The end of the shakedown...

16/1/2013

27^o 56.772 S  153^o 25.416 E  “Bum’s Bay” Gold Coast

Motored down this morning to the Gold Coast Seaway and the weather was just right to head out to the Coral sea to at last do some real sailing. He will do 5kn on a beam reach in 10kn of wind.  The genoa is huge and seems set up for light air sailing for such a heavy boat.  Didn’t have any more wind to push the boat anymore but he is quite sea kindly. 

…and here’s the money shot…. 

Scott trolling a lure along Surfers Paradise.

Back in through the seaway and the tide was ebbing so it was pretty confused.  The jet skis we zipping around as we rollicked our way through  and then headed to Bum’s bay for the night. 

Bum's Bay

This anchorage is pretty notorious with cruising yachts and is just a short dinghy ride to Sea World, The Versacci and The Mirage.  To show just what “bums” we’ve become Scott had a wash in the fountain out the front.

This is the end of the shakedown and the list of things to be done has grown to include fixing a leak in the chain locker.  We’ve worked the boat as hard as we could given the conditions and it has held up pretty well.  More importantly, it shows what a couple of duffers can do when on a steep learning curve.    

Just the clean up tomorrow then back home for six weeks. 

I’m sure Scott will supply a review.