Monday 25 October We spent last night at Goldsmith Island with Silver Gull and Bluglass, both cats, and this morning we upped anchor at 0530 to head for Scawfell Island. It is lovely morning and we have a nice 12 knot breeze and a good reach. Chris is on the helm and doing a great job. Tomorrow all things being equal we will head for Curlew Island.

Saturday 23 October We are back in Queensland, yep wound our watches back one hour (and twenty years), ready to start the trip south. We are already missing our grandchildren (and the kids too I suppose!) but we will have a great time going south again this year. The boat was left on a swing mooring at Airlie Beach for four weeks while we were back in Sydney for two weddings, which were both great. It has been an “eventful” start for Phlat Chat’s trip south. First we picked up the tender after having covers made for it and once we got it in the water it wouldn’t start – bloody thing. Fuel pipe was cactus and we had to replace it. Thank god for David and Lyndy from TackZ Evasion who came by and towed us to Phlat Chat. What a mess, and the smell !!! It was covered in shag shit, and covered is not an exaggeration. I hate shags! So much poo that the solar panels were not able to deliver the necessary voltage so we arrived back to flat batteries. Thanks again to David and Lyndy who kindly allowed us to stay on their boat Tuesday night. Wednesday we brought the boat into Abel Point marina where we refuelled her and grabbed a berth to clean, clean, clean. It took ALL day to scrub it clean. The last bits on our hands and knees scrubbing each piece with Jif and a scotchbrite. Sore hands and very tied. Into bed by 2000 and no tea – just too tied. Thursday it rained and rained so a few inside jobs. Friday we went shopping to stock up for the trip south and met with John Hudson for a coffee. John kindly dropped us back at the marina with the shopping. We left the marina at about midday to slug it to Gulnare or Happy Bay. We ended up at Happy Bay with Mal and Cathy from Silver Gull, another Lightwave. Gulnare at low tide is a bit hard. However a confession is needed, we were going to go over to Silver Gull for a drink so Andrew lowed the dinghy to get it ready and 2 minutes later it drifted off the stern of Phlat Chat and headed happily for Shute Harbour on its own – not tied on – what a rooky error! Good old Mal dropped his dinghy in the water and rescued our dinghy. This morning we were up at 0500 and left Happy Bay to head south hoping to get to Goldsmith Island but slamming into 20knots+ isn’t fun so we are only at Shaw Island, but it is a good anchorage and there is lots of company. We dropped anchor at about 1015 and Mal and Cathy came over for morning tea, with Geoff and Ellen from Bluglass, whom we had heard about but not met so that was good. Chris had made muffins, which were a treat. The weather is supposed to moderate tomorrow afternoon so we will probably head to Goldsmith tomorrow arvo.