Well today is a sad day as we have to leave Norlee safely tucked away in Kermandie Marina and we fly back to the West. Our twelve weeks have gone so fast and we have met so many fantastic people, seen some absolutely gorgeous places and done some interesting things. However, reality and day to day life is quickly bearing down on us😢 Bruce and Thelma have very kindly offered to run us up to the airport. The marina community is so helpful and friendly. Ironically, today has shown us just how wet Tasmania can be. This is the heaviest rain we have had all trip!
It is going to be hard, especially for Mark, to leave Norlee for such a long period, but we are confident that people will check on her.
So, I am leaving our blog here.....until next time😜

The last few days have been taken up with jobs around the boat. Mark had started to become concerned with the condition of our furler (for the non sailing community, that's the thing at the front of the boat that holds and furls and unfurls the small sail or jib). It had become increasingly stiff and very hard to furl the jib back in. He was wondering if we had a broken wire (the forestay runs inside the furler and is made of numerous strands of thick wire). Of course, to check this, we would have to take the furler and forestay off. Now, something I always find hard to believe, is that there is a balancing act going on between the front and back stays and the mast. If one of the stays break it can compromise the mast and that can snap, leading to all sorts of problems. In calm conditions this would be bad enough, but in high winds and seas, when it would more than likely happen, it would be really, really scary 😧 So over two days, Mark removed the furler from the front, leaving it still attached to the top of the mast. He had to pull the spinnaker halyard (the rope used to pull the spinnaker up) to the front of the boat to act as a forestay. Then, with some help from Bruce and Dave, we winched him up to the top of the mast, where he disconnected the furler, with the forestay inside. This was then carefully lowered to the deck and out along the marina pen. We even brought Mark back down! Always tempting.... When we removed the furler from the forestay we were surprised to see four broken wires! No wonder it was becoming harder to furl! To repair it we will have to order a new forestay, which Mark had to meticulously measure, then we will have to re-thread this through the furler and hoist it and Mark back up the mast. This will be our first job when we return, as we cannot sail until this is done.
I have been sanding and re-oiling any wooden features on the deck and in the cockpit and tomorrow my job is to wipe down all of the internal surfaces and oil all of the wood. Hopefully it will protect it from some of the inevitable dampness. Mark has been cleaning out cupboards and making sure that everything is dry and stored as best we can. He has packed away the dingy, putting it into its cover and then covering it in tarp, to keep it out of the elements.
We have also been trying to work out what we need to take home and what we can leave. When we left, we packed the boat with anything we thought we could possibly need for three months and, of course, our original plan was to sail Norlee home, but now that we are leaving her here and flying home, we are limited to what we can take on the plane. It's going to be hard? Thankfully, I didn't buy myself any large wooden items....I have been tempted and getting it home wouldn't have been a problem with our original plan. Next time!

We experienced a misty start to the day. Lovely conditions for a long walk around the area of Deep Bay. The rock formations along the beach are pretty spectacular; as if they are man made and someone has chiseled the patterns onto huge sheets of rock. Deep Bay proved to be a lovely area. Very quiet and, from what we could see, mainly full time residents as opposed to holiday homes. We checked out the other S & S 39 moored in the bay, 'Margueritaville' on the way back to the boat. There was absolutely zero wind, so we motored up to Kermandie. High tide was at 12.10 p.m. so we had to get through the narrow and shallow chanel to the marina within a couple of hours either side of that. There were a lot of boats out on the water enjoying the warm and light conditions. We had already been allocated a pen, so we navigated our way into it. Mark managed to reverse into it. No mean feat really as it was quite narrow between the pens and some boats have very long bowsprits or dingys hanging off the back.
We had a very, very late breakfast and a shower and then we caught the bus to Franklin. We wanted to buy some bread, tea, coffee and rope for mooring lines. The chandlery was open, but we couldn't find a grocery shop. So we went to the local for a pint while we waited for the last bus back to Kermandie 😀 We headed up to the local for tea, a nice habit we have quickly picked up! Not much food left on board anyway, as we have been trying to use it all up before we leave. I think we are down to our last Deb potato and tinned chillie beef. Thankfully!

We spent a calm night at Eggs and Bacon Bay and decided to row ashore for a walk along the beach before breakfast. First of all, we called in on the other yacht on anchor and found that they had travelled to Wales last year and we discussed some of the walks available around Anglesey, North Wales. It's a small world! We met a local on the beach with her dog and she pointed us in the right direction for a walk along the point to the beach on the other side. It was a pleasant walk, but we ran out of 'track' before we got to the beach.
After breakfast we sailed across the bay to Surveyors Bay. A lovely little bay with houses right on the beach. We then went and checked out Big Roaring Bay. This was a much bigger bay and was open to the channel, so would get more swell, but it did have a very nice sandy beach. We decided to head further up the river. The wind was very light so we put the asymmetric spinnaker up, mainly to dry it. We pulled into Deep Bay, opposite Copper Ally Bay and close to Cygnet. It proved to be a delightful little bay, with a lot of boats on anchor (including another S&S like Norlee). The wind promised to pick from the NW, but then drop off to nothing overnight.

Our morning was taken up with laundry chores. We wanted to do our washing as well as our sleeping bags, so it took a while. Another spectacular morning, with the breeze picking up mid-morning. We stopped at the fuel bowser on the way out of Kettering. This will last us for our remaining week (where has three months gone?) plus enough to fill the fuel tanks when we leave.
We decided to head down the channel to have a closer look at Verona Beach and Charlotte Bay. We will anchor in Eggs and Bacon Bay for the night. We had a lovely sail, just under jib and I made the most of the sun, sunbathing and reading my book under the dodger. What a life! I am really going to miss this.....
We were lucky enough (although you seem to see something spectacular every time you go out) to see a couple of Sea Eagles sitting together in a tree. They might have been a pair, or they could have been a couple of young ones? We are now used to hearing the quack/bark (can't make my mind up which) of the Little Penguin, just before we get a visual, but no time for a photo! They are so fast. We turned into Eggs and Bacon Bay and dropped the anchor. While we were having dinner another yacht pulled in alongside us for the night. That must be a good sign that this is a good anchorage.....or the blind leading the blind!

The weather was supposed to be pretty bad today with heavy rain and strong winds. Mmmm! We had some rain and a thunderstorm during the early hours, but we woke to a stunning morning. No wind and a beautiful grey sky with flashes of pink. We'd discussed going into Hobart on the bus, seeing as the weather was going to be 'so bad'?? We thought, what the hell, we'd still go as we had some pretty important shopping to do and a couple of places we HAD to go - shopping at Kathmandu for me, bangers and mash and Guinness for Mark at Irish Murphys and breakfast/morning tea at Daci & Daci for both of us😄 So that was decided! Mark had organised Russell to call in from Storm Bay Sails and have a chat about a new jib, so we headed off after that. It only cost us $8.20 each for the 50 min trip into the city and we were there in time for morning tea. Bonus! First of all though we walked passed Constitution Dock and spied Banyandah in our old spot, so went and said hello. Very interesting couple whom we had met in Esperance in 2012. They have done a lot of sailing over the years with their kids and now alone. We bought a couple of DVD's off them covering their trips to Port Davey and The Gordon River. After I'd bought up big in Kathmandu and we'd enjoyed our last Guinness, but hopefully not our last bangers and mash for this trip.
By the time we got back to Norlee it was time for a beer in the cockpit, enjoying the warm breeze. Still no strong winds and heavy rain!