NSW Cruise: 10/12/11 Roseville to Clontarf

It was a beautiful morning with blue sunny sky with two boats arriving at the Roseville ramp to participate in this cruise. Elesari and Arctic Tern were the participants. The crew on Elesari was Alan Scott, Uta and Brian and on Arctic Tern, Peter & Gill Behr with two young grandsons Lachlan and Matthew Cook. This cruise was a motoring cruise as there was little breeze in the upper reaches of Middle Harbour and with the Spit Bridge to pass under as you approach Clontarf. We arrive near Clontarf about 11.45 am and so we decide to travel onto Balmoral to extend our journey before moving back to Clontarf to anchor just off the beach near the swimming enclosure. Once having anchored we walked ashore to settle down with our picnic lunch on grassy patch just behind the sand. The boys had a swim in the enclosure while the adults enjoyed the pleasant surroundings. We stayed for a couple of hours before setting out back up the river to Roseville. The ramp at Roseville is very good with enough room to launch and retrieve 3 boats at the same time. There is also a floating pontoon which is useful to load and unload any passengers. The only slight disadvantage is the rocky shore between the ramp and the pontoon. As long as you have an extra long rope attached to the bow of your boat, the disconnection between the ramp and the pontoon can be negotiated. Although it was a small in numbers Cruise those who attended enjoyed the beautiful day, without drop rain in the area where we were. However later on we found out that some suburbs in Sydney had quite a bit rain, so we were lucky. This same cruise last year had been cancelled because of the very heavy rain.