We didn't think that just a picture of Roselle Bay in Sydney would be good enough for you earlier this year whilst Will was in hospital, so sorry for the delay in sending this letter. Will had his hip very well replaced by Dr. Mark Horsley in the Royal prince Alfred Hospital earlier this year.

Many thanks to Elaine Emery who greatly assisted the process for us and helped Will out of hospital and back to the boat. Andy and Kath from Chinook 2 kindly collected Will from the dock , and propped on lots of cushions launched him back onto Atlantia where he recovered for the next six weeks champing at the bit and waiting for Dr. Horsley's final inspection prior to sailing north for Darwin. The recuperation was much helped by the friendship of Steve and Jan from Jolly Jack and Nicki from Gwenn a du, our anchored neighbours in the bay. They took us to meet interesting people and see interesting places and assisted with Atlantia's maintenance. It was much appreciated by the invalid.

Once it was ascertained that the ironwork in Will's leg was not in upside down, as rumored by our British friends, we reluctantly left Sydney and our friends there, including Melissa, Susan's friend, who had just arrived to to take up a post doctorate appointment in Sydney investigating new ways of identifying diseases. It is interesting to note that Australia is in the middle of a mining boom at the moment which makes everything extremely expensive here (65 pence per oz dollar) especially shoes and books which are at least twice the cost for equivalent products in Britain . It is nice to see however, that they are using some of their wealth to employ young British citizens such as Elaine and Melissa in positions of distinction. (even if Elaine does hold an Australian passport as well!)

The cost of the mechanic at Lemon Tree passage was about $80 au per hour which is about twice that charged in Britain, unless we are totally out of date. The yard at which we hauled out though was really quite economic and everyone was very pleasant and helpful, even helping Will finish the single malt whiskey stores. We came out on a railway , which proved perfectly adequate for antifouling.

We took the electric bikes to a car show nearby and they tried to persuade us to enter the bikes as something novel. The bikes certainly caught an interest, mostly from people with arthritic hips, but were never going to compete for prizes with the home built all chrome motor bikes and restored vintage cars

. Some lovely people from the Lions Club introduced us to 'Damper' bread, as cooked by Australians in the outback, in camp ovens. The ovens are made of cut down propane bottles.

The bread is basically unleavened and very simple to cook, so we will probably be cooking dampers from now on Atlantia. It is traditionally eaten with golden syrup.

With our new Jotun antifouling glistening in the sunlight as we healed over, we made our way northward again from Port Stephens up to Coff's Harbour where we had booked into Australia last October. We managed to stop almost every night in a new anchorage , mostly little rivers finding their way slowly into the Pacific Ocean. Each river seems to have a sandy bar at its entrance, and at times we had less than a metre below our keel whilst some of the waves nearby were breaking into white horses over the banks. Just south of Brisbane is an area of channels inside Morton Island, which connects the Gold Coast to Morton Bay ( famous for its bugs). We attempted, successfully, to traverse these creeks on the 'inside passage', but not without grounding twice on the sand. Once close to high tide. A few more buoys and a bit more dredging would not go amiss here. It seems that their provision for marine safety here falls short of the sententious nanny state attitude which appears to direct Australians lives to a high degree. ('Penalties Apply' appears at the end of most dictatorial notices!)

We spent a few days in Brisbane being royally entertained by Michael and Linda Briner, good friends of Margaret's parents, and were taken everywhere of any importance.

Brisbane is a very impressive city built on a river nearly as wide as the Thames in London

Unfortunately the floods earlier this year caused considerable havoc with both lower lying urban areas, and pontoons on the Brisbane River. The marina at Manly, where we stayed for a few days, appeared to be unaffected by the floods although we were beset with a deluge and a considerable wind squall when we were coming alongside the marina berth. Kathy and Andy, who had taken Chinook to Brisbane to sell, kindly took us up to Australia Zoo in a borrowed BMW. This is the zoo created by the late crocodile hunter, Steve Irwin,sadly killed not long ago by a sting ray. Many of his crocodiles had been rescued from dangerous situations, such as roaming the main street of a Queensland town, and are still at the zoo and being shown off by brave, but rather nervous young men throwing the crocs bits of meat.

There was also an excellent show of birds, including white and red tailed , black, cockatoos. There was also a huge condor there, coming to the glove. Very well trained. We never cease to be surprised by the diversity and beauty of bird life in Australia. It certainly beats any other avian population we have come across so far in the world. We have even see a budgie outside its cage!

We were pleased to entertain Diana ( a cousin of cousin Claire and last met in the 1960's) and her husband David, past boss of P and O Resorts, to breakfast on Atlantia. Will's father had acted as 'father of the bride' to Diana many years ago in London when Diana and David had married as young P and O employees. Diana had a photo of Will's father with her, dressed in a morning suit. It was quite nostalgic. It was a pity that time was short with us all, but the Danish pastries were good!!

