Finally June 1st had arrived.  May had been a hectic month, with the boat hauled out to fit the hydrovane and Lottie and Ed visiting as well as both of us working hard, there had been times when we wondered whether we would indeed be ready to leave on time.  As June 1st dawned, we hadn't really done much to the boat since it came off the hard.  It was still covered in boatyard grime, we still needed to stow the mountain of provisions we had as well as sort out our personal stuff. 

We did have all the sails on through (having finally raised the staysail) and had a little play with the hydrovane.  Our biggest concern with the continued seepage from the properller seal but we had been assured that it wouldn't sink us !  

For the day we decided to set out sight low and agreed that the primary target would be to be on board and sleep on the boat Saturday night.  We packed up the house and the remaining bits and pieces (including the paddleboards) we needed and headed over to the yacht club.

On arrival we moved everything down to the boat and squuezed it all inside.  Heidi did an amazing job of finding homes for everything and we were pleased to see that, even set up for four weeks, Betrue still had plenty of space to spare.    The next few of hours we spent making sure we were ready to go. We decided that we wouldn't try and push all the way to Montague harbour but instead, get up to around Sidney for the night.  By mid afternoon, we cast off and started heading north.  With a reasonable breeze we set all sail and were incredibly impressed at how well she performed with the cutter rig; we reckoned we were getting upwards of a knot extra speed and she felt more settled in the water; a good sign for the future.  

As we headed up we discussed our options.  We had to refuel so headed into Van Isle Marina at Sidney around 7:00.  After this we thought we would chance our luck at the visitor dock for the clubs outatation at Sidney (Tsehum Haven).  Luckily there was no one else on the dock and after some pretty nifty docking form Heidi, we were able to walk to the Stonehouse pub for a well deserved celebratory meal for getting off and plan our next day.