First things first, on arrival - about an hour in a very hot shower! The first afternoon, I ran around the grocery like a crazy person and collected this random assortment of foods that struck my fancy for us to graze on for our first eat-anything-you-want-you-could-get-from-home meal: celery, cream cheese, cheddar cheese, hummous, garlic artisan bread, navel oranges, blueberries, natural yogurt. All sooooo good.

Next to the Manly marina is the Manly public pool. It was built with economic stimulus money. Why didn't we get a pool with that money in the states? We just got silly things like roads and bridges that I recall.... The first rule on the gigantic list of rules painted on the wall outside the door is: "Antisocial behavior is unacceptable." The pool has a big slide and a kiddie pool with water canons.

On my very first day in Australia, I walked by a man and he said "G'day" to me. No kidding.

Also, on the second day a man said "Good day for it," when I passed him. Not sure if that's a thing people say here, or if he said it because I was near the marina and he assumed I was going sailing....I'll report back when I know more.

Trees are blooming with beautiful bright purple flowers and temperatures are delightfully warm and sunny, with intermittent showers. It feels like spring!

We're a short walk to a grocery store, a marine hardware, lots of restaurants and cafes, and the park where they have farmer's and crafts markets on the weekend. It seems a sweet little town to plant ourselves in while preparing Daybreak for sale.

I think I may officially be the world's worst blogger! I'm sorry to those of you who have followed our journey through our blog and whom I've let down by completely dropping the ball on posting once we make landfall after these long passages. While our SSB allows us to post from anywhere, sometimes the interference of land makes it difficult to get a connection to send updates that way and it often takes a couple days to find an internet connection on arrival. Apologies out of the way....

WE HAVE ARRIVED!!!!!!! We made landfall in Brisbane, Australia, our last port of call on Monday about 12:30pm. Customs and Quarantine procedures were honestly delightful - fast and easy - surprising since we had been hearing about how strict it would be before we ever left Port Townsend. Daybreak is now nestled in the slip in Manly where she will reside until sold. We have met with the broker and today started preparations in removing our stuff and beautifying Daybreak for show.

I wanted to try to summarize this voyage for you all, which is truly an impossible task. But here is my humble attempt to reduce this voyage to a few numbers and figures....

Total Miles Traveled: >10,000

Time Since Departing Port Townsend, WA, USA: 14 months

Longest at Sea Passage: 28 days, Nuevo Vallarta, Mexico to Hiva Oa, Marquesas, French Polynesia

Number of Countries Outside the US Visited: 5 Mexico, French Polynesia, Cook Islands, Tonga, Australia (Hope to visit #6: New Zealand on our way home, via air)

Number of anchorages/ports visited: 72

Number of marinas visited since departing the US: 7 (4 in Mexico, 1 in Tahiti, 2 in Australia)

Highest Wind Seen: 40 knots

Tallest Wave Seen: 16 feet

Thunderstorms At Sea: 2

Diesel Fuel Burned Since Leaving Mexico (~8000 miles ago): ~65 gallons

Number of Books Read: >30 each (A few of my highlights: The Pearl That Broke its Shell, The Fountainhead, Tina Fey and Mindy Khaling's autobiographies)

Food We Couldn't Wait to Eat: CELERY!

Food We Hope Never to See Again: corned beef hash, refried beans, eggs prepared pretty much any way

Last Time We Were In a Country Whose Inhabitants' First Language was English: USA - October 2014 (12 months) - aside from three days on Palmerston Atoll, Cook Islands

Number of Fish Caught: Too many to count!

Favorite Fish to Eat: Big eye tuna or Dorado

Last Time We Slept On Land: 2 nights in La Paz Mexico, November 2014 (11 months ago), Prior to that....July 2014

Last Marina Visited (and time we could walk ashore without having to ride in a dinghy first): Papeete, Tahiti in July 2015

Highlights of Marine Life Seen: Humpback whales, Risso's dolphins, Spinner dolphins, Manta Rays, Moray eels, Napolean Wrasse, Grey sharks, White Tipped Sharks, Crayfish, Sea Turtles, Sunfish, Starfish, Pufferfish, Barracuda, Sea Lions, Blue Whale, Sting Ray, Flying fish

Birds Who Hitched a Ride Aboard: Just One - Bobby the Boobie mid-ocean between Mexico and Marquesas

Tsunami Warnings: 1, 12 hours advance notice for a six inch increase in water depth in Neiafu, Vava'U, Tonga

Number of Times Anchor Dragged: 0

Number of Times Anchor Tangled: 0

Number of Months in the Tropics: 11

Number of Times Sunburned: 2

Nationalities of New Friends Met: American, Canadian, South African, Kiwi, Italian, Austrian, Australian, French, German, English

Times I've Worn Shoes in the Last 9 months: Not very many....

