I Love Sydney #1

Sydney, Australia, is a great place to sail into.

From the time the sun was up, I was out on the bow with dozens of my fellow passengers (dozens more gathered on decks above us) to watch us enter Sydney Harbour. The weather was perfect -- bright sunshine, temperatures in the low 70s warming gradually to where the windbreaker I wore was too much.

Wild cliffs, a national preserve, frame the entrance to the harbor, but a modern skyline is visible beyond. You can't see the Opera House yet, but the bend of the bridge beyond it can be seen from the ocean.

Sailing into Rio is more dramatic ("Wow! That's Sugarloaf! Wow! That's the Christ the Redeemer statue! Wow! That's Copacabana beach!"), but sailing into Sydney is more beautiful. The Harbour reaches back into the land in finger patterns like frost on cold windows. Past the Headlands, it's trees and small beaches and low hills with attractive houses and apartment buildings and grassy parks. There's the Opera House, of course, and the bridge and the prime minister's residence (the Amsterdam gave her a salute on the horn as we sailed past) and the downtown skyline. And Sydney is a main port, so there must be ugly industrial sections somewhere in the Harbour, but we got docked without passing any of them. The feeling I got for the hour or so it took us to sail in and dock was "What a great place! What a beautiful place! I wonder what it's like to live here."