Sunday 6th March Hurricane Bola has recurved and headed for New Zealand. The met man was wrong. That is why we are getting such heavy seas. The wind is 45 knots now but luckily still behind us. We have taken sown all sail except a very small headsail and we are still doing 6 knots. Soren says his underpants, which he left out during the good weather are making us go so fast as they are bigger than the sail.

Monday 7th March Dave and Soren do watches together and I and Bente, during the night watch Bente said she couldn't believe that we could be knocked so far over by waves and still keep coming upright. We took one very heavy wave on the stern which broke off the Aries ply wood vane. Poor Dave had to crawl out into the storm to replace it. The seas are still big and we are surfing down the waves at 8 knots. The wind is still strong but luckily behind us. The radio says New Zealand is being devastated by the worse hurricane for 15 years.

Tuesday 8th March Still windy. We are making 150 miles per day and are over half way. It is very difficult cooking in these conditions, but luckily everyone except me is keeping their food down, and enjoying 3 meals a day.

Wednesday 9th March It is still very windy. We are lucky that we were on the safe semicircle of the hurricane. We put the wind on the quarter and ran, just like Bill Littlewood instructed us during our Yachts master Ocean course at the HYC 5 years ago. It worked Bill! We decided to try a little mainsail and Dave went on deck to unroll it a little. He said the wind is not so strong. Dave got radio Australia on the Sony today, the hurricane has caused a lot of damage in the Bay of Islands. It is an open windy anchorage at the best of times I'm glad we are not there. We hope our friends are alright. The alternator stopped working today, it doesn't like running in salt water.

Thursday 10th March Dave fixed the alternator this morning. The wind dropped suddenly and we were almost becalmed. It's strange after all the wind we have had. With the calm came the dolphins, dozens of them, jumping and tipple tailing, our passengers were delighted with their antics.

Friday 11th March We had wind again today and sped along at 6 knots with a force 5 from the SE. Suddenly we saw clouds building up and a squall hit us. We took all the sails down for the night as the wind is now from the west 35 to40 knots and we don't want to beat into it.

Saturday 12th March We started sailing at 07.00hrs but have been taken south by the East Australian current so that it is unlikely that we can make Sydney in daylight. We saw a school of whales today, the first we have seen since the Bay of Biscay. The wind is going west, so we will have to beat into Sydney. We decided not to enter Port Jackson (Sydney) in the dark but to hove to and start to sail again before daylight.

Sunday 13th March We had to tack all the way into the harbour against a west wind. There was a boat race going on ad we had to sail around them to gain the entrance. We called the customs on the VHF and anchored in Watson's Bay to await their arrival. After we had cleared we all went ashore for a well deserved beer.

Monday 14th March We weighed anchor and sailed up the harbour towards the Opera house and Harbour Bridge. After our Danish passengers had taken photos we sailed into Rushcutters Bay, to the Cruising Yacht Club of Australia, to avail ourselves of the 2 months honorary membership offered to overseas visitors.

Tuesday 15th March Our passengers left today and we went into town to do some shopping. It was strange to be in a big city again, the largest one since Panama. Over the next few days the weather slowly deteriorated and it started raining causing flooding over the greater part of New South Wales. We worked on the boat and when the rain finally stopped in April headed down river to Watson's Bay, where we planned to leave and go direct to Brisbane.

Wednesday 24th April We got a good forecast this morning 100 to 15 knots SE so we set off north. We were only doing 4 knots. After 24 hrs we received a gale warning and headed for Port Stevens, 12 miles away. We were detained there for 3 days by gales and 2 days of calm before setting sail once more for Brisbane. Another 24 hrs found us becalmed again and we decided to put into Coff's Harbour and wait for the wind. There is a marina in Coff's Harbour and it looked very festive as we motored in and took a berth. The people on the next boat told us that the Tall Ships, including the Bounty and Eye of the Wind, were due in the harbour in 2 days time. As we had missed them in Sydney we decided to stay and see them. They looked magnificent sailing in convoy into the harbour, and a great feeling of festivity was in the air. We were glad that we had made the stop.

Saturday 14th May We set off north again for Southport. 50 miles south of Brisbane, but as usual the wind died, we decided to motor for a while. Dave caught a 20lb tuna at dusk.

Sunday 15th May Still motoring and Dave caught an even bigger tuna. We arrived 10 miles off Southpoirt at 20.00hrs and hove to until 03.00hrs. A light SE came in the morning and we sailed through the harbour entrance and took a mooring off the yacht club. Our primary reason for going to Brisbane was to see Expo 88; however we had to make a decision. Brisbane lies 52 miles down river from Port Moreton, 40 miles across Moreton bay and 12 miles down the river. Moreton bay is very similar to the Wash, with shifting sandbanks and a winding channel. From Southport to Cape Moreton by sea was 60 miles, however there is an inland passage through the Broadwater which is 40 miles long to the river entrance. We draw 5ft6ins and in order to go up the Broadwater we would have to work the tides as some parts of the channel only had a metre and several boats we had met had kept running aground. We were still undecided when our friends from Hull who had visited us in New Zealand turned up to visit us again.

They solved our dilemma we would visit Brisbane in their car. We spent 3 days visiting Brisbane, visiting Expo, buying charts and getting visas for Papua New Guinea. Our friends left to drive north and we arranged to meet them at Shute Harbour in the Whitsunday Islands. The passage was 550 miles and we would sail along the coast to Great Sandy Island then enter the Barrier Reef. By the Capricorn passage. The further north we sailed the closer the reef would get to the mainland. We called the Seaway tower at Southport and he said the bar across the harbour was relatively calm, so with a forecast of 15 to 20 knots SE we got underway. Relatively calm was a bit of an understatement as we found out when we surfed out of the harbour entrance on the breakers . We were sailing well with headsail, main and mizzen and doing 6 knots. We had to keep within 10 miles of the coast as the East Australia current runs south at up to 4 knots and is about 15 to 20 miles off shore.

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