04 July

So this is what cruising should be like!.  We left the dock with little drama now we have a new spot, far easier to get out of and motored out of the harbour.  After hoisting sail, we started heading towards Pedder bay.  Very little wind to start with but after a little while the wind picked up enough to keep us moving.  The weather was pleasant and the sailing was relaxed, in a word, wonderful. 

As we headed towards rocky point the wind starting veering (?) to the west which led us more and more to quarantine cove.  The wind also started to pick up a little.  We were still relaxed through as we tacked out to get a peak in the Pedder bay estuary.

Happy that we knew where Pedder bay was we turned tail as the weather looked like it would turn and headed back to port.  A great reach back saw us back in port in no time and a trouble free run into the harbour completed a relaxed and very pleasant sail.

05 July

Time to tackle the halyards.  As mentioned earlier in the blog, both halyards were showing their age and we had decided it was important to replace them.  After measuring I went to Trotac )our local chandlery) to get the requisite lengths we headed back to the boat.  We stitched the first (jib) halyard to the old one and then slowly raised the new halyard.  It was with great relief that we saw the new halyard come out of the base of the mast.  Then we did the same for the mainsail halyard.  We now had two good halyards going up the mast giving us confidence that the mainsail wasn't going to let go in a blow and we can go up the mast with the bosuns chair that came with the yacht.

06 July

Heidi had wanted to make sure that we had a functioning head.  There was a little leak in the intake valve and so I went back to Trotac and bought a service kit for the toilet.  The rest of the day I took the toilet out and we took it all apart.  Glad that it clearly hadn't been used for a long time.  It took most of the day but between us we got it all apart and put it back together with all new gaskets.  Heidi is now much happier that we not only have a fully functioning head but we know every square inch of it so if anything goes wrong we should know how to fix it with ease (if not cleanly!!)