Thursday 28 August 2014

A short trip South and a long trip West

I was offered some work while in Port Stephens and in support of the kitty, decided to head back to Adelaide to take it up. It's basically back filling where I used to work for someone while they take a trip overseas for a month. 

So we did a rushed overnight from Port Stephens to Broken Bay where we bought a car (don't ask).

A cliche on wheels

The weather wasn't too bad but it did mean beating into the wind for 20 hours or so which is something "Gentlemen don't do" as I was reminded repeatedly by Terry who was holding a bucket at the time..


Terry drove the car back to Sydney while I single handed Venture back the long way (6 hours).   The wind was a bit more in my favour this time after the first hour or so but it still meant motor sailing and tacking down the coast.  All went well until I was within a mile of so of the North Head and then a big squall came through with torrential rain and 25 knots of wind.  I only had one reef in the main and the Yankee and staysail up so we (me and the boat) heeled over to about 30 degrees until I got the yankee in and spilled some wind from the main.

Heading in through the heads with visibility down to a few hundred meters was a rush (adrenaline) with boats coming out and two others heading in and once I was inside, the ferries came thick and fast but I managed to thread the needle and made it to Drumoyne without misshap.  By that stage, the sun was out again and the wind down to stuff-all knots so I had no trouble picking up the mooring by myself.

Terry was waiting to greet me having driven all of 35 minutes to get back.   Cruising under sail really is slow travel.

Anyhow, we left Venture to look after herself while we took off in the car for our two day road trip <high_five /> and got back to Adelaide on Tuesday.

So, we're here for a month and heading back to Venture very early October.

I'll let Terry tell the full tail of the road trip <high five /> when she manages to get caught up.



Location: South Australia, Australia
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