S [...]lly and Hamish have always been adventurers, whether it be dog sledding in the Arctic and staying at the Ice Hotel, climbing Mt Kenya, walking the Great Wall or travelling extensively through Europe as Sally has done or in Hamish's case, touring around Europe on his Ducati or driving a Nissan Micra from London to Mongolia through 17 countries, they both cram a lot into life. So it should only be fitting that when they decide to move back to Australia from the UK they choose to buy a 50' Beneteau and sail!

Sailing around the world has always been something that Hamish has wanted to do, but never thought the opportunity would arise. He has sailed since a very young age on his father’s yacht on Lake Te Anau, New Zealand and a lot of dingy sailing at school in Australia. He has also owned a couple [...]

of dinghies and Hobbie Cats and feels comfortable at sea. During the summer of 2009 Sally suggested a sailing holiday in Greece. Not wanting to spend money on a holiday and have nothing to show for it, Hamish booked into RYA Day Skipper and RYA Competent Crew for Sally. A holiday and a piece of paper at the end - perfect! Sally has spent her life growing up in and around boats on the Gold Coast of Australia but these have been power boats, never sail. Well she loved the sailing holiday, took to it like a duck to water. We can highly recommend the company we used in Greece, www.greeksails.com with our instructor Graham making sure we had a great holiday and learnt heaps at the same time. When we got back, a work colleague of Sally's sent her a link to a sailing blog of a couple who for their honeymoon bought a yacht and were sailing it from Norfolk, Virginia USA to Australia. Sally sent Hamish an email with the link saying 'check this out, I would do it in a heartbeat'. The blog, www.sailblogs.com/member/honeymoon/ is amazing. If you have a chance, take the time to read it from the start, the only danger being that you might want to do the same! So the seed was sown and so after a couple of 'why not', 'what’s stopping us' conversations, the decision was made and the hunt for a boat was on. That was August 2009, by December we had found a boat and put an offer in and by January 2010 it was ours! Our departure date has been set for 1 August 2010 and we have signed up for the ARC www.worldcruising.com/arc/ which is a rally for cruisers to cross the Atlantic from the Canary Islands to the Caribbean and departs Las Palmas on the 21 November 2010. The rough itinerary looks like this. Jan - July 2010: Get the boat ready and get as much sailing time in as possible August - October 2010: Depart UK and head south. Route will take us across the English Channel to France, across Biscay to Spain, around the coast to Portugal, maybe across to the Azores or continue down the Portuguese coast to Morocco and then onto Gran Canaria for early November. Nov - Dec 2010: Cross the Atlantic with the ARC (Atlantic Rally for Cruisers). A warm Christmas in the Caribbean! Jan - Feb, 2011: Cruise the Caribbean March 2011: Transit the Panama Canal, Galapagos April 2011: Pacific Ocean Crossing, Marquesas French Polynesia May 2011: Marquesas, Tuamotus, Tahiti June 2011: Moorea to Bora Bora July 2011: Bora Bora to Suwarrow, Cook Islands August 2011: Niue and Tonga September 2011: Tonga and Fiji October 2011: Fiji and Vanuatu November 2011: Vanuatu to Bundaberg Australia December 2011: Christmas on the Gold Coast! January 2012: Gold Coast to Sydney and maybe onto Melbourne February 2012: TBA!