Sirocco under sail

Thanks to Phil and Tina from Mardi !

On the way to Rotto

At anchor, Longreach Bay, Rottnest Island

Cruising in Company to Rotto

Anzac Day weekend saw us cruising in company to Rottnest Island, our first real cruise!
We followed Chris and Sue (Vaya Con Dios, a 40ft Bavaria) through the gap in the reef - very exciting stuff, plus of course we were able to program some invaluable waypoints into our chartplotter!
We anchored up in Longreach Bay, perfect conditions, lovely and warm, I even went for a swim with a huge manta ray beneath me - not the Steve Irwin kind, don't worry :)
We hosted the sundowner aboard Sirocco, joined by Chris and Sue (as above), Phil and Tina from Mardi, and Kay and Garth from Heartbeat, another Bavaria.
After a fun sundowner and a hearty dinner, we retired, only to be awoken at 1am by howling winds, a choppy swell and lots of banging and crashing of waves from the nearby reef....I was in my element and thought it was the best thing since sliced bread, but unfortunately a few of our party got rather green around the gills...next morning we hitched a lift in Mardis' tender to the beach, and walked to the tea rooms for a substantial breakfast - yum - then battled the swell back to our respective boats. As the conditions were really getting worse, we decided to all go home - we motor sailed from Longreach to the marker at centaur reef then switched to both sails for a speedy and smooth return to Hillarys, followed by a BBQ.
Great fun was had by all - thanks to everyone from the Cruising in Company division of HYC, and of course to Bob :) Here's some photos of Mardi and Vaya Con Dios, hopefully I will get some photos of Sirocco on the water soon to post up here.

Mardi

Vaya Con Dios in the distance

Cousin Ann

Cousin Ann is here from UK: she's very experienced, she sails out of Cowes, IOW, UK and has sailed in the Carribean - her partner, Geoff, has a Hunter which he races, so you can imagine, Mike and I were trying to do everything right with her onboard - harder than you might imagine! Anyway, today (Monday 14th April) we had a lovely sail, great conditions, and when Ann stripped down to her bikini we just knew it was a Kodak moment :)

The Intrepid Graham

This post is dedicated to the intrepid Graham - just happened to be there at the right time with my camera when he was going up the mast - what a guy! I am beside myself with envy - my short term ambition is to ascend our mast, but we don't as yet have a bosuns chair :(

Meanwhile, here's Captain Couragous Graham in all his glory....

Really cool sail

Steve and Miriam (Hollandaise) and Bob (my pet yacht rat) joined Mike and I for a really lovely sail today (Sunday).

We bumbled around for a few nautical miles, had awesome bacon sandwiches (which, incidentally, always taste so much better on Sunday morning sails) and a good time was had by all. AT LAST I managed to get a picture of Bob at the helm - slippery character, that Bob.

Steve and Miriam have invited us for a sail on Hollandaise - can't wait! Here's the photographic evidence of our little adventure.

Steve and Miriam cuddle up on Sirocco - what a sweet couple!

Here's Captain Bob and Mike:

Here we are!

I thought it might be fun for those readers with Google Earth to find Sirocco, however this blogsite won't allow me to post the placemark, so here are the co-ordinates:
31°49'20.40"S
115°44'8.52"E
Enjoy!