Whilst in the Marina at Noumea, New Caledonia I'd met a German girl, Kristina who was visiting friends on their Amel yacht. After surprising her with my two words of German she was mightily impressed and so came aboard for a glass of wine, or three. Fortunately she spoke excellent English. With only a few days to go though before she flew out of New Caledonia we arranged to meet in Australia toward the end of October, hence the rush to push south. I didn't want to be late for a date after she'd flown half way around the world to see me, or was it the yacht.

Kristina arrived on 23 October and soon made herself at home on Torea. Unfortunately, as she was the visitor and still unfamiliar in how to operate the kerosene stove, it was up to me to make the coffee each morning. For most of Kristina's visit we remained in Middle Harbour except for one weekend when we took a sail to Pittwater for a few days. Going up on the Friday morning saw us with two reefs in and most of the headsail furled away in a gusty westerly wind off the land, but at least the seas were relatively flat.

The return sail on the Sunday was delightful in a light easterly which slowly came around to the north east and picked up a bit as we neared Sydney. This did cause a few arguments as we both wanted to be on the wheel to steer Torea, even though we could have put the autopilot on. In these conditions it was much more fun to do the steering. With full sail set Torea made good time, so much so that we were in time for the 1630 opening of the Spit Bridge.

A few days later it was my birthday which we celebrated by going out for pizza and then a few days after that it was time for Kristina to return to Germany. Having both got on really well together Kristina has decided to move aboard Torea full time and is due to fly into Hobart just before Christmas. This means another race south for me to meet her but at least I can soon train Kristina in the use of the stove and push her out of bed to make the coffee on a morning, so I'm eagerly awaiting her arrival.

Photo of Kristina and I in Pittwater