Tide Tables September to December 2020

Tide Tables May to August 2020

 

Nelligen Tide Times and Heights

 

Three Men in a Boat

 

Jerome K. Jerome's hilarious story of what is probably the worst holiday in literature has an air of delightful nostalgia and is still laugh-aloud funny more than a hundred years after it what first published with this preface:

 

Here is the whole book

 

And yet, it is full of wisdom as well, "... not merely as regards the present case, but with reference to our trip up the river of life generally. How many people, on that voyage, load up the boat till it is in danger of swamping with a store of foolish things which they think essential to the pleasure and comfort of the trip, but which are really only useless lumber.

How they pile the poor little craft mast-high with fine clothes and big houses; with useless servants, and a host of swell friends that do not care twopence for them, and that they do not care three ha'pence for; with expensive entertainments that nobody enjoys, with formalities and fashions, with pretence and ostentation, and with - oh, heaviest, maddest lumber of all! - the dread of what will my neighbour think, with luxuries that only cloy, with pleasures that bore, with empty show that, like the criminal's iron crown of yore, makes to bleed and swoon the aching head that wears it!

It is lumber, man - all lumber! Throw it overboard. It makes the boat so heavy to pull, you nearly faint at the oars. It makes it so cumbersome and dangerous to manage, you never know a moment's freedom from anxiety and care, never gain a moment's rest for dreamy laziness - no time to watch the windy shadows skimming lightly o'er the shallows, or the glittering sunbeams flitting in and out among the ripples, or the great trees by the margin looking down at their own image, or the woods all green and golden, or the lilies white and yellow, or the sombre-waving rushes, or the sedges, or the orchis, or the forget-me-nots.

Throw the lumber over, man! Let your boat of life be light, packed with only what you need - a homely home and simple pleasures, one or two friends, worth the name, someone to love and someone to love you, a cat, a dog, and a pipe or two, enough to eat and enough to wear, and a little more than enough to drink; for thirst is a dangerous thing.

You will find the boat easier to pull then, and it will not be so liable to upset, and it will not matter so much if it does upset; good, plain merchandise will stand water. You will have time to think as well as to work ..."

There is so much insight packed into this little book - useful information indeed, to say nothing of the dog! - that you almost regret having come to their final toast, "Here's to Three Men well out of a Boat!"

But that's a whole 184 pages later, so sit back and enjoy! (or listen here to the audiobook)

 

Free Yacht Club membership to every prospective buyer!

www.thisisaprivatesale.com

 

How can we afford to give away a membership to such an exclusive yacht club, we hear you ask? Well, here's how: by saving on the overheads!

Overheads such as paying hundreds of dollars for the pleasure of letting some agent advertise his real estate business or paying them their 'hard-earned' commission for some arcane skills and secret knowledge (which consists mainly of pressuring the vendor to drop the price for a quick sale).

Look, we are not suggesting that all real estate agents are a bunch of shifty, lazy, money-grabbing sleazebags who think ethics is the English county near Suthex; we just think that we are far better qualified than any agent to sell our own home - which, by the way, you can read more about at www.thisisaprivatesale.com.

So here's the deal: you can join the club as a prospective buyer (pretending to be a prospective buyer is permissible!); then, after you've bought "Riverbend", you can throw out the other members (prospective buyers or otherwise) and make it again Australia's most exclusive Yacht Club with a membership of just one - YOU !

Looking forward to your joining the Club!
Peter Goerman
Membership Secretary (also only member!)
email NelligenYachtClub@gmx.com

 

Survive the Savage Sea

 

In June 1972, the 43-foot schooner Lucette was attacked by killer whales and sank in 60 seconds. What happened next is almost incredible.

In an inflatable rubber raft, with a 9-foot fiberglass dinghy to tow it, Dougal Robertson and his family were miles from any shipping lanes. They had emergency rations for only three days and no maps, compass, or instruments of any kind. After their raft sank under them, they crammed themselves into their tiny dinghy.

For 37 days, using every technique of survival, they battled against 20-foot waves, marauding sharks, thirst, starvation, and exhaustion, adrift in the vast reaches of the Pacific before their ordeal was ended by a Japanese fishing boat.

The Robertsons' strong determination shines through the pages of this extraordinary book - click here - on which the 1991 film of the same name was based. It describes movingly their daily hopes and fears, crises and triumphs, tensions and heartbreaks.

Riverbend's very own movie

 

The Mole had been working very hard all the morning, spring-cleaning his little home. First with brooms, then with dusters; then on ladders and steps and chairs, with a brush and a pail of whitewash; till he had dust in his throat and eyes, and splashes of whitewash all over his black fur, and an aching back and weary arms. Spring was moving in the air above and in the earth below and around him, penetrating even his dark and lowly little house with its spirit of divine discontent and longing. It was small wonder, then, that he suddenly flung down his brush on the floor, said ‘Bother!’ and ‘O blow!’ and also ‘Hang spring-cleaning!’ and bolted out of the house without even waiting to put on his coat. Something up above was calling him imperiously, and he made for the steep little tunnel which answered in his case to the gravelled carriage-drive owned by animals whose residences are nearer to the sun and air. So he scraped and scratched and scrabbled and scrooged and then he scrooged again and scrabbled and scratched and scraped, working busily with his little paws and muttering to himself, ‘Up we go! Up we go!’ till at last, pop! his snout came out into the sunlight, and he found himself rolling in the warm grass of a great meadow."

Okay, keep on reading! I know you want to! Click here.

 

Sailing across the Atlantic

Part 2 missing

Part 3 missing

Part 4 missing

 

Arved Fuchs and his team on their most recent expedition across the North Atlantic begins on the 80-year-old sailing ship "Dagmar Aaen", from Greenland's west coast, via Newfoundland, Nova Scotia, Ireland and Scotland to the North German coast. It is a journey full of unforgettable experiences: unspoilt nature, rugged coasts, remote islands and extraordinary people who live with and off of the sea. For more than 30 years, German Arved Fuchs has undertaken ships expeditions to the most remote regions of our planet. He is mostly attracted to ice. There, on the west coast of Greenland, the cutter Dagmar Aaen, spent seven long winter months. This is where the five part series begins, which will come to an end after 12,000 nautical miles (ca. 22,000 kilometres) and more than four months later in the native North Sea.