Exam Results

The wait is over - the postman came yesterday with our VHF radio operators licenses!
It seems I am not as thick as I thought, as I achieved a staggering (for me) 96%!
Oddly enough, Mike scored the same, which is exactly what happened when we both sat for our RST earlier this year. Synchronicity?

Back in Freo

UPDATE:
Sirocco is back in Fremantle having davits made and fitted.
We were so impressed by the work that Keith Scott (Scotty) did initially (dodger and bimini) so he is making davits for us. Mike and I took Sirocco to Freo last Friday, and she is now on the Fremantle Sailing Club work jetty. Scotty has almost finished the steel work, so hopefully, I will be able to sail her home one day next week. How exciting! Stay tuned for photos :-)

Mini-cruise to Fremantle

October 10th saw us cruising to Freo, with Phil and Tina as our guests. We went down to attend an inter-club cruising in company dinner, hosted by Fremantle Sailing Club, and stayed overnight on their collector jetty.

For the first time, our section mascot, Nigel, came with us. I think he enjoyed it. He didn't say otherwise.

A few weeks ago our club had a quiz night, where one had to come dressed as something beginning with P, Mike was a Pheasant Plucker, and Nigel his pheasant. (Yes, I know it looks like a duck, but please, work with me here and use your imagination!) to cut a long story short, Mike won best-dressed on the night and rather than throw Nigel out, I donated him to Cruising in Company as a mascot. Why is he called Nigel? Aha......ask Kevin Bloody Wilson about that one...

Open Day

HYC had Open Day on 5th October, and the theme for the sail-past was "Musicals".
Sirocco (as you can see above) looked fab dressed up as 'The Boy From Oz'.
We dressed up ourselves, trying to look as Peter Allen like as possible, with hawaiian shirts knotted at the waist, and sparkly spandex cumberbunds, and stood on deck waving Ozzie flags, all to the strains of 'I go to Rio' . Great fun!

Tick that one off my list

I finally got to do something today that I've been wanting to do for ages - get winched up the mast in a bosuns' chair! We needed to fix a pully and some rope to put our burgees on for Open Day this Sunday, so, with the advice and guidance of Graham (who you may remember from earlier posts as being something of a hero) up I went, only to the lower spreaders I'm afraid, but next time I plan on going right to the top. Mike did a sterling job on the winch, good job he had his Weetbix that morning!

Whale watching

Monday saw us sailing in light but lovely conditions for a few hours, tracking down whales.
We'd heard that some were about, way out past the 30 meter contour to the south, so off we went in search the migrating Southern Rights.
I'd really like to report that we saw a mum with two calves frolicking in the sunlit waters, eyeing us with curiosity and venturing close to get a good look at us.....and let's face it, if I did write that, you wouldn't know any different, would you? But, I cannot tell a lie - we saw zero, zilch, nada....
We had a great sail though!!!

Freddie 'n stuff

Guess what, we now have a lovely Quicksilver inflatable tender with 4hp Mercury engine! We got a great deal from Challenge Marine who gave us the special Boat Show price without us even having to go to the boat show!
As Quicksilver are made by Mercury, and the motor, there really was only one name we could give it: Freddie. As in Freddie Mercury. Late of Queen. Bohemian Rhapsody? Oh come on, you know.
Having realised that at 2.75m it's too big to inflate on deck, we are now getting quotes for davits (or deviates as Mike insists on calling them).
We spent last Sunday zooming up and down the channels in the marina in Freddie, great fun!