Ocean going Adventures

On Friday, August 21st, Dave came home from work with a hare-brained idea!!! The guy who works next door to him needed to sail his luxury motor yacht from Sydney to Perth (he's just started out boat-building) and was looking for someone to help him. Next thing I know, Saturday evening Dave and I had booked tickets to fly to Sydney the next Wednesday, the 28th - the weather was favourable so it was go, go, GO! Some quick organisational skills, and Wednesday evening we flew to Sydney, took a taxi to the yacht and within half an hour we were sailing out of Sydney harbour. (sadly we were on the wrong side of the Sydney harbour bridge, so we didn't get to see any of the Sydney icons... we'll have to save that for another time!!)

We started off with nice calm waters (well, we were in the harbour after all!!), I was feeling great, a little jittery about this adventure, but all was good. Well, that changed when I woke up in the morning rather sea-sick. Even though I had taken tablets when I went to bed, they didn't help me in the morning.... I was sick and miserable. Here we were, embarking on a 5 day journey and I was hanging overboard... Thankfully by lunch time I was starting to feel better and after that bout of sea-sickness, I felt okay for the rest of the trip. Okay, but not wonderful. I'd have to go to bed when it got dark, otherwise.... wow, sailing sure messes with your head!!
Thursday, Friday and Saturday morning were absolutely gorgeous days. The sun was shining, the waters were calm, we saw beautiful sunsets and the sea-life kept us amused. We had lots of dolphins swimming along with us, having to jump out the water to see what we were doing in the boat, and swimming sideways just for another peek. They sure are fun characters!! On Friday we saw whales. One was jumping out the water for us 3 times - absolutely awesome to see, just like in the documentaries you watch on TV. We also saw seals laying in the water, flapping their flippers and enjoying the weather. They were a lot shyer than the dolphins and didn't come too close.
We sailed along within sight of the coast, and Dave even tried his hand at fishing, but no luck, just lots of tangled fishing line. Mike (the owner of the boat) was trying to sail from Sydney to Perth on 1 tank of fuel for an article about the wonders of the yacht, the great fuel efficiency, so we travelled less than 6 knots per hour.... very slowly!!



Saturday evening the waters started getting rougher and during the night we were tossed around a little. When we woke up Sunday morning all was quiet, the motors were switched off (first time since Wednesday evening) and the boat was barely rocking. Mike had decided to pull in to Refuge Cove (very aptly named!!) as the weather and waves weren't getting any better. As he pulled in there was a perfect rainbow over the entry into the cove and we had to go right through the middle. We spent a lovely number of hours relaxing in the cove, while Mike and Dave caught up on some much needed sleep (we'd been sailing around the clock, with Dave taking the evening shift 'til 1 or 2 am and then Mike taking over until the morning) before we continued on the difficult bit of our trip.


Sunday afternoon we headed out to sea again, hoping to make it around Wilson's Prom... As we left the cove there was another perfect rainbow, right where we had to go... a coincidence? I don't think so; God was with us all the way. The wind started picking up, the waves grew bigger and bigger... no dinner that night, we could only hold on for dear life as our 14 metre yacht was tossed about on the 6 to 8 meter waves, the wind blowing at over 40 knots!! Thankfully the yacht has a fantastic navigation system and basically kept course on it's own, cause in those waves there was no hope of steering. Oceans like that are something I don't hope to travel in again. You feel so small, the ocean is so big, God's power is awesome!!
Dave took the helm for about 6 hours that night. He quite enjoyed the adrenaline rush of sailing the ocean blue!! By the morning we pulled in at the beginning of Western Port Bay. We anchored there for a few hours while the boys slept, and then headed up to Hastings, passing a submarine, and then we farewelled Mike and headed off to Melbourne.

Monday evening Dave and I had a lovely dinner with a roof carpenter Dave knows over there. Tuesday Dave spent in meetings at Pryda while I spent the day shopping, shopping and shopping. (yeah, it was fantastic, although the world continued to sway up and down.) Wednesday Dave had another meeting at Pryda so I whiled away the time having a massage to loosen all those poor aching muscles from all the tension of the previous days... Wednesday evening we flew home again, and were greeted by very excited children. They all thought it was great that I was sea-sick. Whatever happened to sympathy???
Thank you so very, very much mum, mum and dad for looking after the kids while we were away. We sure are spoiled. What a blessing, having family around!!