3 days of blog

Saturday 28th august 2010

Non Barbeque at Montes

Had a lazy morning, cleaning up and doing a few chores before going over to Montes for the BBQ. It was very crowded, but we managed to get seats with our friends from Hobart.

Spent the afternoon chatting with them and listening to the live music and wondering when we were going to get fed. Eventually we found out that it had been postponed to a dinner and would be served at 6:30, neither us nor our friends wanted to spend the evening there, then go back to our boats in the dinghies after having had a few drinks, in the dark and with quite a strong wind blowing. So we called it a day and went back to Paragon and fired our own BBQ up.

The weather has been rather poor since we left Cid Harbour, with strong south easterly winds and overcast every day. Hope the SE wind drops before we head back to Airlie Beach on Monday as we will be heading SE most of the way.

Sunday, 29 August 2010

Non Seafood Lunch at Dingo Beach

Today the SICYC has organised a seafood lunch for us at Dingo beach, with a bus to take us around there. I checked the forecast for tomorrow for our trip to Airlie Beach and found that this south easterly is going to increase from 10 – 15 today to 20 – 25 tomorrow, so we thought it best if we got the worst part of the trip, Montes to Double Bay over today and forgo the seafood lunch. Which is what we did. We had the wind on the bow all the way and it took us almost 5 ½ hours to do the 17 miles, and quite bumpy. It was worse today than the trip we did from Newry to Goldsmith, Chez hated that, was sick and almost gave up to go home. Today she took it in her stride and actually enjoyed it, so I would say she has found her sea legs.

Now anchored in Double Bay East, still blowing at about 20 knots, but no swell.

Monday, 30 August 2010

The wind howled all night, but there was very little swell and Double Bay has good holding in mud.

Little better trip today than yesterday, had wind on the beam for about half the trip. Had difficulty getting around Grimstone Point against the wind and current, had to tack out into the bay.

Picked up fuel and water at Abel Point Marina before going out into the small craft mooring area and picking up a mooring.

Went over to the boat launching ramp in the dinghy twice, once to do our shopping and once to do the washing at the laundrette. Also walked about a kilometres to a service station to get a swap gas bottle. Quite heavy to carry when full for that distance.

By the time we had put the groceries and washing away it was time to sit down and have a glass of wine and contemplate dinner. Also celebrating the very last day I can call myself 70, tomorrow I’ll have to say 71!!

Going to a resort on South Molle Island tomorrow, booked in there for 4 nights. Imagine sleeping on a bed that doesn’t rock!. First time for me for over 7 weeks.