Olivia gets set for distance education

Part of this great adventure for the family is making sure the kids keep up with their education. It hasn't been an easy process deciding what we would do, there are so many opinions on this, and we have almost run out of time. I'm sure we haven't finished with this subject and it will be a continuing process that will develop as we travel.

At this stage we have decided to go with the distance education service offered in Australia. This process involves a pre-enrollment questionnaire and input from the child. Here is one of Olivia's drawings from the process that Olivia wanted to share.

This is not how it is meant to look!

It's not a very good image but hopefully this gives you a bit of perspective of all the non food provisioning items that need to be taken with us. Somehow all this needs to be put away. Liz would have a fit if she saw the boat in this state!

It includes :

- 10 litres of oil

- 5 litres of coolant concentrate

- 20 oil filters

- 10 primary and 10 secondary fuel filters

- 10 spare fan belts for each alternator

- 2 water pump impellers

- lubricants and other sprays for maintenance of moving parts

- spares for the 2hp outboard (oil, water pump, impeller, spark plugs, etc.)

- 2 pressure vessels and 2 membranes for the yet to be built watermaker

- jib top headsail

- storm trisail

- storm jib

- Sail repair kit

- 18v cordless grinder and cut off discs (for emergency rig cutting)

- back up automatic bilge pump

- spare sheets

- Gas BBQ

- 3 petrol jerry cans

- 5 diesel jerry cans ( need to buy some more of these)

- emergency navigation lights

- lee cloths

Plus lots of items that I can't remember off the top of my head. 

I really need to make sure the boat is put back together and all these items stowed before Liz gets onboard this weekend.

Newcastle to Sydney fishing success

It had been a long time since we had caught a fish with a lure off the back of the boat and I had done some research on improving our chances. 

1. Must use a bungee to take the initial hit on the line

2. A leader is essential to get a fish interested

3. Have a good swivel as twisted line is not fun

4. Successful speed is about 6 - 7.5 knots

As a result of the changes we had a pretty successful return trip from Newcastle with two fish successfully landed and another 3 runs that ended in broken hooks and one snapped 100 lb leader and lost lure. I really need to invest in some decent hooks for the lures and improve my leaders.

Here is some images of the catch

Cruising Preparation Seminar and reducing the to do list

Liz and I attended the Island Cruising Association Webpage cruising preparation seminar last weekend in Newcastle. John and Lyn really did a great job at addressing the varied levels of experience. We had decided to sail up to Newcastle for the weekend and were joined by our good friend Evan for the Sydney - Newcastle leg. It was an early start at 4am and Liz was amazed how beautiful Sydney harbour was at this early hour. We were the only moving vessel on the harbour. It was mainly a good motor sail the whole way in both direction.  Passage time was 9 hours dock to dock both ways, and average of 7.5 knots. Not bad!

When we started this journey of planning for the trip I knew we were in for a busy time and a steep learning curve for Liz in particular.  The seminar was a fabulous forum to exchange ideas, provide the assurance we needed regarding gear on board, addressed any questions that had remained unanswered, met some wonderful people with similar dreams and above all cemented our decision to set sail!  This year has not been without it's challenges and whilst we strive each day to find the balance between "normal" life and preparing the boat we don't always get it right.  Liz feels the guilt a lot more than I do as she tries to balance the time between boat duties and looking after the kids happiness (must be mothers guilt kicking in).  Whereas I have remained focused on making sure we are ticking off items from the mammoth  "to do" list.  Liz put together a spreadsheet a few weeks back which gave her visibility of what had to be achieved in a short period of time.  I had been thinking about all of this for a while and slowly ticking things off in my head however it was the first time Liz was able to visualise the list and anyone who knows Liz knows what followed:
STRESS followed by more STRESS
Having said she also works best under pressure and we have been in overdrive ever since!  It's amazing how much can be achieved when you have the "oh shit" moment and D Day is only 6 weeks away!

We will post some images of our recent boat projects in the near future.