Exclusive from the Left Bank of Magnetic Island
Sacre bleu! This French profanity was uttered several times by our Shipping Reporter when he stumbled across this yacht , Le Reve ,from Coffs Harbour, New South Wales.
Not only is it an obvious French moniker , translated it is the name -The Dream- of a famous sexy oil painting by Pablo Picasso , which he whipped off one afternoon in 1932 , of his 22-year-old mistress, Marie-Therese Walter.
Poor Marie-Therese vainly hoped that Picasso would marry her one day and had a daughter by him ; she hanged herself four years after his death. Another of his lovers also suicided . The painting sold for $155 million in 2013, enough for a down payment on a French submarine .
Our francophile Shipping Reporter says the sighting of this yacht , behind which there is a great story , is typical of the media in Townsville, Cairns and Darwin which fails to tap this source of colourful yarns right under their snozzles.
It is a tailor made situation for a regular waterfront column/report by a reporter actually discovering the large fleet , commercial and otherwise, which pass through the ports , or are based there .
The motor yacht moored at the end of the above pontoon on the island is named Sassy , not thought to be due to any association with the co-founder of Cubism who treated his women appallingly
A panoramic view by Abra , our Aeronautical Correspondent, above of just a small portion of the yachts in Cairns
