08.00 Phil arrives with fuel and his bag. We're ready.

Cast off form The Wharf at 08.50. 08.55hrs the Coast Guard calls and asks us when are we leaving as they are waiting at their quayside to clear us from Victoria. "We're on the way and will be with you in 5 minutes". Our trip has started.

09.20 hrs. Cast off again having cleared Immigration and Coast Guard and we were on our way. Beautiful day sun shining but with only a very light wind. Did not really match the sat photos?....

We were finally off This was Trip No 24 for Me and Prinos....
GPS was on E550 38' S40 35'

This is an exciting moment. Never done this before. Now for the first time I had cleared a country in my own boat.

13.40 we were motoring along. Both sails up but nothing only the breeze we were making with the engine. Doing about 6.5 Knots.

Put one of the rods out the back. Missed one fish. It took about 100 meters of line then just spit it out.

13.52hrs E 550 34' S 40 13'
16.32hrs E 550 41' S 30 58'

We decided to have a proper watch system with us alternating So we would have a 4 hours on and 4 hours off arrangement. Without an autopilot it would have proved an impossible situation.

18.30hrs Passed Dennis Island to our port side and saw one local schooner rushing back to Dennis to get back in before dark.

19.15hrs E 550 43' S 30 42'

Suns gone down and no real moon. Still making our progress on the engine. Sails still up but not effective. Slight breeze for behind which seems to make the boom swing from side to side. Reluctant to put up a lazy jack incase we need to get it down in a hurry.

In the dark we could hear the birds following us. Lovely feeling being out at sea all alone. So peaceful. Already determined I will be doing this again next year.

22.15hrs E 550 50' S 30 27