We left Port Davey and Bathurst Harbour this morning. What an incredible place! So lucky to have been able to spend 4 nights there.There is a book called The Shank which shows some of the incredible anchorages that you can visit in the area. We saw a copy in Claytons house which you can visit and even have a bath there if you want (provided there is rain water available and you stoke the stove for a few hours). In the book there is the quote: This is an area where mankinds heavy, coarse, rapacio

After a night in the Pigsties anchorage in Recherche Bay, which was lovely and flat despite the swell outside, we set off early for Port Davey.The first few hours was a cracking sail at up to 9 knots with the wind aft of the beam. We passed a few wooden boats on their way around too, then lost the wind and had to motor or motor sail the rest. Ah well, at least it wasn’t blowing 35knots! Its hard to put into words how beautiful the coastline is around the bottom of Tasmania - simply stunning an

We really enjoyed our time in Hobart. Berthed on Elizabeth Street Pier, right in the centre of the city was really convenient. A few things were closed due to the pandemic, but we managed to sample whisky, lots of wine, cycle down Mt Wellington on our folding bikes, walked around the botanical gardens, did MONA and the maritime museum as well as all the inevitable boat jobs. They also had a small Wooden Boatshow complete with fireworks, and we met some of the wooden boats that berthed around us

I had so many plans last year that were totally written off by the pandemic. Fiji and Vanuatu were out pretty quickly. Getting to the Kimberly followed when Western Australia closed their borders. I got stuck in the Whitsundays on a bridging visa whilst the Australian Border Force took 4 months to decide on my visa. However, I made it up to Cairns and got some good diving in with various crew along the way who have all been great!New Year’s Eve fireworks in Sydney were ruled out when the North

From Pancake Creek we got a weather window to head to the Swains Reefs, part of the Great Barrier Reef. We had high hopes for the diving out there - so an overnight sail in a falling wind was called for. The wind actually held longer than we had feared, and we sailed to within a few hours of the target reef - Pike Reef.Unfortunately, the reef is in a pretty bad way. The diving was not great, even on the SE side. Lots of dead coral, not the huge number of fish we’d have hoped for and no sharks.

We had a nice couple of days at Lady Musgrave island, but the coral wasn’t up to much unfortunately. The weather didn’t allow us to dive either, as the promised calm did not really appear.The service boat joined us in there for a couple of nights, and we ended up with a pyjama party at 10pm as a squall hit and spun us around 180degrees. All 3 boats had people on deck, looking to see everything was ok.The forecast was showing a 3-4 day period of strong winds, so rather than stay put, and not

The 150km restriction has been lifted, so we are continuing north, as are many boats. After our quick scrub in Wathumba Creek, we headed to Bundaberg Marina and offloaded our anchor and chain for some regalvanishing treatment. Behold the shiny result, along with the anchor and chain from Jadean...Unfortunately, the chain from Jadean did not take the treatment and had to go back. Ours was fine, so we reloaded and finished our prep work, which included adding a 2nd crew member, Ronnie - the design

I’ve been behind Fraser Island for a couple of weeks, after the long solo sail up from Moreton Bay. The bonus sand bar at Double Island point makes for a perfect anchorage for catamarans, as its quite shallow - but the poor monos have to camp outside in the swell which persistently rolls around the point.From there I headed across the notorious Wide Bay Bar, which was no drama in the westerly wind. I had an appointment to collect crew - who was previously on a Wharram catamaran in Indonesia bu

In truth, the town is a bit run down, but we loved it. There are lots of lovely heritage buildings and beautiful parks.We had a wander around and found a home brew store where I was able to stock up on sodium metabisulphate for the watermaker, and we found the best pie shop.One of the nicest areas was their Gallipoli to Armistice park. Beautifully done, peaceful, respectful, moving. Very nice.It seems that Maryborough is not often visited by yachts, but we enjoyed our morning ashore. We’ll

