Finally got Brett awake so that we could get ashore ready to meet Vera when she comes over on the 8:45am ferry. I left Brett, and his Bacon & Eggs order at the Dome Cafe, and went and met Vera at the ferry.
It was really great to see her after a couple of days, and she was looking pretty tired after a late night (12:30am) helping Simone get ready for a trip, and an early morning (4:30am) to get Simone to the airport.
We went back to the Dome and had breakfast and decided on our events of the day; which was to sail around the island.
After breakfast we nipped over to the General Store & bakery for some provision, and Vera nipped into the gift shop to look at and buyy up some jewellery after seeing it on her last trip to the island with her Rotto girls.
We headed back to the boat, stowed a few things, got the sails up and deck and cast off for a nice trip around the island. We left the dinghy on the mooring, but decided to tow the ski behind us just in case we decided to pull into a bay, and do some exploring.
Vera helmed across the North of the island while I kept watch for craypot floats, and trimmed the boat with Brett.
We headed out past the western edge of the island and, as I hadnt been around here before I decided to give everything a wide birth using the GPS, paper charts and dead reckoning as my guide.
We tacked south as the breeze started to increase a few notes upto 18-20kts. As we got to West End (& the West Patch), I decided to tack back out west for 0.5nm just for safety's sake, and then tack back to the south, slowly bearing away to the east to go across the south side of the island.
By this time the breeze had picked up a couple more know, and the swell was a good 1.5-2.5m. So, with the wind well and truly on the beam, Swagman loved every minute of it.
About half way across we realised that the ski had gone missing, so we tacked back around to the west, and slightly north, to see if we could see it. Mainly white ski, with black speckled on a white-capped sea, we thought it would be hard to see. But, Vera's excellent eyes saw it slightly north of our original track after about 5min's. Then we spent the next 10min's trying to retrieve it, and ended up turning the motor on to get a good position coming into it. Got it back on board and lashed it down. The 2nd time on the weekend it tried to get away. it's trying to tell us something.
We headed back around the east end of the island, with me helming this time (as Vera was a bit tired). The sea & wind was increasing slightly, but nothing to worry about for an SS34.
We came back around to Thompson's Bay and came through between Phillip Rock and the Natural Jetty again. Swagman roared into Thompsons bay and was loving it. We dropped sails and picked up the mooring.
Tucked all the sails away, and sorted everything out ready to go ashore for the rest of the afternoon and evening.
It took us just over 3hrs to go around, and I will have to get a plot of the course, or at least an estimate, as my GPS cant download to the PC anymore.
We went ashore and decided to go to the Governors Bar and the Rottnest Island Lodge. That were planning to show the men's final of the Australian Open Tennis later. But before that started we thought we would head over to the Quokka Arms to see what was happening there, and decided to have pizza and chips for dinner, washed down with a couple of beers.
We then headed back to Gov's Bar, and watched the tennis. It was a good match, but after a couple of sets and many beers we could see what way the result was going to go, so we decided to head back to the boat for the evening.
Chilled for the rest of the evening in preparation for tommorrows trip back home.