Well there is no need to wax lyrical about the consequences of the Corona Virus as you all know what that means and where it's at. We found a genuinely nice little anchorage at the bottom end of Sth Stradbroke island that enabled us to stay put yet have access to some land and other necessary facilities to sustain life. The Sth Curragee camp is closed so we were able to go over to the Ocean beach and do a spot of fishing and walking and for skipping across to the Runaway Bay shopping centre which has a jetty at the back door to get provisions.
We were lucky to be stranded with several other yachts and while we went to great pains to "socially isolate" we have made a number of new friends. Helen got in touch with a Hobart lady she met through "women who sail" and Tina, Joel, 5 YO Spencer and their USA expatriate stowaway Lynne off SV Galileo 2 have been good company albeit from a distance.
The time has passed quite quickly and we have kept busy, Hel joined up with Yoga for Yachties so the yoga mat has been rolled out and I have finally got around to digging out the paints and throwing a bit of colour down.
There have been a lot of little jobs getting done of the yacht and we took the opportunity of half price hardstand fees to lift Leomar out to fix a leaking stern tube and freshen up the bottom paint. Timing was pretty good as we found a corroded outlet from one of the toilets which had to be replaced (not an easy or pleasant thing to fix when in the water).
Highlights over the last few weeks have been: Being in the middle of millions of butterflies as they migrate along the island over a week, helping Spencer rescue 2 green tree frogs which were trapped in a fire pit, getting a few good feeds of fish including catching my first Mahi-Mahi, making new friends, rescuing a sea snake which was stranded on the beach, lots of long beach walks. Being in shorts and tee shirts all the time while southerners have been freezing. Helen going to the top of the mast
As isolation restrictions are easing we are now looking to head North soon with our first stop being Lady Musgrave Island (google it) tracking will come back up on the predict wind site this week.
We hope you and all your families are fairing well in these challenging times, we are all going well, as are all of children and grandchildren, parents and siblings. I promise to provide a more exciting update next time as we will have continued our adventures.

Apologies from the lapse in updates, there been a little bit going on. We continued our stay on the lower reaches of the Hawkesbury for a few more weeks and had the pleasure of hosting an old work colleague from NBN Co, Steve Wright and his wife Mary for an evening for some good wine and reminiscing ( Marys chicken and Leek pie was delicious). While there we attended an advanced Marine first aid course and learnt some new skills such as suturing, giving injections, treating shock, haemorrhaging and dehydration treatments (one of which involved an interesting rectal tube insertion ☹).
We found a stowaway amongst a gift pack Pete's Mum and Sister put together. Its a Ward Family thing that Gnomes suddenly appear in unexpected locations and one appeared on Leomar dressed up in Pirate clothes and all. Going by the name of Keith Teague (Keith Richards character in Pirates of the Caribbean )he has now become a permanent member of the crew and has been known to take great leaps across the saloon in rough seas to let his presence be known, he is also a photo bomber so you will see more of him over time.
We continued to get Leomar ready, having to replace all the house batteries and following a rigging inspection we needed to have the mast removed for a couple of weeks and have repairs conducted on it and the boom. The removal of the mast coincided with our family weekend at Bondi Beach. For those that don't we have 6 children between us and they are spread all over the countryside from Berlin to Darwin, Cairns, North, South and Eastern Victoria. We really wanted to catch up with them all before heading into the Pacific and so we booked a townhouse in Bondi Beach for a long weekend which coincided with Conor and Rachel being in Sydney for a wedding, Simon was the only one not there as the trip from Berlin was a bit of an ask. It was a special weekend, made even more so as we had all 3 Grandchildren together for the first time (don't know when that will happen again). Needless to we left them with a heavy heart but created some fond memories to tide us over along with some great photos.
After the family weekend we did a bit of Sydney shopping, caught up with Florence Das and went to the Taronga zoo, following that returned to the Pittwater, had the mast replaced and prepared to continue our journey north, all this was being done against the threatening storm cloud of COVID-19 which was all over the media but whose implications were not fully appreciated. The first leg was a lovely 80 NM day sail in reasonably rough conditions to Port Stevens, the refurbished rig responded well pushing us along at 7-8 knots all day, this really was the first time we were able to sail all day without using the motor. We made plans to catch up with some old work colleagues, Peta, Carol-Ann and Marty however due to the new "social isolation" rules coming into play around COVID-19 we decided to cancel, we will have to catch them up next time we are there. We did enjoy the company of Tim and Julie Blaubaum from Melbourne who were travelling back to Melbourne with their Trailer Sailer Banjo, that will probably be the last restaurant dinner we will have for a long time
The rapidly changing landscape with COVID-19 forced us to reassess our plans, particularly as more and more countries were impacted and closed their borders. We decided to withdraw from the Go East Rally this year and sailed through to Queensland over 4 days making it through 24 hours before the borders closed. Like everybody we are now isolating ourselves and will re-evaluate our plans as the virus situation evolves. This really is an unprecedent situation and none of us can predict the outcomes with any certainty. We are somewhat fortunate in that a yacht is a natural isolation location and we have set Leomar up to travel to isolated locations for long period so this situation means we will be able to stay away from marinas and other population points for long periods with just the occasional re-provisioning run every couple of weeks. We are hopeful that we will be able to continue travelling up the Queensland coast and avoid the southern winter. We are hoping we can get up to Cairns to see Jake, Larissa and Billy but circumstances and travel restrictions may put the Kyb-wash on that, we will wait and see.
For those of you following us on the Predict Wind tracker, we have now shut that down. It was fed by our satellite connection which was very useful for international travel but not a justifiable expense for the east coast of Australia where there is lots of mobile coverage (we will reinstate some time in the future) You will still be able to track us via Marine Traffic App when coverage

