We've all heard that raspy voice calling us to the dark side inviting us to explore the inner demon. For most monohull sailors the dark side is the multihull division and so for us the calling to explore our inner demon came in the form of Fontaine Bahia 46 ft catamaran. I guess the right question is why? After so many years sailing the traditional monohull, circumnavigating Australia in our wonderful Kelly Peterson why would we jump ship, so as to speak, and move to the dark side.

Living at 30 degrees as it so often referred to on a monohull does wear on you after a while and although our Kelly Peterson was great for just Di, Widget and I we wanted the ability to add more people over longer distances. The experience gained from our circumnavigation showed us that faster passage times would also be a great advantage. Our KP44 was a fantastic sea boat but our passage planning was constantly done at 5kts which is not always ideal when dealing with bad weather.

In mid 2012 along with our WA family we chartered a catamaran in Thailand for a vacation and during that time we found ourselves discussing more and more the advantages of a catamaran. And so the call to the dark side became stronger and finally last year we gave in to the inner demon, flew to Annapolis and bought Toucan a Fontaine Bahia 46. In June this year we will return to the US with a view to splash Toucan, develop her cruising side and in early November head to the Caribbean to start the great adventure of the trip back home.

We have gone to the dark side! More Toucan adventures to come.

On Friday 15th June 2012, after sailing 8,333 NM around Australia, Illusion V glided back into her old berth at The Royal Prince Alfred Yacht Club, Newport, after 13 months away. How wonderful to see those friendly faces on the dock – Chris, Jason, Paul and Liz, ready to take our lines and welcoming us home with some very fine champagne! Despite the joy of seeing our friends and family again, it’s been quite surreal to be back, and we keep asking ourselves “Did we really just sail around Australia or was it a dream?”
And so now it’s back to reality with a bit of a dull thud. Unfortunately we overspent on our budget with some of the unexpected repairs we needed to do, so we’ll need to find work and restock the cruising kitty before we can head out again. This first week back has been a whirlwind of socializing and catching up with friends – truly delightful, but we under-estimated how difficult it would be to adjust back to city life, traffic, noise, and the pace of life generally. I’m sure it will get easier as time goes by, but right now I catch myself staring out over the water every so often, dreaming, dreaming……
We’ve learnt so much, and have had so many amazing experiences and challenges, and have seen so much of this glorious country of ours. For me, the highlights were cruising the Kimberley region, our encounters with whales and sealions, and the southern delights of Albany, Port Lincoln and Kangaroo Island. We’ve also met the most wonderful people, some of whom have become very much a part of our lives and will remain lifelong friends, especially our Mandurah ‘family’ – Chris, Heidi, Kieran and Drina. I think Bruce has one final blog to write, a summing-up of the trip and thoughts on what we might do differently, but for me this will be my last blog for a while….until the next adventure begins!

At 14.35pm yesterday 12th June, exactly 13 months since our departure, we crossed our outbound track through the heads at Broken Bay into Pittwater, closing the circle and completing our circumnavigation of Australia!! And what a flood of mixed emotions accompanied it – there was a lump in my throat and tears of joy, pride, relief and sadness all jostled for a part of that moment in time.
Despite our hopes to the contrary, the Powers That Be had decided we needed a final challenge for our last leg. That last little leg of a mere 18NM from Sydney Heads to Barrenjoey, which should have been a doddle. It was certainly nothing like the fantasy I had of gliding up the coast under spinnaker, with flat seas and sunshine. Instead we had grey skies, rain squalls, a 3-4 metre easterly swell and light winds directly up our arse, making for one of the most uncomfortable 4 hours we’ve had in a long time! We’d prepared the boat as we always do for a passage, with items stowed and packed away, but even so we had items flying loose here, there and everywhere as poor Illusion rocked and rolled her way towards Barrenjoey Head. “Come on girl, hang in there - nearly there”, hoping to god our preventer line which stops the boom from gybing would hold out, and that nothing else would break so close to home.
After what seemed an eternity in breath-holding, we rounded Barrenjoey Head and made our way into Pittwater, expecting some relief. But no, the large swell was running all the way down the bay, and we were about to cop a nasty rain squall and strong winds on the nose. Time to get the mainsail down. But strangely enough, the mainsail had other ideas - one of the slides on the track was resolutely jammed high up beyond reach! Terrific! Nothing for it but to run off before the wind, down the river until the squall had passed and then try and tackle the recalcitrant sail. Finally, after much shenanigans and some brute force, the sail came down and we were able to motor back around West Head and into the Basin where we picked up a mooring for the night, intending to go across to Palm Beach today to pick up some extra supplies before heading down the river for a couple of nights prior to going back into our pen at RPAYC on Friday. But what a rocky night – I don’t think we’ve ever seen the swell so large in Pittwater. In fact when we saw the Palm Beach Ferry having difficulty docking against the wharf, we decided we could live without the extra supplies, and headed off further down the river to Refuge Bay. Even that far down, the waves were still crashing against the shoreline, but within Refuge all was calm and we settled in (with the rain) to the sound of the waterfall thundering in the background, trying to digest the fact that we were back in familiar territory and the adventure of a lifetime was coming to a close.