Again, we day sailed inside Fraser island, famous for its child eating dingo dogs, where we only grounded twice on the sand on the incoming tide, and made Bundaberg, which is famous for sugar, ginger beer and rum. They had been severely affected by the floods earlier this year and the height of the recording tide mark on the dock piles was truly impressive. We had considered booking in at Bundaberg last October but had heard that the Queensland Customs were unwelcoming and over harsh. Apparently this is not quite so true with foreign flagged boats this year but nevertheless having heard other stories causing considerable additional expense we were pleased that we booked in at Coffs Harbour in NSW.

Our next major stop was Mackay marina, where we were a little unimpressed by the distant town , whose impression was only elevated by the adjacent river and despite the very modern but rather expensive marina with very few shoreside facilities for the sailor. We were fortunate enough to sell our folding bikes to a nice couple of Australians, Sue and Tremaine from Cool Sid. We didn't tell the marina otherwise they might have wanted commission.

From there, armed with anchorage information from our new friends we sailed to the Whitsunday Islands. There are long white sandy beaches and hilly islands together with coral reefs free of crocodiles. The reefs seem to have been affected by the recent cyclones and the water was regrettably not very clear. The feeling on the surface was similar to that sailing in the Western Isles of Scotland but with more sunshine. Despite being well north of the tropic of Capricorn again it was still a bit chilly.

We anchored at Magnetic Island just past Townsville and were accompanied by a replica of Captain Cook's Endeavour.

Two days later we saw her sailing north under full sail to the outside of Hinchinbrook Island, she was an impressive sight.

Needless to say we sailed on the inside of Hinchinbrook Island up the channel, which was a bit shallow in places but very smooth water.

We anchored for the night close to some stone Aboriginal fish traps. They were very difficult to make out from the other stones on the point but the book assured us they were there.

Cairns marina was where we stopped next for a night or two and some fuel. We thought the town of Cairns was delightful and the museum was very well put together and informative.

We bought a didgeridoo there decorated with a picture of a brolga (an Australian dancing grey crane). We will learn to play it sometime but have to learn 'circular breathing' first. Apparently if you can play the bagpipes the didgeridoo is a doddle!!

From Cairns to Cooktown was two days of fairly windy sailing, fortunately the forces 8 to 9 were behind us , and although the entrance to the Cooktown river was a bit tricky around a sharp corner, the sails were uneventful from a breakage viewpoint. The anchorage at Cooktown was very restricted and we had to move once or twice to ensure we were floating. Our friends Ken and Wendy from the catamaran Cop Out however were already there. They kindly took us into the town and also up the Endeavour river to see crocodiles basking on the bank. One of the crocs was at lest ten metres long and was resting in the grass at the top of the bank.

The river was obviously named after Captain Cook's survey ship which had been ashore on a near by reef and had been repaired at the village that was to be known as Cooktown in the future at the mouth of the Endeavour River.

A windy sail the next day took us to Lizard Island at the bottom of the east knuckle of Cape York. We spent an extra day here snorkelling on the excellent reef in the centre of the anchorage. There were some very beautiful giant clams there as big as a bar flies body. The lips are purple and look quite intimidating from above, we didn't put an arm inside them in case they wanted to play and hold us under!! It was very calm at the island and we had a very sociable party on Brian's motor yacht. He is from Seattle and has motored all the way across the Pacific to take part in the rally. Big fuel tanks!!

Day sailing again within the relatively calm water inside the Great Barrier Reef up to Seisia on the west side of Cape York and just below the tip.

Seisia seemed to be dominated by a trading coaster at the jetty as well as plenty of red dust. We were pleasantly surprised to find a very well stocked supermarket there, This is obviously new since it is not mentioned in any books or by word of mouth by other sailors.

We sailed for four days and nights in company with Cop Out across the Gulf of Carpentaria and the north of Arnhemland to Coral Bay on the Coburg Peninsula, close to Dundas straight which leads to Darwin. We spent two days resting after a fairly boisterous sail. We used the facilities of the Seven Spirits resort and enjoyed their hospitality. We had a walk in the bush and around a billabong, (in the woods around a pond!) and saw some lovely birds, rainbow bee eaters and a brahmin kite, also a small snake on the path and a wallaby feeding on the lawn.

There had apparently been a ten foot anaconda in the swimming pool in the evening not more than an hour after we had all been dipping. It was a good place to rest up before the final three short day sails to Darwin.

Where we are now!! Off Darwin Sailing Club. We are in Fanny Bay with a six metre tide. The yacht club is very welcoming and provides a launching trolley to take the dinghy over the 60 metres of hard sand from and to the water. The sunset from the Yacht Club grounds is spectacular.

We have now registered with the Indonesian Rally and will set sail next Saturday for Kupang in West Timor. We expect it to take us about three and a half days. The information about Indonesia makes us a bit hesitant about the level of civilisation compared to Australia, but we can obtain an internet stick fairly easily, so we wont have to use cafes or wifi for internet and are less likely to be hacked into. Other than that we must not hand original documents to anyone, (for fear they may be sold off; not on our behalf) and we may have to guess if we are paying the right port dues or not. We are however looking forward to seeing the Kimodo Dragons and the Orang Utans. Meanwhile we will keep taking the malaria tablets. Hope you like the pics

Fair Winds and Safe Voyaging Love ATLANTIA