Well the last few weeks have certainly provided us with an insight into Dorothy McKellar's thoughts. After spending some time with Family and Friends we crossed bar to the Gippsland Lakes once again and headed east to Marlo, giving a wave to Uncle and Aunty as we sailed past. Having spent a lot of time fishing off the East Gippsland Coast and also while working as a Decky on an abalone boat in my younger days, I was astounded at the level of devastation caused by the recent Bushfires and our thoughts went out to those communities there and in southern NSW who have lost so much. We laid over for a few days at Batemans Bay to let the Northerlies settle down and then set off to the north again. We passed the ramparts that make up the entrance to Jervis Bay, it's easy to see why it's called Point Perpendicular.
After a relatively uneventful sail we rounded Barrenjoey Head at the entrance to the Hawkesbury River to spend a few weeks plying its lower reaches. Despite the obvious human effects on the landscape the waterways are magical. Everywhere the sandstone outcrops are moulded by time into a myriad of unimaginable forms and the play of light and shade delivers a constantly changing perspective, while the tortured and majestic Sydney Redgums act as sentinels on every small peninsular.
With the threat of inclement weather impending Helen took the opportunity to go home to see family for a few days. Peter stayed and weathered the rains, a whopping 463mm fell in 3 days. This in turn delivered a new dimension to the landscape as wherever a sandstone outcrop was in a gully there appeared a waterfall, some of them massive in their drop.
We spent a few days in a Marina on the Pittwater, running the normal errands of vessel supply and also took the opportunity to get a major service done on the motor ahead of our imminent Pacific ventures in May.
We are now getting to a point where we feel Leomar is in shape and we have all things sorted. Consequently we are starting to relax more and enjoy the experiences each location has to offer (might even get the paints out soon). We caught a ferry over to Palm Beach (Home and Away fans settle down, Alf Stewart was nowhere to be seen), as a consequence of the recent weather and the Cyclone Uasi out in the Tasman sea one of Captain Cooks "Prodigious Swells"( 4-6m) was pounding the eastern shore, not a good time to be heading out surfing as the debris from the recent rains was washing up huge trees and other logs. We found the most expensive Hamburger rolls in the country at a local bakery($3 each but they did come in a fancy bag). We are hanging around the region for a few more weeks and will report in before we head North again in mid-March.

