Long Time, No Blog!

Tuesday 4th November

Well, as you may have noticed, it has been very quiet on the blog front! We have been down in Melbourne for the past couple of months, staying with Fiona and David in Diamond Creek. There have been lots of things happening, between buying a house (details to follow) and a new car (Nissan X-Trail) and all sorts of furniture for the new place, as well as getting various medical check up done and lots of rehab for Hugh post-op, it's been a very busy time! 

However, we are now back up on BlueFlyer, which we had berthed in Mackay. We are sailing her down to Brisbane over a 3 week period (a nive leaisurely pace), before leaving her there until sometime next year when we have settled into the new house and are ready to sail her again.  

Right now though, we have some guests, Suzan and Michael, on board. They are an American couple we met on the ARC, who are sailing down to Brisbane with us. It's nice to have some company on board, as thing would seem very quite otherwise after the revelry of the ARC!

We left Mackay on Tuesday morning, after a lot of cleaning of BlueFlyer (inside and out) was done. Val also stocked up on provisions and did a great job setting the boat up, as usual. 

We are currenly thinking of leaving the boat in Brisbane next year if we can get a long term berth for her. We will also get the remaining repairs done there and perhaps lift her out to clean her hull and replace the anodes (after almost a year). She was last out by in January in Martinique. I doubt the boatyard in Tahiti did anything when she was briefly lifted there.

 

Wind is forecast Northerly to North Easterly 15 to 20 knots, ideal really. Its showing this until Thursday at least according to the BOM (Bureau of Meterology). I have made up an itinerary taking about 11 days of gentle sailing to get to Brisbane, via several islands and perhaps down the channel between Fraser Island and the mainland. Of course we may take longer than 11 days! We will call into Gladstone, Bundaberg and perhaps Mooloolaba for provisions and water.

Apparently one of the ARC boats, MaaMalni, was used in an episode of Sea Patrol (a fictional Australian marine rescue series), as a pirated boat. It will be the 2nd episode of the series to be shown in June. They were very impressed with the film crew - they were even paid for their services! It was filmed in and around Dunk Island.