one giant step.....

There must be something masochistic about this cruising life!

A month on the hard, and I know now why they call it 'the hard', climbing a rickety aluminum ladder 20 times a day, dirt and dust from the city, noise from the workers...nothing is ever clean…as the saying goes…"cleanliness is next to impossible"….so many chores…the day starts at first light and carries on as long as I can stand it…problems to solve, issues to deal with….eating in pubs or the rare treat in the yacht club….no head so you pee in a bottle…no way this old guy is climbing that ladder at night….but as all things…this too shall pass…and now…

I sit at the yacht club dock…rocking gently, the gentle scream of the wind generator telling of things to come….soft music and wine to study 'the list'….the never ending list, you take one thing off and add two more….but it is planned chaos and the universe is unfolding as it should….today very dear friends from our experience on the river in Bundaberg came by, on their way to Darwin for the Indonesian rally, oh that we could be joining them…but as Brutus said

"There is a tide in the affairs of men
Which, taken at the flood, leads on to fortune;
Omitted, all the voyage of their life
Is bound in shallows and in miseries.
On such a full sea are we now afloat,
And we must take the current when it serves,
Or lose our ventures"

So onwards….may the autopilot steer true, the gps report as required and the communications systems function to keep those far away enjoined in the voyage!

Crew arrives Thursday….provisioning, stowing, bending on of sails, sea trials….and customs clearance to find our way through the Great Barrier Reef, to dodge many other lumps en route to the Solomon Islands….it's a great life if you don't weaken !!

and some pics to prove it.....