Our last few days at the marina were busy. While Pete was learning how to dive, Fran, Choppa and I got ready for departure. This involved dog sitting Chewy, while Pilgrim was out sailing, going sailing with Pilgrim while Pete was diving, and visiting the bottle shop for supplies! We had some lovely evenings with […]

With the craziness of two race week regattas fading into the background, we have been taking time to settle back into a normal life aboard. Our dear friends and crew all headed back to Sydney over the course of a week and we had some great farewell breakfasts, lunches and dinners with them all. It […]

On Wednesday, Paul took Pete and I over to the big city, Townsville, on the ferry. We left on the first ferry, and had a great morning at chandlers, Bunnings, Target (for sodastream gas!), Dan Murphys and finally Ottos. Ottos is a great providore, with lots of lovely cheese, smallgoods, fruit, veg, a butcher and […]

The last day was a perfect sailing day, with blue sky, warm sun and 15-20 knots of breeze. Everyone was on board early to prepare and we were in Dent Passage for the start well ahead of our 0900 start, checking the breeze and tide set, and deciding on what spinnaker to start with. As […]

Having motored all night due to no wind, we hoped to do some sailing with daylight, but the lack of breeze continued. We arrived at Blue Pearl Bay around 1500, and were able to pick up a mooring, which would be less problematic for Pilgrim because of her keel shape. Once moored, we launched Budgie […]

As we crossed Cleveland Bay we had an excited call from Clare, checking on our progress and reminding us to call as we entered the marina. We confirmed our berthing arrangements and by 1500, we pulled into our berth with a huge reception and welcoming party, and plenty of line handlers. It was fabulous to […]

We departed Hammo at around 1100, after some quick provisioning at the brilliant new IGA, as the last of the wedding crew were heading to Dent Island for lunch. We had a good breeze, and were able to blow away the harbour cobwebs with a pleasant reach across to Woodwark Bay, just north of Airlie. […]

We have had the best few days at Hamilton Island, enjoying the nuptials of good friends and crew, Al Chase and his wife, Larissa. Despite some major hangovers on Sunday morning after the rather long session on Saturday afternoon, everyone got to the chapel on time and correctly dressed! Larissa was of course a little […]

From Macona we headed out the next morning to the northern part of Hook Island, aiming to check out the snorkeling at Maureens Cove. The wind was blowing about 10-15 knots from the East and we werent sure if the shelter there would be adequate, so  we made alternate plans to head to Butterfly Bay […]

Potter we did, but not for long, when the subject of the assymetric spinnaker came up. Once we had got around Fraser Island, we had pulled the assymetric out from under the bow and had it in the storage cabin, in case we wanted to use it, but we hadn’t had the right conditions or […]