Friday, April 27, 2007
Thursday, April 19, 2007
This one probably needs a bit of narrative. It was a Saturday morning and I woke up with the normal fuzzy head. I needed some fresh air so dragged myself from bed and headed to the sun room to pull the blinds up and open a window. This was a few weeks back now as I write this so it's hard to remember the exact detail but I think I was aware from the noise outside that something was going on.
As I pulled up the blinds my eyes met the eyes of eight blokes in boat on the harbour not 10 metres away starring back at me. I couldn't be sure they were looking exactly at me as they were all wearing dark sunglasses but they were definitely looking in my general direction. I'll admit it was a bit of a shock. There I was in my underwear, unshaven, yawning and stretching being starred at by eight guys in sunglasses, crash helmets, military jumpsuits all tooled up with a fairly decent amount of weaponry on board!
I slowly started to take in more of my surroundings and realised these guys were not alone. Another rib was full of police divers a few metres away and a further four larger police boats were all within 50 metres of my window. There was also a row of buoys stretching from the piece of land under the north side of the harbour bridge all the way past my window and round the corner. Whenever a public boat would stray to close to the buoys one of the police boats would scream into action and tell them in no uncertain terms that they shouldn't be there.
Unfortunately it's by no means uncommon to have fatalities on the harbour. I was on a booze cruise myself with two hundred work colleagues a few years ago that ended with the death of a guy who fell out of the boat as we came into dock. Therefore it was this dark scenario that formed my immediate conclusion. I went straight to the lounge to turn on the TV and check the news. The news hadn't got hold of the story yet as none of the channels showed anything about a body missing in the harbour.
I decided to walk down by the water and ask a couple of the police officers I could see standing on the wharf what was going on. I thought nothing of it at the time but in hindsight I should have noticed something odd about the two blokes I passed on the way down to the wharf.
Stood 30 metres apart, both wearing chino's, short sleeved shirts one with slicked back hair and the other sported a wet look perm kind of affair. They weren't from round here that was for sure but obviously that's not unusual on the foreshore of Sydney Harbour opposite the Opera House.
By the time I got to the wharf I could see it was about 10 coppers stood there not just a couple and they all looked rather more intimidating now so I decided better of it and headed up the hill to get my bacon and eggs. there was however an obstacle in my way. He was about 6 foot 4 and built like a boxer. Black suit, white shirt, black shades, crew cut... 'morning mate' I said in my least intimidated voice. 'Hi' he replied with a smirk. I asked him what was going on for which the reply I received was.....'nothing.' To be honest the penny had probably dropped before this moment. 'Hang on' I said 'This hasn't got anything to do with The U.S. Vice President Dick Cheney visiting John Howard has it?' In the broadest American Accent you can imagine 'Well Son, I don't really know about that' replied the FBI agent.
I'll pick the pace up here cause I'm conscious I've taken a long time to say not a lot! I headed up the hill to the Deli spotting policemen with binoculars in trees. 30 of them hidden in a residential underground carpark. Police bikes had diverted roads. There was even an FBI agent in the deli. Not sure if he was after a sandwich or looking out for Al Qaeda but made for eventful trip to get the breaky ingredients. By the time I returned home I was like a school kid. Guns, Speedboats, FBI undercover agents, roadblocks and Bacon & Eggs. How good was this.
I ended up walking back to the shops but thought I'd go to the Kirribilli Avenue way as that's the road that links mine with the Prime ministers house to see what was going on. Police were stood at five metre intervals all the way up the road. When I got to the end I told one of the coppers I was just popping to the shop to get something and would I have any problems getting back down the road considering the police presence? He told me I wouldn't be able to get down this road for at least an hour and I shouldn't be on it now. At that moment this hugely over the top motorcade headed towards us. Police motorbikes, Saloons with blacked out windows, police cars, Limousines, Armoured Cars, Ambulances went on for ages. I used this time to get to the best spot I could to take the below photos of Johnny and Dick and there mates getting onto the boat for a bit of a jolly round the harbour. The white building in the top middle of the picture is where I live you can see my sun room window on the first floor.
