Lady Musgrave - Riding out strong southerly winds...

Ryan and I spent the next few days snorkelling at low tide despite the arrival of stong southerly winds.

There were no more dinghy trips to the island...unless you really wanted to get wet so Sam and Eric (with some help from Emily) baked up a storm - fresh bread, chocolate brownie and other goodies. Emily also spent a far bit of time at the stern desperately trying to catch a fish for our dinner.

We used our Spectra watermaker to top up our fresh water tanks and most days made enough water to keep our tanks full. We can only make about twenty litres per hour, but we don't use much water aboard and we still had heaps of power (despite the clouds reducing the efficienty of our solar array) to run the watermaker for several hours a day if required. The watermaker only draws about 9 amps at 12 volts, but you still need to be careful when you don't have a wind generator to produce power on cloudy days.

Most of the other boats left the lagoon before the wind pickup and during the worst of the conditions two fishing boats anchored on the leeward side of the reef. Sam was despertate for fish and suggested that we take the dinghy out to ask if they had any free. But given the conditons we decided that the idea was not a viable option - there would be no return if anything happened to the dinghy or outboard motor.

Our anchor held fast in the windy conditions and even at high tide we were generally comfortable in the 30-35 knot conditions. We did break one of the anchor bridles as the surf rolled over the reef at high tide, but the rope had been fraid a little anyway so it was bound to fail sooner or later.

All agreed that at least the sunsets were still great!

Woolwich Dockyard – Work complete and we head home

We arrived late on Saturday afternoon to find Lucey Blue snuggly in the old dry dock marina. After chatting to Gary about the last few jobs we set about “finding food” and getting ready to go the next day.

We topped up the water tanks after dinner and were amused when a large halogen street light – more like a sports field light – came to life to illuminate Lucey Blue….


The kids came out with some unique perspectives on our preparations to depart and "the light"….



The next morning Jess and Pete arrived for the trip to Middle Harbour. It was a beautiful day and after some piano and “pretend” fishing we slid out of the dock and waved goodbye to Nikki and Buddha.



The trip up the harbour was fun and we made good time so we decided to have lunch at Store Beach. There were a few black clouds to the west, but the bay was empty and everyone was keen to eat.



We anchored just off the beach – well right up against the “Little Penguin” protection zone. I still find it amazing that Sydney has a few penguin breeding colonies within a stones throw of the city. The penguins are very timid and nothing like we have experienced in Antarctica, but that’s a story for another day.


Anyway shortly after we had finished lunch the “black clouds” otherwise know as a storm front hit……it went from about 20 degrees celsius and 5 knots of wind to about 12 degrees Celsius and 40 knots in a matter of minutes. Lucey Blue held fast for a while, but before long we started to drag our anchor and given our location close to the beach we decided to “up and go”.

We were disappointed not to have our new Rocna anchor with us (or at least Nick’s real wet weather gear) as it would have been much nicer to sit out the storm front. But Pete and Nick seemed to enjoy the icy blasts on the “outside” while we enjoyed playing in the saloon.



Despite the excitement we all made it home on time even if some of us were a little wet…..

2010 Sydney Boat Show - Jessica Watson and Lagoon Catamarans

Despite the crowds, we had fun at the boat show looking for odds and ends for Lucey Blue. The kids were great and put in a ten hour day on Saturday which is pretty impressive given Ryan is only four.

We managed to pick up (well...only just managed to pick up ;-) a new Rocna anchor:


...a heavily discounted digital TV system and a few cruising guides for the East coast of Australia from Boat Books.

I also spent some time admiring the Lagoon 400:


A real highlight was Jessica Watson's talk about her round the world solo adventure. Emily really enjoyed meeting Jessica and looking over Ella's Pink Lady.



We were also amazed to see Lucey Blue - a tiny blue spot with a big pink flag (white arrow) - near the head of the welcome home flotilla for Jessica (red arrow) on the back cover of the Jessica Waston's book - True Spirit: