Yesterday evening we took a dinner cruise organised by my colleague Paul Collits who organised our conference at the University of Southern Queensland's Hervey Bay campus. We boarded the Whalesong at the picturesque Urangan harbour and headed out on what seemed the smooth waters of Hervey Bay.
The smooth waters gave way to choppy swell as we headed NE into a stiff breeze which grew stronger by the minute and soon the vessel was bouncing up and down between shoals of jellyfish. Fortunately, the craft didn't sink! However, the crew brought around finger food, which I soon down in some quantity along with some fizzy drink and I then began to feel queasy from that combination and the movement of the boat. In fact I was feeling rather sick - unusually so because I normally can take the movement sideways and up and down of boats.
We saw a delightful sunset over Urangan, pictured here and some beautiful cloudscapes illuminated by the setting sun before anchoring in the lee of a sand island for dinner.
Alas, by then, I was feeling rather sick and could scarcely any of the enticing fayre!! In fact I felt like chundering over the edge of the boat and avoided company lest I coughed up over them. By the way, chunder is an Australian word for being sick and elides the words "watch under". It was used on sailing craft bringing settlers - and convicts - to Australia to warn those on lower decks about their fate if they were hit by vomit. So the end of the cruise was miserable - but great for others of course.
AS
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