Fireworks

 We spent a little time in the afternoon at Darling Harbour.

the Australian National Maritime Museum
or as they call it MU-SEA-UM

Darling Harbour

Notice how clear and blue the sky is.

We went back to the hotel for a little afternoon siesta (jet lag adjustment).  When we emerged to head for dinner at one of the waterside restaruants, dark clouds loomed.  We went back for our rain gear, and before we got half a block the storm hit.

We made it to the restaurant only slightly damp.  The restaruant normally has outside seating, so they had to move everybody inside and it was a bit chaotic.  King prawn spaghetti for Scott, lamb for me, and we both had Marlbourough (New Zealand) wines.

I was going to post pictures of the Saturday evening fireworks over the harbor.  There was a while where it looked like they'd have to cancel.  The storm moved off enough that they did do the show.  It was as much fun to watch the natural fireworks - lightning streaking across the skies to the north of the city - as it was to watch the commercial fireworks.  With the threat of rain I did not even bother to get the camera out so you'll just have to imagine fireworks reflecting off the high rises around the harbor.

this is the kind of boat
that got demasted.

This was a major storm - thousands lost power, trees were uprooted and power lines were down in the suburbs.  We watched a news video this morning of a Canadian sailboat being de-masted -- it was out of the water being prepped for a Grand Prix race today.  The storm was so intense that it was spinning the entire vertical sail around.  Amazing that nobody got hurt.  

They did cancel Sunday's race -- but they did put some of the boats in the water to entertain spectators.

This week has been some intense weather.  We left Maui just before another storm/flooding was expected, found out as we arrived in Sydney that the North Island in New Zealand had catastrophic floods and damage from a direct hit from Cyclone (hurricane) Gabrielle, and now this freak storm in Sydney.