(no subject)

Hi everyone,
We are still at Marsden Cove with gales blowing, a gale warning out for coastal areas and anxious conversations with fellow voyagers!! The English boat ("Pickles") left today as did the German/Polish couple and a German catamaran called "Sputnik"!!! "Pickles" with 4 children on board was going to Fiji so would have had a better wind angle. We are still awaiting these elusive SW winds but at the time of writing we are still getting NW! Albeit lighter. We hope that overnight there is a W-SW change as we are supposed to clear Customs tomorrow morning. One feels between a rock and a hard place because if we delay too long we'll get caught up by a particularly nasty low pressure system advancing rapidly towards us across the Great Australian Bight. And then we'll be here for another duration. So we need to get going and get far enough north to clear the low and get into the SE trades which should waft us north!! It's a real balancing act.
So, in the morning early we'll go to the fuel dock to top up our diesel before the wind gets up and makes manoeuvering around the marina (which is windswept at the best of times) quite fraught. Then we'll berth again and await Customs. We need to lash the anchors, dinghy and rig the jacklines. These latter to stop us going overboard! Then we're away - only with the proviso that the weather is a little kinder than it has been.
As always watch this space.
Cheers
Jim and Gina

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