The epitome of livin the dream!

  Sydney, Australia
Sunday, April 27, 2008

Lauren and Allie meet us for brunch at the swissotel and then we head off for a walk through Darling Harbor on our way to the fish market. 


Allie's dad meets us at the fish market and we enjoy a second brunch of scallops, sushi, oysters and various other seafood delights after getting a short back-stage tour of the market.  To our delight, Allie's dad "volunteers" for a driving tour of a few neighborhoods before bringing us to his cousin's boat for a trip on the harbor.  Now, I wasn't expecting anything too crazy, and we got to the marina in time to get picked up by a nice but relatively normal tender.  I would have been perfectly happy if that had been our boat for the afternoon!  However, it was not to be.  It turns out that the tender was there to ferry us to the 'yacht' which turned out to be a 180 foot mega-yacht called Texas, because "it's bigger than Texas" according to the owner. 




We are immediately served drinks and snacks and obviously were in no position to say no.  Next thing we know, we are whisked off the boat by the tender.  This would have been enough to be an amazing experience as we got to see the harbor from a different point of view, not to mention the unreal hospitality from the owners that didn't know Phin or I from a fly on the wall.  However, the day of yachting wasn't quite finished.  The tender brought us just a few hundred feet away to another yacht, although a decidedly smaller one at just 140 feet where we were offered drinks and food yet again.  Keep in mind that this question was posed to us about every ten minutes until we left the boat, and we weren't really allowed to say no.

On this second yacht we were instructed to act as though we were at home and so we did.  We found ourselves diving off the roof into the water with the bridge and opera house in the background. 


We consumed entirely way too much food and drink and didn't think about time until darkness started creeping up on us.  I wasn't about to ask about the plans for leaving (why ask a question I don't want the answer to?) so I was quite pleased when scrabble was proposed as a sunset activity.  After laying down a seven letter word on my first move (had to throw that out there) we enjoyed gourmet appetizers from the chef while enjoying an unbelievable sunset from the middle of the harbor. 




Then the crabs were brought out.  Apparently, while we were at the fish market, the chef had picked up a bunch of massive mud crabs and we were unwittingly invited to a feast to end all feasts.  Watching Phin struggle with eating the crabs was easily one of the funniest things of the day, especially as he managed to get it all over the boat's owner and amazingly his back!  Maybe it was the coronas, the mojitos, the cosmos, the wine (which was from the owner's vineyard) or the hilarity of the whole situation, but I distinctly remember thinking that this trip probably couldn't get any better from here.

As I said, I wasn't about to offer up leaving and so we stuck around for some star gazing, card playing, more drinking and, after everyone left one-by-one until Phin and I were the only ones left with the owner and Allie, a movie in the lounge. 



We wound up sleeping on the boat and woke up to the chef preparing an amazing breakfast.  Then, all of a sudden, Phin and I were the only ones on the boat (besides the 4 person crew) and at that point we decided that it was probably a good time to go back to the mainland.  It was truly retarded and Phin and I decided that we were the only two guys to have gone from the Bondi YHA, to a five-star hotel to two of the nicest yachts of all time in 2 nights!