff and Pete had the Island platter for two and Suze and Jill both had the chili mussels but they ended up being beaten by the amount and so we shared the rest round between us. Once she had her first few mouthfuls of dhufish she realised why eulogise about it so much back in the UK. It is brilliant. In fact the whole restaurant is brilliant – it’s a glass structure perched right on the shore line with views across the sound back to the mainland. You stroll down the boardwalk to it with the sea washing gently at your left hand side. Being all glass it looks a bit like a fairy palace when you see it lit up, at first.

We stayed for a good couple of hours and then strolled through the settlement to the Quokka observation point for a read about those, for Laura’s benefit. Back through the hamlet which is Thompson Bay we looked at the closed shops and the island shop, which we’ll visit tomorrow, then we headed back out to the yacht with Jill at the helm this time.

It seemed easier to get us girls to bunk together in the largest bed room which meant poor old Jeff had to bivvy down in the tiny berth again. He is used to it I suppose. Cahnging and washing was a bit of a palaver but we manged to get all seven of us through the heads although showers were banned as seven of us could have drained the tank in an instant. I told Laura we’d be swimming tomorrow and then do what the Okkers do, wash down at a public shower after swimming. This is a bit restricted on Rotto too, though, as the water is in quite short supply. [During the summer months, anyway.]

I went to sleep with Laura on my left, on the outside of the four of us and Annabelle on my left. I woke up at about three pm with the strange sensation of being held down to find that my niece was clutching my right hand and Laura was holding my left! Laura was just lying on her back and holding it as though we might do when out walking but Annabelle had my arm bent at the elbow, she was lying on her side and my hand was clasped against her chest. I found it really touching and slightly worrying. Although when we went on our camper van expedition last winter (our summer) I used to wake up regularly to find myself being hugged by my niece as though I was her teddy bear!

Saturday August 2^nd.

After breakfast we sailed round to the south of the island to go snorkelling and diving in Porpoise Bay near some of the wrecks that litter the coast. The water is crystal clear and being semi tropical has its own reef and an abundance of fish, lots of which are really brightly coloured and exotic looking. Laura and I went snorkelling first and had a look at the wreck of The Shark which is easily reached with a snorkel. She was amazed that everything was so clear and so simple to get to. Jeff drove us across in the tender and then he showed us around the wreck himself. At high water it lies in four metres but at low it is within the scope of even an inexperienced snorkeller. With Jeff and I to guide her she was fine and thoroughly taken aback by actually diving on a real ship-wreck. Once she’d got her ‘sea sense’ with the snorkel we headed back to the yacht where we graduated to air and dived with the rest.

All of the family now have ‘sport diver’, I am still on ‘novice’ not having done anything serious since we dived in Broome in 2012/13. Laura is a complete beginner so Jill became her dive tutor for the day and I had Annabelle as my dive partner. We only did short dives at a time, about half an hour each, and then went back on board so we could share the equipment with the others and grab a snack and drink. Laura was overwhelmed by the variety of marine life all around her and stunned by a pair of rays buzzing her and Jill on one dive. (Not literally stunned, obviously.)

Annabelle and I went to the wreck of the Lady Elizabeth three times and had a good old exploration of its rotting hull, gently crumbling away on the sea floor in the shallows. I was a bit concerned that there might have been loss of life on the wreck but it seems there were no lives lost when she actually ran aground but one person was swept overboard during the storm which led to its demise. I felt a bit reassured by that knowledge.

After a late and leisurely lunch on the top of the deck we set of to try and find the wreck of The Raven. This one had run aground when skippered by a drunken captain round about the time that my Dad’s family emigrated to Australia from Magdeburg in Germany. It was a wooden vessel and locating it is a bit of a puzzle as it has started to blend into the ocean floor. This was about the least interesting of the three wrecks but still absolutely fascinating.

