Delayed Departure

Stowage is now complete and the boat rigged ready to go. Somehow we did manage to stow all the booze. One might say enough booze to sink a ship but I think we have just managed to lower the waterline a centimeter or two. From memory we are sporting 6 packs of Moet, Bollinger, Piper Heidseck, Veuve Cliquot, 2 cases of Rose, 2 of Pinot Gris, one case of Furphy, two cases of cider. This is on top of Wine-Dark Sea’s already stocked cellar of course. The cookathon food has also made it into the freezer, now sporting a new carbon fibre lid. The perishables have been stowed in a now equally sporty fridge. Jocelyn’s supplies of rum balls and the new prototype dark and stormy balls have also been received and stowed along with the “loaded” rocky road. We are also still carrying Joce’s fruit cake which last departed Sydney on our 2017 odyssey and is still going strong.

Departure has been delayed a bit but a troublesome gale warning. Despite there being no particularly gnarly squalls recorded in Sydney its just not smart going out with such a warning in place. The freebie weather models I’ve been using have also not showed nothing particular bad. The clincher, however, was when Lindy’s landlord recommended we should hold of leaving until the morning. And hey, who am I to argue with Adrienne Cahalan! Once again we find that what is good enough for Wild Oats is good enough for Wine-Dark Sea.

Current plan is to leave early tomorrow morning (12/8). This has unfortunately meant that Byron has had to drop out of the delivery. This leaves Lindy Hardcastle, Greg Lake and I. It does however allow us more freedom as we now don’t have to stop in Southport. We’ll just keep on rolling as long as we physically can and want to. There is always the benefit of the longer we sail to start with, the more time we have to spend in the reef.