Oh! That delicious sound of an official's inked stamp on your Permis de Depart.

After the apparently essential six kilometre walk to visit Immigration, Customs and Capitiniere all inconveniently housed in different office blocks miles apart, we finally got the All Clear and a fully stamped Permis de Depart so, after fueling up wi tax free diesel, we're outta here. Not far, as we've three days or so to poke around the islets in the lagoon and three days to kill to ensure we don't arrive in Australia at weekend, ninety five bucks every fifteen minutes for yer man from Biosecurity to poke his nose around our bilges looking for a bug or two.........while, half a mile away, manky containers from around the world, probably crawling with all kinds of wiggly things are unloaded onto Australian soil.

And so, with a parting chocolate croissant and a black coffee that would put hair on your chest we will haul up our equally manky chain, hose off the pound of rust that will be strewn across the deck and head off into the wide blue yonder. Time Bandit is immaculate.........but for the chain which seems to have left a trail of zinc along its thirty seven thousand mile track.

Eight hundred miles to Brisbane. What's that at fifteen knots?