On a bit of a whim we decided that the run up the Mary River to Maryborough would be a bit of an adventure, especially with charts from before the huge floods in 2011 and 2013. The run up the river was fine after some shallow moments at the Horseshoe back in the entrance.We had a stunningly peaceful night at anchor - there is a lot to say for river life! Flat, wind protection from the banks, just the 180 degree spin at high and low tide. We are about 20ft off the bank and its never been an issue

I snuck in behind the sand bar that extends from Double Island point to get some relief from the swell that you can see hitting the bar. Even though the wind was SE, and the swell was from E and SE, it was getting pulled around the point and onto the bar. It was thoroughly unpleasant our where the monohull is (if you look closely).I made it in daylight so was able to sneak in just on dusk. Its quite skinny on water, but I’ve had enough for the time I’ll be here.If ever there were an example

So we are all supposed to be staying at home, and indeed, some of us are! However there are a lot of boats out and about. Fishing is an allowed activity which accounts for some - and there are plenty of folks like me, livingaboard but stuck.There are also a lot who are definitely flouting the rules, but as long as its not too upfront, the police and coastguard are letting it slide a bit.The coastguard boat came to notify me about the exclusion zone around North Stradbrooke island, and we had a c

I mentioned that I’d put more solar power onto Duplicat whilst she was on the hard. We now have 3 x 330w on the hardtop (from before) and 3 x 375 watts over the davits (new). So why do I want 2.1kw of solar? The simple answer is... hot water!The old setup was pretty close to meeting all our daily needs every day. We could spend quite a bit of time at anchor without having to run the generator (other than if we were diving, and thats only a short 30min runs to fill tanks). This included making

I arrived back in Australia nearly a month ago, with some great plans scoped out and some nice crew lined up. Hannah and Erik from Sweden would join me, and possibly 1 other on the sail out to Lord Howe Island, and then onto Fiji where Amanda would rejoin too.First I had some hard work to do - so it was a quick launch at RQYS, then down to the Boatworks. Already it was impossible to find toilet paper in the shops (fortunately, I had left some of that onboard, just not much food).Boatworks was as

Seeing occasional spurts of data on the phone, and dodging fishing vessels. Seems we are almost there.Yesterday was fun at times - we had the parasailor up for a while which was lovely, drifting along - but the wind dropped to the point it was trying to self-sock, so we dropped it and motored until midnight.On David’s watch, we turned the engine off and have been sailing all night. Now we’re thinking about the parasailor again possibly until we get behind Moreton Island.All being well, we’

After a couple of days making good progress, today we hit the light stuff. Already the wind dropped and shifted aft, leaving us a little slow overnight. Presently we have ENE force 4 occasionally 3, and occasionally shifting NE.The southerly flowing Eastern Australian Current really picks up around 154 degrees East (to maybe 2-3 knots), and we’re 47 minutes east of that point, so we’re continuing our SW course to intercept that. The wind is due to go very light at some point so I expect some

Making good progress, but we’ll cross out of the tropics soon. It wasn’t too chilly overnight but dawn felt a little cool! Everyone is in long sleeves now, with more layers on the night watches.We hit a snag with our bowsprit yesterday, which will need some welding in Australia, so for now we’re back to just the genoa. Doing well though, and the current and wind forecasts seem to be in our favour. Still expecting to be into Brisbane by Monday.

Underway again. Yesterday was quite sporting in the wind department but its eased a bit today, which was when we had planned to leave anyway. So our luck is holding! Lifted the anchor at 7:30am and motored up to the pass, where we raised sail and sailed out under reefed main and genoa. Wind has shifted more to the east (ESE at the moment) so we’re making our course, which is slightly north of Moreton island to give us teh nice run in with the current and predicted northerlies.All good onboard,

Cleaning day today. At low tide, I was in the water with the scuba kit on to scrub the bottom of the hulls. We’re quite skinny on water here, so just 60cm from the keels to the bottom - I could walk along the seabed and scrub the hulls very easily. Not to mention that David and Tom had done a great job on the waterline earlier in the trip. Job done!After a stroll around the island, we continued with the jobs. Emptied all the galley cupboards and cleaned. Took stock of all the food we had left