We’ve been back in Pittwater for a month or so now and it has been a busy time. It was with a great sense of anticipation that we sailed back into Broken Bay and took a mooring in the Basin. It is such a beautiful boating area and so very familiar to us. Yet at …
We arrived at the entrance to Port Stephens at dawn on a beautiful sunny day and dropped the anchor in a couple of metres at Winda Woppa on the northern side offering protection from the NE winds. Sadly these were also fanning a big bushfire near Buladelah which filled the air with smoke and dropped …
To be honest I was glad to leave behind the frenetic activity of the Gold Coast waterways, let alone the incessant fierce storms. I was hoping that Iluka or Yamba, (on the north and south sides of the mouth of the Clarence River respectively), might offer a rather more chilled vibe – much more to …
Well we certainly got the storms we mentioned in the last blog. For a week or so the afternoon and evening supercell thunder storms menaced SE Qld everyday. A combination of very hot conditions on the coast, a cold front/trough and hot dry winds coming in over the continent from the west produced rapidly developing …
After our brilliant Bangkok sojourn, we arrived back in Bundaberg with a few chores to get sorted – in particular, it was time to stock up on provisions which is always more easily done when we have a rental car. I now feel that we are back in the land of plenty – with the …
On the spur of the moment we decided to drop everything and go see our daughter Alice in Bangkok. The boat was well looked after in Bundaberg, flights from Brisbane to Bangkok reasonable and Alice’s work schedule had her in Bangkok the following week. So without giving her much warning (ie “what are you doing …
Finding the right weather window proved tricky and a bit stressful. The further west you get in the Pacific and the nearer to Australia/New Zealand the weather is increasingly influenced by the lows and associated fronts that travel east between the highs. The passage is about 800nm or around 5 ½ days so we were …
Having arrived in Noumea, we took the opportunity to stay a few nights in the marina for a decent rest and the convenience of having everything so much more easily accessible. Also, very importantly, Bill could give the boat a really good hose down on the dock, which the boat sorely needed. We are forever …
Lined up with several other cruisers all with similar plans, we headed to the Denarau Port authorities to complete the checkout formalities. Turns out we were all planning to leave that day for Noumea – it is nice to have your big decisions ratified by others and it meant we would have a bit of …
We decided that it would be prudent to haul out Mowzel Cat to be cleaned & antifouled in preparation for our return to Australia. The last time this was done was in Raiatea last November & in fact the antifoul was overall, holding up pretty well. However, we face the daunting prospect of passing the …