Year One
Date: 13/3/2008 12.00
Weather: Clear Sky, very little breeze, meant to get up to 24 degrees today!!
Location: Duck Pond 43'08S 147'21E
Author: Kylie

the quick rundown...
Left Little Fancy Bay last Wednesday and moved south west to Randalls Bay 43'14S 147'07E. Went for a pleasant walk through the bushland behind the beach. Thursday lunch time we sailed back north to Hobart in a beautiful south easterly. We spent the long weekend (their Labour Day weekend) in Hobart watching the Tasmanian NS14 State Titles. Tuesday morning we sailed south again and have spent the last few nights in "The Duckpond".

A bit more detailed...
Yes, we went back and forth a bit but it really isn't that far back to Hobart and we had a few good reasons for heading back there (not just to watch some racing!) See originally we had planned to borrow a mooring at Cygnet 43'12S 147'05E for the weekend(about half way through the channel) so we raced down that way last week but the mooring fell through and we decided to sail back instead.

We needed to get an upgrade for my computer so we could run i-tunes (i-pod the biggest saga ever...have owned the thing since before Christmas and have only just got it working). We needed to sort out some overseas insurance blah blah blah.

So Friday we caught up with Darren and he drove us around to a few shops and then Peter helped him fix his rudder box and made him new jib sheets and I went to watch Joshua play his first game of flipper ball (don't know about you but I'd never heard of it). It looked like allot of fun, a bit like the games we used to play in the pool as a kid but with an umpire and proper nets. They even wore the funny hats water polo players wear. Actually it was like a non aggressive version of water polo...2 teams with a net at either end, pass the ball between players and score in net. Josh scored the first goal of the game and his team won convincingly.

Saturday, Sunday, Monday we watched the racing and Peter wished he was out there racing too. It was quite obvious that Tasmania doesn't get light wind nearly as often as in NSW. They all looked allot more comfortable when they got 20knot winds on the final day. The winner was Nick and James in Hedgehog.

Monday evening we went for dinner at Paul and Ruths house along with the Davis' and Eggins. Paul is building a 45ft catamaran in a shed in his backyard. Like Peter, this isn't his first boat....crazy aren't they!!! Paul is building the boat with a mate so he owns a share in the boat. They are recording their hours spent working on the boat and will own a share depending on their time spent (or something like that). Peter was extremely jealous, Paul has two workshops, one is taken up with the boat the other one the size of our old house plus a bit has some woodworking equipment Peter can only dream of. And lets not even talk about the house, I could spend a whole paragraph describing the size and number of rooms, the spa, sauna, indoor pool, billiards room. Its so big it needs two kitchens!! Ruths famous architect father designed the house and Paul built it. They even had a flying fox for the kids. And it was about 5 minutes from Hobart city centre on a very large block of land. Dinner was very yummy too. Peter says Paul "is living my life". He also used to be a woodwork teacher.

Tuesday morning we sailed from Hobart down to the duck pond on Bruny Island and have been here for a few days. We were told this was a very sheltered bay in any conditions...well it is but it isn't what we expected. It is a very narrow bay and we both anticipated it being surrounded by high cliffs but it isn't there are just some rolly hills. We did quite a walk yesterday afternoon. We started by following a old dirt road track which was overgrown in many places which kind of skirted a hill and took us around to another bay. From here we went up a kangaroo/wallaby track that lead towards the peak of the hill. However the track petered away into nothing and we bush bashed back down the other side to the yacht.

Looking over Barnes Bay


The biting swan!!!

We have been doing a bit of boat maintenance and additions. Yesterday Peter went up the mast and we attached a saddle and block to one of the spreader arms so we can hoist a courtesy flag when in other countries. We have extended the combing down the back rest in the cockpit so that water will not flood the cockpit now and Peter is sewing some protective leather patches on the bottom of the jib to stop chaffing. See its not all just relaxing. The jobs just never end.

I can't remember if we have let you all know that, John Cronan has set up a blogsite with maps of where we have been www.juratrack.blogspot.com

We plan to spend a few more weeks around this area and are expecting Darren, Helen, Caityln and Josh to come and visit us over easter. By then we should know exactly where our new mainsail is up to and can start planning where too next.

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