While we have been back in Blighty acclimatising to the British weather and facing our latest 'adventure', Matilda has been languishing in Cartagena where our fantastic friends, Wayne and Cha, sailed her after we left. They not only did that but they cleaned her up, serviced the engines, put everything away and generally settled her down for the winter. We'll never be able to repay them for that.

We know now that we won't be able to sail her back to Australia. Even when Andy is in remission from this horrible disease, we won't be able to be away from 'civilisation' just in case it comes back while we're in the middle of the Pacific Ocean! We had pretty much decided that we would have to sell her in Spain and probably lose quite a bit of money by doing so.

Then we heard from our friend Andy Berg who we met in '09 when he was sailing his boat Calysta from Germany to Australia. He had just arrived back in Australia again on his next boat, Calypso, having spent two years getting there, teaching people to dive and sail on the way. He is waiting for his business visa so that he can work in Oz but it hasn't come through yet. I suddenly had one of those middle-of-the-night ideas. 'I wonder what he's planning to do over the next year? Perhaps he'd like to take Matilda home for us??' Well, the upshot is he would like to take Matilda home for us and is flying back to Berlin next week to see family before going down to pick her up and set sail for Gibraltar. We cannot begin to describe how thrilled we are about this and what a huge weight this is off our shoulders. Andy is incredibly experienced and will look after her like she is his own.

We now have an aim to get us through the dark days. We will meet him next October as he sails into Bundaberg. And the crew of Parnormitis and Annecam. And all those other boats that we didn't get to meet on that amazing trip back. And we'll have the hugest party. You'll all be welcome to join us!