We decided to spend a few days here in Sydney Harbour before heading home to Pittwater. It’s the June long weekend, and we wanted to catch up with Rob, our youngest son, and also Jeff and Kathy from “Beatrix”, another KP44, who are currently anchored in Blackwattle Bay. Saturday morning dawned bright, beautiful and sunny. What a perfect day to be back in Sydney and to head down the harbour to Blackwattle Bay!
Well, talk about a culture shock after living such a quiet peaceful existence for so long! Now we were assaulted on either side by noise and wash, as the big white hoon-mobiles tore up and down the harbour trying to outdo each other in some kind of weird phallic envy – “mine’s bigger than yours”, “Ah but mine performs better than yours”. Then there were the new fast ferries/whale watching boats to contend with, the tourist jetboats, and other yachts who obviously only come out on long weekends, blithely crossing our path to get to wherever they wanted to go without the faintest concept of the rules of the road. Oh, hello Sydney!!
When we finally threaded our way through the traffic to Blackwattle Bay we discovered the anchorage was a mite crowded. A smaller yacht had come in just ahead of us and anchored quite close to Beatrix. We eventually found a spot with enough swinging room and settled in to watch the activity on the foreshore, a constant stream of walkers, cyclists, joggers and dogs with their owners. We took the dinghy in so Widget could get some grass between her feet, but even she was a bit overwhelmed by all the other dogs and activity – within 5 minutes she'd picked up her lead in her mouth and was heading back to the dinghy! We had a very pleasant evening catching up with Jeff and Kathy from “Beatrix” and enjoyed their delicious home-made pizza. Yesterday was a special delight – being reunited with Rob again! We took the dinghy over to the fishmarkets for a fish and chip lunch but within minutes we’d all decided to eat back on board – the hustle and bustle and noise was just too much! Later Rob and I decided to head over to Circular Quay to see the Sea Shepherd boats. By now the rain had started to come down, the city traffic had ground to a standstill, and they'd stopped the tours of the boats by the time we got there! So we had coffee instead, and came back to the boat rather wet and soggy! Later in the afternoon we noticed the small yacht next to Beatrix was swinging very close to her stern. The owners of the yacht had disappeared soon after anchoring yesterday and were nowhere to be seen. We alerted Jeff, who brought up some of his anchor chain to move further ahead. By now the rain was a steady downpour so we settled in for the night. Just as we were finishing dinner we heard shouting and went on deck to see Beatrix still having problems with the other yacht, which was now in danger of taking our their stern and dinghy. So we donned our wet weather gear and went over to assist, trying to pull the other yacht’s anchor up - they’d dropped it on top of Beatrix’s chain, stopping them from moving. Eventually we got it free and Beatrix was able to pull up their anchor and find another spot well away from the rogue yacht. Mad city indeed!
And today the rain continues, a steady deluge that’s managing to find it’s way into the boat in various places, making life a wee bit miserable on board. Hopefully it will be easing off tonight as I think we’ve had enough of the city! Tomorrow we plan to make our final leg to Pittwater to spend a few quiet nights down the river before making our way back “home” on Friday - The Royal Prince Alfred Yacht Club in Newport. We’ve almost completed the circle!!

We were extremely glad that we were tucked up in the creek at Huskisson during the storm, especially when we saw the pictures next day of the carnage at Callala Bay (just around the corner from Huskisson) where many of the moored boats had been washed up on the beach when their ground tackle failed. However, we now had to face the prospect of getting out of the creek in order to complete our penultimate passage to Sydney Harbour. Thursday would be our only opportunity to get out, but high tide was at 10.30pm, so another night-time exit. We weren’t looking forward to it, but we thought it would be easier than the trip up the creek because at least we had our inbound track to guide us out. It was a long wait on Thursday evening – we had dinner, prepared the boat and then sat and waited for the tide. Eventually the time came and we slipped the lines off the wharf and headed out into the channel. We hadn’t reckoned on the over-run of the tide, which was still flowly swiftly, making it hard for Bruce to keep Illusion on course. The boat was pushed this way and that, making it impossible to follow our track in. I was outside with the torch, trying to spot our path through the unlit boats on either side of the channel – “Come to port” “now starboard”, “ a smidge more to starboard” (that’s a technical term), ‘watch out for the boat to port” and so on – hearts in our mouths, trying to spot the unlit channel markers. In fact I was so busy trying to spot the final channel marker that I failed to notice how close we were to the sandbar at the entrance to the creek. Bloody hell, that was close!! But then we were out and clear, and making our way across the bay. We’d intended to keep going overnight to Sydney, but there was very little wind and still some large leftover swells from the storm, so we decided to motor over to Hole in the Wall and pick up a mooring, sleep for what was left of the night and get going again early Friday morning. I think the concentration and stress of getting out of the creek had also taken its toll, so we were very happy to collapse into bed for a few hours sleep!
Friday morning dawned bright and clear, so off we went. Still not much breeze to start with, but the swell had reduced to 2-3metres, so we motorsailed for much of the 85NM to Sydney. We had a brief moment of joy when the wind picked up sufficiently to finally give Nelson an airing (he needed it, he’d got rather wet on deck during the storm), and for a wonderful hour or two we enjoyed his happy multicoloured presence before the wind died again.
I think there must have been a shipping convention at Wollongong on Friday night – as we approached we could see at least 8-10 large ships coming in from all directions, jostling for parking positions outside the port. Thankfully by the time we got abeam of Wollongong they were all settled in their anchorages, but it was quite a sight to see all the AIS targets on the screen – we counted 24 in total as we tiptoed past the sleeping giants!
We estimated we would arrive in the harbour by 1am, but sleep was impossible that night. The excitement was mounting as we saw the lights of Botany Bay and the planes landing and taking off. Then we were passing Maroubra, then Bondi, and then finally there was the familiar flash of Macquarie Lighthouse atop South Head. Almost there! We made our way through the heads and over to the quarantine station where we dropped our anchor, with the background rumble of the Manly ferry and the sounds of the city lulling us to sleep.