As ready as we are to be off the sea now, we know that it won't be long before we'll be longing for the lazy days of snorkeling in the tropics and the freedom to do what we wanted with our time. There were lots of highs and plenty of lows. I don't think I'll be longing to cross any oceans again any time soon, though...

Lost track of time out here, but I think tomorrow will be the 19th day since leaving Vava'U, Tonga, headed for Brisbane, Australia, where a shipyard to get Daybreak show ready and a broker to sell her await. It's been a long weekend, waiting the long hours until Customs officials are on duty. Last Thursday and Friday we had strong winds and big seas again - in fact, probably the biggest seas we have seen so far, but we knew they were coming and positioned ourselves and Daybreak well, so we were able to just run downwind at a slow pace and wait them out.

Today, Sunday local time, it is sunny and hot outside, hardly a breath of wind in the air, which is fine by us because it allows us to use up all the fuel we have in jerry cans before arrival. We're still 50 miles from the nearest point of land, an island inside of which we will turn and head for the Brisbane River, down which is the Customs dock. We'll try to get there as early as possible on Monday, local time, so we can complete the whole check in process, which is likely to be extensive, particularly because we are importing Daybreak for sale.

Our broker has a slip arranged for us at a nearby marina, where we'll probably dock and sleep for about 48 hours straight and get our legs under us, but hope to be hauled out before too long to start preparing Daybreak to show. Now starts the flurry of activity that we've been thinking about and prioritizing in our heads this whole journey, but the pistol marking "Go" doesn't go off until tomorrow. It's been an amazing trip and we're a little sad to be leaving the sea, but at the same time....I've probably seen enough of the sea for a while. Maybe a good long while.

Well, we were very excited to think we would likely make landfall in Brisbane on Saturday, but our hopes were dashed by a friend on the radio net we've been checking into regularly on passage. I mentioned on Wednesday that we hoped to be in on Saturday and the friend (who had access to internet) did some research on customs for Australia and Thursday let us know that he read Border Patrol in Australia charges overtime fees if they have to check you in at night or on the weekend. One person reported it cost him an extra $800...We were very tempted just to continue on, anyway, but it seemed a bit bull-headed. If we've spent literally months at sea, two more nights aren't going to kill us and are probably worth $1000. So, on Thursday we hove-to (the equivalent of pulling over to the side of the road for a sailboat) for about 10 hours, not making any headway. Just before nightfall, we started moving again in 20-28 knots of wind under bare poles (meaning we don't have any sail up). That way we're making only 2-3 knots per hour, which is about the speed we need to travel to arrive to Brisbane Monday morning! We'll reassess our distance and game plan in the morning. The paper chain has stalled out with just over 200 miles to go!

A couple of very pleasant days sailing aboard Daybreak here - clear skies, little moon, lots of stars, and small seas. The best kind of sailing, in my opinion! We have fewer than 240 miles remaining as of early morning Thursday, local time. We expect some stronger winds today and tomorrow, but have made some extra headway to the south in case we need to run with it a short ways. Just trying to enjoy these last few days of open ocean sailing aboard Daybreak. The chaos of check in to Australia, and prepping Daybreak for sale in Brisbane will be upon us very soon!

I'm constantly amazed by how quickly the sea state and wind conditions can change in the ocean. Day 13 and 14 at sea have seen us sailing along nicely in a very comfortable 1 meter, long period swell, with 7-17 knots of wind. The sun has been shining and there hasn't been a cloud in the sky. Last evening, we still had clear skies and a late rising moon, so were able to see all the stars out in their full glory at least one more time before arriving in Australia. Hard to even recall the nasty appearance of the sea with it's four meter swells, cloudy skies, and 28 knot winds of two days previous. It did take nearly 48 hours to make back all the southing we gave up during the blow, but now we're well below that point. All told, we added about 100 miles to the trip, I think, running in front of those seas. Our paper chain is getting pretty small at this point and we're both very anxious to arrive safely! The last few hundred miles will undoubtedly be the most difficult! Just over 400 miles to go now.