Wednesday, 01 November 2006

PASTIME, Penny & Dave are HOME!

Hi folks,

The time in Coffs Harbour went quickly. We purchased a replacement autopilot which took a day to install. The following day, our good friends Peter & Ruth took us to their new 255acre property on the Kalang river (about 90mins drive SW from Coffs Harbour). We thoroughly enjoyed looking at the new property and talking about it and many other things. Sunday, we performed the sea trials for the new autopilot in preparation for departure Monday. Ruth and Peter in Byamee also planned on sailing down to Pittwater on the Monday.

We had a good run down from Coffs harbour to Pittwater. Our plan to go well offshore (up to 35NM) did give us a push from the East Australia Current, but not enough to make up for the extra distance travelled.

Overall, we did 252NM is just under 40hrs which is an average of over 6kts- always pleasing. When we were about 8hrs out, we saw threatening and towering clouds behind. The wind got up to 45kts. We reefed and hung on. Then there was an announcement of severe hail and storm warnings from the weather Bureau. Oh dear, just our luck to be right in the path of it! Fortunately, even though the seas got up and the wind howled, we just rode it out and the whole thing fortunately fizzled out within an hour.

We got in to our mooring just before midnight and are now back home in Avalon trying to readjust to life ashore. The land will stop rocking in a few days but other adjustments will take longer.

Overall, we travelled just over 5,750 Nautical Miles which is almost 11,000Km.

We had a wonderful trip and this time our mast stayed up. Indeed, we had very few problems and even though it was a windy season, the boat and ourselves managed it all comfortably.

We are sad that this adventure of six months and 10 days has now come to a conclusion. However, we have plenty of follow-up activity as we promised lots of different things to different people- so plenty of things to keep us out of mischief.

All the best and thank you all for your interest. We never expected that there would be this many "hits" on our web pages when we put this blog together.

Penny & Dave Kerr

Cheryl Robertson: Hi Dave and Penny, Great to hear you are home safe and sound. What a wonderful adventure ! Cant wait to hear what's next ? Rgds Cheryl (11/06/06)