We celebrated Markito’s 9th birthday on Thursday 26th October, halfway through our sail from the Torres Strait Islands to Darwin. We were just off Cape Wessel, 280 nautical miles west of our last port of call and sailing at 6.27 knots through the Arafura Sea, when we sang happy birthday. Markito blew out the candles…
We made it! We are at the northernmost point of Australia. Can’t believe it! We arrived here on Saturday 21st October at around lunchtime. We had to go through a cool passage between Albany Island and the mainland, and then around Cape York, before we anchored at Horn Island. We spent Saturday arvo having a…
Friday 13 Oct – Cairns to Low Isles “It’s a bit rolly today Dad”, Zach said as we left Cairns. “Ooh Dad. The boat is too wriggly!” It wasn’t really. The weather was beautiful and the ocean was calm. But as we motored away from Cairns a few big tourist catamarans zoomed past and our…
We are in Cairns. Simon and Markito went into town today and came back with two big bags full of fruit and veggies, about 1/4 of which was bananas. We love bananas. Banana pancakes. Banana milkshakes. Banana boats (cut a wedge along the top and spread some nutella in there, then put some sprinkles on…
Our boat’s name has been in limbo until recently. We knew we wouldn’t keep the previous name, Lizzie. We also knew the name we chose would have to be approved by the national registration office, which requires that each Australian registered ship (or yacht in our case) has a unique name. So while we liked the…
Picking up from the last blog post….we sadly left Lady Musgrave Island earlier than planned as some big winds were forecast. We wanted to get to a more protected anchorage so we packed up and left as soon as it was light enough for us to spot and avoid the bommies (small patches of shallow…
Lady Elliot Island Arrived just in time: While we’d planned to sail straight to Lady Musgrave, the ocean wasn’t on our side. We traveled all day with 2knots of current against us. We were moving at about 7knots through the water and only doing 5knots over the ground. Thankfully we arrived at Lady Elliot right…
It’s 7pm on Saturday night. There is a crescent moon above us and it’s dark outside. The kids are all in their beds having a play or reading. They’ll eventually fall asleep one after the other and we’ll go and check on them later. Simon is sitting in the cockpit. He’s on watch. I’m sitting…
We’re anchored in Raby Bay, Brisbane. It’s a quiet bay with about 10 other boats moored close to shore. We are right on the spot where the depth goes from 3 metres to 1 metre. Our boat draws 1.7 metres so we need the deeper water. It’s the furthest we’ve ever anchored from shore. The…
We made it to Queensland! Woohoo! We’re anchored at Marine Stadium (also referred to as The Spit), just near Seaworld on the Gold Coast. This is the busiest place we’ve stayed so far. There are approximately 60 boats around us. All sorts – big and small monohull and catamaran yachts, huge luxurious motorboats, compact little…