The sail home to Sydney 2011...

We spent a few days anchored behind Seaworld on the Gold Coast exploring and waiting for a suitable weather window to sail south to Sydney.

On the 17^th of December we left the Gold Coast and after a 36-hour spinnaker ride down the east coast we were located just north of Port Stephens. While our plan had been to sail to Sydney we decided to stop to avoid a southerly change that was on the way up the coast.

I am glad we made that decision, because on the last night at sea, close to the entrance of Port Stephens, we were privy to a spectacular lightshow generated, surprisingly, by a pod of dolphins. 

The dolphins zoomed into the stern of Lucey Blue in the pitch black as thick low clouds blocked out all the starlight on the moonless night. They played around the boat for over half an hour and looked like ghosts - invisible apart from their silhouette of speckled green phosphorescence. When the dolphins leapt out of the water they completely disappeared only to reappear moments later in a streamline splash of green. 

We had never seen anything like it before and unfortunately we completely forgot to take any photos, but the memory will last a lifetime.

We departed Port Stephens on the 22^nd of December in perfectly still conditions and motored the last ninety nautical miles back to Sydney on glassy seas. 

Eric really enjoyed his freedom on the front deck watching the world go by - albeit with his safety harness firmly attached to the boat – and the kids stayed up to watch the Spit Bridge open to welcome us back home.

All aboard Lucey Blue slept well that night - dreaming about the last few weeks aboard and the adventures ahead...