I write this blog after a 2 day gap. The main reason being that it was a late night on Saturday!
I woke up Saturday morning rather excited. I jumped out of bed and made good use of the hostel breakfast. I got on site and there was a good vibe among everyone. At 9 o'clock Forch called a meeting and we all gathered in the tent. Tim and Forch went though all the standard stuff about radios and channels. At the end he finished with good luck everyone it's going to look amazing your work will be rewarded. We loaded the vans with gear that was going to hotel roofs and they left. That left everyone else to twiddle their thumbs all morning. So we cracked out the rugby ball and had a kick about. This inevitably got morning and Forch decided he would have a running race with Hausy. This was good fun and everyone went crazy. Forch being the boss should have won but Hausy didn't let him win. Forch did a great roll at the end which we all thought looked cool. Half an hour later Forch said his wrist hurt. He went to hospital and returned an hour later in a sling. He fractured it. A long time and a lot of banter later I boarded my barge ready to be towed out to our position. I double checked we had everything most importantly was food, then water then radios, firing gear, toolboxes etc. Andrew was the chap that I was with and is a lowly guy. He had brought a girl called Sarah with him who is a local science teacher. Andrew goes in to teach chemistry and physics along with Sarah and used fireworks to keep the kids interested. She had never seen them up close before so this was a new experience for her! We did a load more tests and all was good. We sailed out through the harbour greeted with a fly past of a fleet of Australian fighter jets and helicopters.
This is the view from our barge.
We sailed out for another half an hour with people waving and cheering at us. Some people saying good luck from their boats which was rather nice. The tug dropped us off in the perfect position even though the GPS said we were 300 meters off target (it thought we were on land) we did another test and all was good. An hour or so passed and a powerboat came past at what looked like 5000mph and rocked our barge so much that we lost gear off the side and it ripped out a rail of cabling. The police were called to enforce the 6mph speed limit which they successfully applied. So 2 hours before firing we had to rewire all the ground pyro! Working out what cables were lost what had been cut and what was correct. A good hour and some arguing later we had come to an agreement of what was correct. We tested again and it said it was all good however the system had a fit because all of a sudden there was a gap. But we couldn't help that as it was now at the bottom of Sydney harbour. Darkness descended and I called Laura to check she had got to Te hotel roof OK. I had arranged for her to watch the show from a tower overlooking Sydney harbour.
A call came over the radio with a 5 min warning. We kitted up with all our anti death devices and I told Sarah to be awake and following the script through as we had big shells onboard. Especially the finale where we had 10 and 8 inch mortars. We were ready to rock the boat. We tested and armed the firing systems and it told us there was a fault. Ovecourse their would be as we were ready to fire. We investigated and it was an unfixable electrical fault which meant we would loose a little finale. The cue on the laptop was counting down, 5,4,3,2,1 and then all hell broke loose. Luckily half way through there was a minute silence which enabled us to put out a small fire. At the end of the silence the navy saluted with a 100 gun salute. Followed by the rest of the fireworks. The rest of the show fired as planned apart from one 10 inch shell which got a bit excitable.
It split the mortar, ripped it out of the sand skip and went a little low for our liking. Everyone was safe however. I returned shook Andrews hand and congratulated eachother, shortly followed by Forch over the radio saying guys that was a f***** awesome display well done! We investigated what the computer said didnt fire and it turned out to be 50 6 inch shells. Not that we noticed during the show it was that loud.
We started the de rig whilst we were towed back to shore arriving at the dock at exactly midnight. We said our goodbyes and went straight to bed. I arrived in my dorm and it was empty, perfect a silent nights sleep. Apart from 3 in the morning where a girl knocked asking if she could come in as she had lost her key. I expressed my displeasure at being woken up and returned to sleep.
For those that didn't see the photo on Facebook this was a picture taken from a hotel roof. Pretty good eh?!
Sunday morning.
I rolled out of bed a lot less enthusiastic than yesterday as I knew what was ahead. I arrived a little early and people were playing with the mini rugby ball throwing it at people's cars that were late. We had a meeting and Forch expressed his pleasure at how good the show was. His father then came around and shook everybody's hand.
We all headed to the first barge to start to break down racks and out them in the containers. We had to fill 12 containers with racks and after the first 2 it was around 28 degrees already. We were a little on the hot side. By lunchtime we had got 6 containers done and everybody took it in turns to walk into the drinks fridge (yes we have a fridge that size just for water) lunch again was a massive platter and we ate all we could. The hight of the sun was now and I had to apply suncream as I was starting to burn. It wouldn't rub in as I was so sweaty but mentally it felt better.
We returned and bashed out all the racks and got it all done!! The barges were swept down and one washed as it belonged to the navy, they said it was spotless when it went out it had to look the same when it went back. We are going to have an issue explaining the shell that went at ground level leaving a rather large black explosion mark on the grey deck....
Oh well. Tomorrow will be another break down day to sort out the massive pile of cables and rubbish that was left behind. Only 10 or so of us will be in tomorrow so it will be a little quieter on the banter front. I got back to the dorm and instantly had a shower. One to try and get rid of the fibreglass in my arm and 2 because my face and arms were black. As it turned out it wasn't dirt it was a rather hefty sun tan. There was a new guy in my dorm who introduced himself as Josh. He questioned my shirt and we got talking. He is from Kent and is a theatre sound and light engineer so we have a lot in common as pyro and that go hand in hand!! We were chatting all evening until I got hungry. Last night I was going to have a maccas (McDonald's for you English folk) for dinner but it was rather closed so I had it tonight instead. Josh came with me and we jut talked about everything and anything really, fascinated about all the fireworks side of it.
I got back to the dorm and started writing this and here I am now.
For our videos section there will be a short video from the barge to show you what it was like and also some photos coming soon.
Love to all xx
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