SATURDAY FEB 1st....

We had a few last minute things to do in the morning/afternoon before we could finally say it was time to go. We sorted through all of the detritus in the trailer and kept, dumped or stored it. We took a little instance to visit everyone one last time and took the trailer around to Petra and Chris's place. I kept reminding myself that it was only about 10 weeks before we fly back for the first time. Only 10 weeks.

With everything almost done, we took our car to be detailed so that it looked spick'n'span and then we collected Petra and drove back to the club one last time so that she could take our car back to her place in order to sell it. I can't believe I no longer have a car and that's really when it hit me hard. We were really doing this. It's real now. For some strange reason , even though we had been going through all of the motions, I never thought this day would come.

As the time to leave drew closer, we set the camera on a tripod and sat it on the opposite mooring finger and took one last snap of Venture and us at the GIYC. The photo we took reminded me that, apart from the club being a great place to be, I really do have lily-white legs that have become decidedly substantive over the past few years.... time for exercise, diet and tanning moisturiser (I'm not desperate enough to actually try and tan).

At 6.15pm Dave started the engines and I threw the lines off at the Garden Island Yacht Club for the last time. It was bitter-sweet for me. As we made the two hour trip around to the Crown Marina at North Haven to be ready for an early start the next morning, I snapped a weird anomaly, a deformed rainbow. Now, considering that it was 42 degrees even at that late hour, the fact that there was any sort of atmospheric moisture around to cause a rainbow was odd, but it seemed that the high ground level humidity made it appear and caused it to look more like a rainbowblob rather than the beautiful multi-coloured arch of rainbow fable. Most odd. I took a few photos but unfortunately it's difficult to see. Take my word for it. T'was weird. Later, a gorgeous sunset was put on show for us and that wasn't weird at all, and the pics turned out well also. :)

After arriving and tying up at the marina just before dark, and with temperatures still hovering around the mid 30's we just mellowed out and didn't do a lot. I went to bed around 11.30... it was to be a fairly early morning....

SUNDAY FEB 2nd ....

4.30am.... noooooooooooooooo!! Do not want! Not on the first day of our jaunt. Can't see, can't feel my appendages, brain is in revolt. It's unnatural. I swear, I'm a reverse nocturne and this time of day could possibly just made me shrivel up into a gibbering heap of meaningless slush. I can hear some seagulls cackling away and it seems that they're the only living creature awake at this time but they're insane anyway. UGH!

So, as you may have surmised, we were up at that heinous hour and departed before 5am. We were making our way to Kangaroo Island, American River to be exact, and that made it one heck of a long journey.... at least 12 hours, possibly more if we were unlucky with the weather. But that was okay, it looked as though the forecasts were good and the wind would be from the right direction and strong enough to give us a decent push at between 10 and 20 knots. That was indeed the plan. The wind had other ideas....

It became obvious right from the get-go that the wind was going to be as fickle as it had been the last time we were away. It began at about 8 knots (or about 14kph for the uninitiated). It hit 11 knots (about 20kph) and so the engine was turned off and the sails put up. This arrangement lasted all of 5 minutes when the wind dropped back to 5 knots (slooooow) and didn't really get any higher. The water was as smooth as a mill pond with a swell of possibly 6 inches. As a result, we motored for 14 hours and the wind only picked up and became quite strong when we were within about 5 nautical miles of KI.... and that would have been fine but it was a direct head wind that did nothing but slow us down. I was glad to get here.

On the way though, we did have the usual accompaniment of several pods of dolphins, which is always a delight, I managed to get a lot of reading done and I did catch upon the all important sleep of which I'd been deprived, about 5 hours worth. Excellent!

So, right now it's almost midnight and we're securely moored in the bay at American River, Kangaroo Island. I've had a couple of coconut rum and limes to celebrate the first day of the BIG TRIP and all is right with this part of the world. Goodnight.