As I pulled up the blinds my eyes met the eyes of eight blokes in boat on the harbour not 10 metres away starring back at me. I couldn't be sure they were looking exactly at me as they were all wearing dark sunglasses but they were definitely looking in my general direction. I'll admit it was a bit of a shock. There I was in my underwear, unshaven, yawning and stretching being starred at by eight guys in sunglasses, crash helmets, military jumpsuits all tooled up with a fairly decent amount of weaponry on board!
I slowly started to take in more of my surroundings and realised these guys were not alone. Another rib was full of police divers a few metres away and a further four larger police boats were all within 50 metres of my window. There was also a row of buoys stretching from the piece of land under the north side of the harbour bridge all the way past my window and round the corner. Whenever a public boat would stray to close to the buoys one of the police boats would scream into action and tell them in no uncertain terms that they shouldn't be there.
Unfortunately it's by no means uncommon to have fatalities on the harbour. I was on a booze cruise myself with two hundred work colleagues a few years ago that ended with the death of a guy who fell out of the boat as we came into dock. Therefore it was this dark scenario that formed my immediate conclusion. I went straight to the lounge to turn on the TV and check the news. The news hadn't got hold of the story yet as none of the channels showed anything about a body missing in the harbour.
I decided to walk down by the water and ask a couple of the police officers I could see standing on the wharf what was going on. I thought nothing of it at the time but in hindsight I should have noticed something odd about the two blokes I passed on the way down to the wharf.
Stood 30 metres apart, both wearing chino's, short sleeved shirts one with slicked back hair and the other sported a wet look perm kind of affair. They weren't from round here that was for sure but obviously that's not unusual on the foreshore of Sydney Harbour opposite the Opera House.
By the time I got to the wharf I could see it was about 10 coppers stood there not just a couple and they all looked rather more intimidating now so I decided better of it and headed up the hill to get my bacon and eggs. there was however an obstacle in my way. He was about 6 foot 4 and built like a boxer. Black suit, white shirt, black shades, crew cut... 'morning mate' I said in my least intimidated voice. 'Hi' he replied with a smirk. I asked him what was going on for which the reply I received was.....'nothing.' To be honest the penny had probably dropped before this moment. 'Hang on' I said 'This hasn't got anything to do with The U.S. Vice President Dick Cheney visiting John Howard has it?' In the broadest American Accent you can imagine 'Well Son, I don't really know about that' replied the FBI agent.
I'll pick the pace up here cause I'm conscious I've taken a long time to say not a lot! I headed up the hill to the Deli spotting policemen with binoculars in trees. 30 of them hidden in a residential underground carpark. Police bikes had diverted roads. There was even an FBI agent in the deli. Not sure if he was after a sandwich or looking out for Al Qaeda but made for eventful trip to get the breaky ingredients. By the time I returned home I was like a school kid. Guns, Speedboats, FBI undercover agents, roadblocks and Bacon & Eggs. How good was this.
I ended up walking back to the shops but thought I'd go to the Kirribilli Avenue way as that's the road that links mine with the Prime ministers house to see what was going on. Police were stood at five metre intervals all the way up the road. When I got to the end I told one of the coppers I was just popping to the shop to get something and would I have any problems getting back down the road considering the police presence? He told me I wouldn't be able to get down this road for at least an hour and I shouldn't be on it now. At that moment this hugely over the top motorcade headed towards us. Police motorbikes, Saloons with blacked out windows, police cars, Limousines, Armoured Cars, Ambulances went on for ages. I used this time to get to the best spot I could to take the below photos of Johnny and Dick and there mates getting onto the boat for a bit of a jolly round the harbour. The white building in the top middle of the picture is where I live you can see my sun room window on the first floor.
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