The big day had finally arrived! After years of preparations we weighed anchor, well left the dock really! This was after a very special early morning dockside farewell from many of our RQYS mates we finally left Brisbane on 20th October 2007 to cruise to the Solomon Islands via the Louisiades in PNG. Aboard we had Captain Tom, Captain Fran and our pal Dr Jim who was coming along to Gizo with us. It was great to have an extra hand on the shakedown leg of our journey.We had a fairly rough trip to Keppel Bay (near Rockhampton) as the weather was not as predicted. How unusual! It was particularly bad outside Frazer Island as we had our very own rain and storm cell sitting over the top of us! So the trip was wet too. We had to slow Hamamas down to make the ride more comfortable for two not so well sailors. The seas were very confused and the wind was strong so at one stage we were doing 7 knots under staysail alone!The sacrificial strips on both the headsails started to give way but fortunately didn't rip off. We assume the stitching was rotten.
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Captain Tom Captain Fran |
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| Dr Jim enjoys hand steering! |
We arrived at Keppel Is at 10 pm on 22nd October and moved across to the Marina the next day. While there we had the sails mended and our fuel tanks cleaned as we had had a fuel blockage. Over the next week we caught up with a number of our friends.
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| Kay and Trevor Laister |
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| John and Jenny |
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