After our final dive Pete decided that as the weather was fine we ought to do a circumnavigation of the island before heading to our SMS mooring in Thompson. This was a very sedate tour of the place which is not something most visitors get to do. We could see the Osprey nests quite clearly in Salmon Bay, but no Ospreys on or near them sadly. We hit the buffeted end of the island around Cape Vlamingh and we met the highest swell we had encountered all weekend so far. Laura’s stomach seemed to cope surprisingly well with the rocking and swaying. We pulled into Stark Bay on the engine, having taken the canvas down for the purpose, and we showed Laura the official rented family mooring buoy in the bay. It was a little choppy here and I could tell she was glad we had chosen to use a mooring in Thompson instead.

The north side of the Island isn’t as crinkly and interesting as the southern side, IMHO, but it is still pretty stunning. We tacked into the mouth of Geordie Bay and out again so she had seen that a bit closer than just sailing straight by. We rounded Bathurst light and found the shelter and tranquillity of Thompson quite a contrast to the rugged, point end of the island down at Cape Vlamingh. Laura now can’t wait to see it all from the land during the coming week.

We cooked our own food tonight rather than go and buy something on the island but we did tender ourselves over to the shore afterwards for another stroll, this time up to the Bathurst light house.  After that we, sort of, pitched up at Aristos (again) and had a hot drink – all of us females had drinking chocolate – and we sauntered back to the tender sharing a large bag of chips!

Once again we snuggled down together on the large bed and I had my arm hugged this time by Annabelle. Laura and I held hands for quite a time before we drifted off to the land of nod.

Sunday August 3^rd.

Woke up this morning in a strange position; I was spooning Laura with my arm around her waist and Annabelle was spooning me with her arm round my waist! It took me a second or two to realise what had happened and it was a good job I did, for in my half drowsy, pre awake state I was going to push the hand on my tummy down between my legs! Laura and I do this a lot when we wake up in the morning. Imagine the bloody consequences if I had accidentally pushed my niece’s hand down to my furry bit! It shocked me awake and made me feel a little bit sick at the thought. Phew!

I mentioned this to Laura as we sat on the prow with our morning mug of tea; our legs dangling over the side of the boat. She said that she thought Annabelle would have loved it as I must realise that she had a huge crush on me! OMG! I asked if it was really obvious and she told me it was to her because she could recognise in Annabelle the way she had behaved towards me when she was younger and I was off limits as an obviously heterosexual woman. Persisting with this theme I asked her what I should do.

Her answer was, “Nothing. There is nothing you can do to make it easier for either of you. The fact you are behaving as though she is your niece and you are her aunt is what is stopping her from doing anything about her feelings. I felt the same way but you so obviously didn’t; it used to upset me no end. I only told you I loved you because of that thing you say – try everything at least once or how do you know if you’ll like it or not? – I knew that if I appealed to your spirit of inquiry I might get you to love me back. I just had to know if there was a least a possibility of you being willing to try. If you had rejected me out of hand, I would have stopped seeing you and being your friend.”

I put down my cup, put my arms around her and kissed her. A quiet voice behind us said, “That’s enough of that. Any more and I’ll push you over board!” I was Suze coming to join us. I apologised and said I wouldn’t draw attention to ourselves again. She said, “I am bloody surprised you haven’t done it more often. It is so bloody apparent how much you love each other. I can’t imagine how you have managed not to show more affection while you’ve been round us?”

I told her I wanted to hug her and cuddle her and kiss Laura all the time but I thought it would be inappropriate in front of the kids. Laura just nodded in agreement and muttered something like “me too!”

“Well, I wish you bloody would. It is driving me spare watching you being excessively bloody polite and non-tactile around each other as though if you showed some affection in front of us the world would end or something! Pete and I talked about it last night and we decided that either you didn’t really love each other at all or you were being stupidly British and stiff upper lipped about your emotions. We plumped for ‘stupidly British’ I guess we were right.”

“We don’t want to cause any embarrassment.”

“Stuff any embarrassment, you drongo, just act as you would at home. I mean, are you like this around Mum & Dad?”

“Erm… No!”

“Well there you are then. I could feel bloody insulted that you don’t trust us enough to be able to cope if you decide to behave like a pair of raving lessies!”

I nearly choked on my tea.