Well the last few weeks have been quite eventful. Due to the Bushfires in Gippsland we decided we would stay away from the Gippsland Lakes for an extra week and a half and hole up in refuge Cove for a bit longer. We did a run over to Port Welshpool and picked up my Brother Mick and his family, Sally, Rheanna and Lauren, although it was still quite smoky on the Prom they enjoyed a few days on the Yacht, particularly the couple of fresh Calamari feeds we had. HEADLINE (on the 14th of Jan another Ward was born, Billy Alexander Ward weighing in at a whopping 8lb 13 arrived to parents Jacob and Larissa). After a nervous and rough drop off of the Mick Ward mob at Welshpool on the 16th of Jan, Hel and I did the overnight run along the coast to Lakes Entrance, crossing a pretty rough bar at midday on the 17th. It has been a busy week here catching up with family and installing the replacement washing machine, deck wash and picking up some spares, new spinnaker etc. it was fantastic being able to get Mum onto Leomar and thanks to my sister Jo and her husband Phil for all their help and loan of a car. Caught up with an old mate Rod Meagher and his wife Annette for dinner, did a minor repair to the freezer door (thanks Rod). Did a quick run down to Maffra To see Maree and Rose(Granddaughter), Rose has grown so much in the 3 months since we last saw her also. We had some special visitors for lunch on the 23rd, Dad's Brother John dropped in with Barb and Unca Phil, Marylou and Audrey, the fresh Lakes Entrance prawns went down a treat over lunch. Aiming to spend the Australia Day weekend with Sister Steph and Husband Rod on board and looking to start up the NSW coast around the 29th of Jan.

We have been holed up in refuge cove on Wilson promontory for week or so. Had a fantastic nYE on the beach with a number of other boat people and bushwalkers. Pete has been out and bagged a couple of dozen flatties which went down well in a curry with the crew from Ebb Tide on New Year’s Day, it helped with the hangovers. We met a lovely family[Stuart, Ellie,Jacob,Alex and Siena) who are returning to Freo on their 50’ Catania after 4 years of cruising from the Caribbean, kids seemed very relaxed in the lifestyle. Owing to the terrible bushfires in eastern Victoria we have delayed our next passage to the Gippsland lakes for a couple of weeks. Did quick trip over to Nangana’s old home port for supplies and had a visit from our sailing friends Harm and Lisa with this 2 boys, also ran into so old mates from Sale and Yinnar, was great to run into Walshie, Jonah and Stores. Thanks so much to Andrew and Kaz at the boat hire and coffee shop in Port Albert for lending us their Car for the day, we could not have reprovisioned to the extent we did without the car, wonderful generosity. We are now heading back to Refuge. Over for another week, we are picking up Mick, Sally, Rhianna and Lauren on Sunday at Port Welshpool.

This week has really been a shake down week for us. Helen had only been out on Leomar once and we both had just loaded gear into her in a “sort of organised” way. We also hadn’t had the opportunity to use a few items in a meaningful manner, there are a lot of things that don’t get touched or used much when in a Marina.
We have idled around the Tasman Peninsular, Maria Island and Schouten Passage for the last week. The weather has been normal for southern tassie at this time of year; beautiful one moment, horrendous the next so we have had to move Anchorage’s to accomodate the changing conditions, this has its upsides as we get to see some pretty awesome scenery that is unique to this region.
Shake down has turned up a couple of things we weren’t counting on. We had purchased a back up/ second autopilot which had not been installed, the original Raymarine head unit died on the first day out so we were forced to install the new B&G unit, that took a day out of the program lots of grunting and groaning from Pete along with few sailor like expletives happened on that day. We targeted getting the water maker (desalination unit) going for the first time, after getting some coaching from John (the previous owner), reading. Highly complex operating manual and making up some interim Fittings to replace some perished ones, we are now making fresh water, this is an awesome system that produces 140litres per hour it can fill our tanks up from empty in 4.5 hours. Having heaps of water led us to the next test “ wash some clothes” mmmmmm, new washing machine is being delivered to Jo and Phil’s in Bairnsdale, seems the old one didn’t like all the sand that had accumulated in it over the last 10 years and only gave us one more wash, back to hand washing.
We Leave southern tassie tomorrow (Saturday) and are going to make a 48 hour run to Deal Island while the weather window is favourable. Deal is one of our favourite Bass Strait Islands which we had visited in Nangana on many occasions.
We seem to have trouble getting the tracking working on this site. To follow us use this link. https://forecast.predictwind.com/tracking/display/LEOMAR