March 2008 Archives

A long established custom in Ulladulla is the blessing of the fleet at Easter. This year visiting yachties enjoyed the official blessing of the local priest.

We're still in Ulladulla and the weather has looked up for the festivities. Glorious sunshine after a few pretty dreary days.

The flags on our boats looked particularly colourful at dawn. Craig is coming down by car and will help me take the boat back non-stop to Pittwater. We'll take around 22 hours and expect to depart mid to late afternoon.. If you're interested, you can follow us on "Where is Te Moana".

We left Greenwell point early yesterday in order to catch up with our Alfreds Cruising friends and to try and arrive together at our Easter destination, Ulladulla.

We weighed anchor at sunrise and were rewarded with a magnificent sight. Our arrival in Ulladulla was a little challenging, but we eventually settled in OK.

We arrived in Crookhaven / Greenwell Point yesterday and caught up with the 5 boats ahead of us. We're having a lay day to mope around, do the laundry and catch up with some sleep. The lack of sleep was courtesy of a Sudden Southerly, as I wrote about elsewhere.

A bit of a Southerly didn't stop the other boats from moving on at daybreak, and we might follow later today.

We set off for Ulludulla on Sunday afternoon and got as far as Towlers Bay. Heh! at least we could say we left on Sunday... Anyway, sometime during the evening, Joy discovered that she had left her handbag and phone in the car. So we resolved to return to the club early monday morning to retrieve said bag.

We dropped our mooring at 6.00 am to return to the club, but as our berth came into view, it was clear someone had been reading the blog entries, realised there was a vacant spot on F arm and was enjoying a berth at Pittwater's best marina! Joy and I have been known to lose our temper at such unauthorised use. However, as we neared the boats, it turned out to be "Red Undies", Ken's pride and joy. Ken is one of the world's true gentlemen and is solely responsible for quite a number of New Year's bashes at his Lake Macquarie home. So we refrained from waking him and used the fuel wharf instead. Be our guest, Ken

We're heading for Ulludulla as part of the RPAYC "End of Summer" cruise. I'll blog here about our progress and happenings. There are bound to be some surprises once we reach Ulladulla. You can follow along here and sees where we are on the map below.

Early on Sunday, we went into Broken Bay to witness the official return of Blackwattle. It was one of those time when you feel lucky to be out on the water. It had everything: rainbows, dramatic light and fellow sailors celebrating a couple's great achievement.