Stand by

OK, stand by for the latest:
Sirocco is moving pens!
You'll find us on P Jetty! :-)
*Jan is busy splicing ropes in readiness*

Progressive dinner

In July, Cruising in Company held a progressive dinner - which, for some reason, I volunteered to organise....in a nutshell, 12 yachts participated, divided into three groups: entree, main and dessert....so, each boat hosted two other couples for a course. The theme was 'Heroes and Villains'.....I have to say, despite losing a shoe and spilling half a glass of a rather nice red because I was barefoot by the end of the night, it was GREAT fun!
Here are some photos that Phil and Tina (our esteemed Cruise Captains) took.......hmmmmm.....Just to explain - Mike was Mr Incredible - I was Cruella DeVille.....

Why winter is wonderful (sometimes)

Just love winter days like today. Blue sky, bit of a breeze, not too cold, perfect.
One of the things about sailing is that it's ok not to have a destination - just head on out and have a sail, which is exactly what we did today! Was shown that it is in fact perfectly ok to head North inside the reef - not only is it ok, but it's also deeper and therefore WAY less frought. Always a good thing, not being frought....
And, guess what - nothing broke or leaked - again, always a good thing!

Poor Sirocco

Mikes technical bit update....
It is said “Buy a second hand yacht and you inherit other people’s problems, buy new and get peace of mind”.....Do you??
On our return from Mindarie with Phil & Tina, we noticed that one of the clips from the main sail to the mast had come off the slide. Investigation showed that the mast slider had split and allowed the sail attach clip to come out. Once we were safely tied up in the pen I checked the others to find that 2 more had split and several more were about to!! The implication of this failure happening out at sea in our fresh Easterly winds could have resulted in a shredded sail and big dollars!! This problem has now been partly fixed under warranty by the replacement of the 3 broken ones. As our confidence is not high with the plastic sliders holding, we aim to upgrade to metal sliders before the summer season starts.
The hatch water leak has been investigated. It looks like it has been there for some time as the headlining backing ply is rotten and has the consistency of paper from where the water was coming in! I have tried in vain to seal it with silicon sealant, this problem is also in the hands of the brokers for fixing as a warranty job.
I have noticed that the swim steps cover off the stern has cracked. I feel it is a design fault as the cover is only supported at its side, thus standing on it to get in or out bends and flexed it and caused it to crack the gel coat, this will be a warranty claim and will be done when the window is fixed.
After 7 months of waiting, we at last have the correctly ordered blue salon covers to replace the striped covers she came with, they look much better now.
The wire loom, Ammeter and stop switch for the wind generator are all fitted. With all the rain & winds we are having right now, I have decided to fit the mast and supports when things improve. We also have a small 300 Watt 12 Volt heater for those cooler evenings we will spend on Sirocco away from the Marinas mains power.

Lunch this time!

On Monday Mike, Phil, Tina and myself sailed again to Mindarie - this time for lunch!

It certainly was an interesting trip; going we had about 20-25 knot winds on the nose, white caps on the ocean and probably should have had a reef in the main. However, we all quite like being heeled over :)

After lunch we reefed the sail in ready for the onslaught as it was even windy inside the harbour, but lo and behold, we got out into the ocean and it was as flat and calm as can be!

We saw a couple of seals, but no dolphins this time.

A great sail, with great company, weather/commitment permitting, we shall do it again soon.

Music to sail by

Due to the lack of sailing (trip to Adelaide and crappy weather on return) I thought I'd share my list of favourite songs to listen to whilst sailing. The list is by no means exhaustive, nor is it an indication of my musical preferences as I believe, quite passionately actually, that ALL music is valid - anyway, enough of that - here's what's in my iPod under the heading 'sailing songs' I'd love to upload them as mp3s so you can hear them too, but, alas, I haven't worked out how to do that yet!

Southern Cross - Crosby,Stills and Nash

Wooden Ships - Crosby, Stills and Nash

Errol - Australian Crawl

Sloop JohnB - Beach Boys

Sailing - Christopher Cross

Orinoco Flow - Enya
Great Southern Land - Icehouse
Sailing - Rod Stewart
6months in a leaky boat - Split Enz
Beautiful Day - U2
Ship of Fools - World Party
Songs You Know by Heart - Jimmy Buffet (compulsory for sailing and quite good fun)
cheeseburger in paradise
son of a son of a sailor
a pirate looks at forty
changes in latitudes
why don't we get drunk
boat drinks
Love Shack - B52's (nothing to do with sailing but I like it)
A Case Of You - Joni Mitchell (again, not a sailing song but I love it to death and hey, it's my blog)
Carmina Burana - Carl Orff (just coz it's great LOUD)
The entire cd Nouveau Flamenco - Ottmar Liebert (because I am the only person I know who doesn't hate it - my family have frisbee'd two copies but I always manage to replace it)
Sailing By - Band of the Welsh Guards
Sea Shanties - Band of HM Royal Marines


Those last two? Ha.....didn't know I used to play principle trombone in a brass band, did you? Anyway, IF I ever work out how to upload music I shall, just for your enjoyment.
Meanwhile, let's hope the weather improves soon!
'Til then, fair winds and all that :)

Just popping out for a coffee......

Today Phil (of Phil and Tina (Mardi) fame) and I took Sirocco north to Mindarie. It's a lovely little trip, only an hour or so away and the easterlies did us proud, so it was a delightful sail. We could have decided to drive there, but with petrol at over $1.60 a litre, I think sailing there was much more environmentally friendly - in fact, I think I'll call it my "offset" against my flight to Adelaide next week!
We arrived at the little Marina, came alongside, hopped off, had a super cup of coffee at the 'Dome' then sailed home. What fun! Talk about arriving in style :) Here's the photographic evidence