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Hi All,

Storm Petrel will be heading out of Brisbane Waters tomorrow for a little hop to Sydney. We will be staying at the CYC Wed, Thurs and Fri evening in birth C32 and heading back up North on the weekend. If you are bored one evening and want to have a beer with Jacko and me at the CYC call over to Rushcutters Bay.

NW winds predicted tomorrow and a little precipitation and westerlies and sunshine for Saturday so we are hoping to have some nice sailing and perhaps to spot a Whale or two. Jacko claims the conditions look good on the fish front, but I am not too sure. I will let you know how when got on when we get back.

Cheers,
Mark
Storm Petrel

G'day Mark,
How was your trip down the coast??
If you get bored, feel free to come down to Lane Cove river and check out the progress of the Dawn Breaker, I would love to see Storm Petrel. I may swing by the CYC if I can.
Cheers,
Dawn Breaker.

Back safe and sound after a few days at the CYCA. Where else could you get waterfront accommodation a few minutes from the city centre for $35 a night. Clean, hot showers available 24/7 and a bar with water views and a good bistro.

The sail was just about perfect. The trip down on Wednesday was in a consistent 13-15 knot NW which enabled us the do the 25 nautical miles between my mooring at Pretty beach and the pen at the CYCA at Rushcutters Bay at an average speed of 4.5 knots, which we were pretty happy with. We probably could have gone a bit faster if I had raised the spinnaker but the crew were happy with our progress and I thought the wind at times was not far enough behind the beam to make it worthwile raising my symmetric kite. Not much sea life except albatrosses and a pod of dolphins in the harbor.

The trip back today was also great but with W-NW winds 15-20 knots. Beating was OK because there was hardly any swell. We sailed from Garden Island to Little Box Head (23 n-miles) on a single port tack at an average speed of 4.3 knots. We spotted a couple of whales and some big schools of fish on the way but my mate Jacko failed to catch a single fish with his lure. He blamed my unwillingness to change course to fllow the fish schools.
I couldn't get up to Lane Cove because I had to work at NSW U on Thursday and Friday. But we really enjoyed the CYCA hospitality and some of the interesting sailors we spoke to there. The guy moored next to us in a beautiful canoe sterner 28ft 1930s timber boat had been living at the CYCA for the past two months!

Perhaps our next trip will be North?

Cheers,
Mark
Storm Petrel