After resting up at the Hole in the Wall anchorage on Sunday, we set off at sunset to motor the 7NM across the bay to Huskisson, in order to get across the river entrance at high tide and onto the town wharf. Bill had told us that it was possible to get in on a 1.7m tide, and high tide on Sunday was a whopping 1.9m, so we were pretty confident we'd have no problems. The only problem we had was identifying the channel markers, which were unlit. There's a reef just off the entrance to the river, with a cardinal marker which thankfully WAS lit, so once passed that we lined up with the blue fluoro leads and made our way in without incident. Bill and Julia were there waiting to take our lines, and so in no time at all we were tied up and enjoying a glass of wine and swapping boating stories! The wharf is conveniently situated right in the heart of Huskisson, so on Monday we enjoyed a leisurely brunch in town and then took advantage of Bill & Julia's kind offer to use their work van to take our laundry into the nearest laundromat at Vincentia and top up our provisions. We'd hoped to be able to stay on the wharf for the remainder of our stay in Jervis Bay, but the forecast was looking very grim with a severe low forming off the south coast on Monday. The prediction was for 40-50kts from the SE, with very high seas caused by the accompanying king tides - up to 7-8 metres off the coast, and 5-6 metres in the bay! Unfortunately the wharf would be exposed to any large swell in the bay, so Bill advised us to move the boat further down the creek to the public wharf next to the boat ramp at Woollamia. The only problem was that we could only move down there at high tide, which would be Monday night at about 7.30pm. The creek is narrow, shallow and winds around, with the channel running between unlit boats moored fore and aft on each side. Quite a daunting prospect in the dark! Bill kindly offered to hop on board and guide us down, which helped enormously. The next challenge for Bruce was to turn the boat around so we could tie up facing downstream. The tide was still running in quite strongly and at one point we were sliding sideways alarmingly close to the moored boats as Bruce tried to manoevre up to the wharf. But he knew exactly what he was doing and got us into position perfectly - what a legend! We knew we'd made the right decision to leave the town jetty when we saw the commercial operators moving all their boats down the creek too!
Currambene Creek is a very pretty spot, and very quiet at this time of year. During summer I'm sure the boat ramp would be a very busy and crowded place, but our only company has been the occasional fisherman and council worker, a couple of ducks and the odd pelican! The weather was supposed to come in around lunchtime on Tuesday. Tuesday morning was beautiful and sunny, and still at lunchtime there was no sign of anything. But at 4pm the wind went from zero to 30kts in an instant, and with it came the rain. The public wharf is tucked in behind a stand of trees so we were well protected, but we watched the white caps building out in the middle of the channel as the rain poured down, and checked the live observations on Point Perpendicular which were recording 40 - 50 kts at the height of the storm. Nothing left for it but to hunker down and make the best of it. Which we did, brewing some mulled wine (thank you to my darling sister for the inspired suggestion!) and ordering pizza from the local take-away who even delivered it to the wharf in the pouring rain! We were cosy and warm with the generator and fan heater going, so all in all it was probably the most pleasant way we could have weathered the storm.
By yesterday morning the front had passed over, although it was still raining and miserable. We took a drive into town to do a few errands and were very glad we weren't on the jetty when we saw the breaking waves coming into the river entrance. The weather is supposed to settle over the course of the next couple of days, so our plan is to get out of the creek tonight at high tide (10.30pm), which is really our last opportunity before the tides decrease in height. Much as we love it here, we don't want to be stuck up the creek without the proverbial paddle for another two weeks or more!. Provided the seas have subsided we'll then keep going to Sydney Harbour, arriving sometime on Friday afternoon. Our last overnight sail for a while! It's hard to believe we're less than 100NM from Sydney, and then only another 25NM miles to the RPAYC at Newport!! We're so looking forward to catching up with all our family and friends again!