A perfect day with friends

On Sunday, our good friends Jill and John (Griffo) joined us for a sail. Our departure from Hillarys was delayed slightly as there was a very low tide (did I mention that because of all the building work at the marina, the bridge area has silted up and needs dredging already? As a result, even in the highest of tides, we register just 70cm of water below our keel coming through the bridge opening!!!)

John looked very nautical helming, and Jill had a huge smile on her face.
At one point, heading South towards Scarborough, Jill and I were sitting up at the bow when we spotted a turtle breaking the surface - it was brown and would have been at least a metre long. I've often seen seals and dolphins in that area, but never a turtle before.
Another first for us was 'dropping the pick', which we managed easily, then just sat and had some lunch for a while - very civilised and most enjoyable. I have to say picking the anchor up again seemed to take much longer, with lots of directions being shouted to me at the helm from the bow, but it came up in the end, and off we went back home to Hillarys.

The pen we use at the moment is right on the boardwalk, in front of the take-away food places, and there are always dozens of people milling around watching boats come and go - it is very nerve-wracking to have to manouver 37ft of fibre-glass into a pen with such an audience, and as we all know, things only ever go wrong when someone is watching - I won't go into too much detail, suffice to say that our fenders worked superbly and nothing was broken!
Thanks to John and Jill for allowing me to post their photos here.