“The kids need to see you behaving like a couple. Currently you could be just a pair of good friends. Showing them you aren’t afraid to show your sexuality would be so much better for everyone, really!”

I didn’t know what to say. I gave her a hug. Laura got up and hugged her too. I guess it needed saying or asking or something, I was just too scared to ask.

“Oh and by the way, if you want to bonk at home, just keep the noise down.”

Laura said, “We waited until there was no-one home!”

That made it Suze’s turn to nearly spill her tea.

Our plan for the day was a simple one. The kids wanted to hire bikes and have a cycle round the island, so we did. We booked our bikes for the week (as we’d be staying on) and the Rhodes booked theirs for the day. In order to be lazy, and as we’d eaten up, we bought ourselves sangers from Subway for lunch.

As we were staying on we brought our luggage over to the tourist office by the harbour, paid the balance on our unit and were told our case would be outside the unit by four pm and we could move in then.  We paid for bedding and towels too, so that we didn’t have to lug those across from the mainland.

Luggage taken care of we donned our totally unflattering helmets and set off in a clockwise direction round the island. This isn’t as hard as it may seem because the island is quite flat really apart from a couple of slight bumps. Once away from the settlement the only things we saw were birds, other cyclists, the Island Tour Bus and quokkas. Lots of quokkas, they seemed to just appear as if by magic. Laura knew the story about Vlamingh thinking they were large rats, hence the name rats’ nest in Dutch, but they are nothing like rats at all. They are just a small kind of wallaby I guess. They have the same sort of squat and compact body shape, with longish back legs and tiny forearms. They are definitely marsupials – we saw several joeys peering from their Mum’s pouches as we travelled around.

The view of the wrecks we dived on is completely different from the sea, as you’d expect really. The Shark is really close in to the shore we could have made our way down to the beach and snorkelled from there if we had wanted to. [We’ll not do that during our five nights on the island as we left the mask, snorkels, fins and weights on the boat, as well as our wet suits!]

The Osprey nest was even clearer from the shore line than from the sea as it only had either the sea or sky as a back ground. There was still no sign of any Ospreys on the nest getting it ready for spring. We are probably too early, TBH.

At the pointy end of the island, Cape Vlamingh, we had our lunch (a bit early but we were starved) and then went lizard spotting from the board walk. We counted 10 before the tourist bus turned up and we stopped so that the grockles didn’t disturb them. There were only about 6 of them on the bus actually. We had hoped to spot some hale spouts but sitting with my bins for 15 minutes looking at roughly the same spot of ocean brought no results at all. They do go by Rotto on their way north for the spring, once again we were probably too early for them.

We followed the road round the north side of the island and amazed Loll with the narrowness of the isthmus just before Stark Bay. If you had a good arm you could throw a ball from the beach on the north side to the beach on the south side. It really is quite narrow.

Calling at Geordie Bay store for a look around; we spotted an interesting looking 2 litre cask of Verdelho, so we bought it for our unit. This was quite forgetting that the store in Thompson  would have some anyway!

We watched the Rhodes hand their bikes back at the cycle hire place and then accompanied them back to the tender on the harbour side. We made our goodbyes with hugs all round and then waved them off towards the yacht. They seemed to potter about for ages on board before we saw them line up on deck as Pete steered her from the mooring into the bay proper using the engine. They gave us a sort of wave, salute type silly thing and then got on with hoisting canvas as it looked like they would get the benefit of a fairly good ‘Doctor’ back to Freo.

We went and collected our key, and wandered to our unit. I spent the next hour giving it a thoroughly good clean and wipe down while Laura got busy with making some sangers for our evening meal. We had salmon and cucumber sandwiches and a bit of dressed salad, a fruit flan and several glasses of Di Bortoli’s verdelho, which I have to say was very palatable for a wine box wine. [Our grocery order had been delivered along with our suitcase, to the door!

We hit the charp by 10 pm, though unfettered by adolescent nieces we didn’t actually go to sleep for over an hour later. Freedom.

Posted from Rottnest Island. Midnight Wednesday 6th August – yes I have been a lazy cow!