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Tuesday, January 12, 2016

Slipping Away

Mindful of the need to start moving again and certainly reaching Brisbane in 6 weeks, we decided that despite the existence of still more social engagements, that there would always be something to hold us in Sydney. Eventually one has to break free. A brief southerly weather window might make our 'break out' sail a pleasant prospect and so long as we could solve the problem of the leaking exhaust muffler gasket, all the fuel, water and food supplies were already on board.

We are very grateful to the Clontarf Marina mechanics who knew what we were looking for and cut a new gasket of the correct thickness for us at no charge! Yes, for free! Seeing as we'd had a few attempts to fix this already and were in a total funk over it, The Bloke might have been prepared to pay almost anything for a replacement part. At least we finally knew what it was that we were looking for. It wasn't the manifold, it was a part of the Venturi (sic) elbow box of the engine exhaust muffler and not actually a Yanmar or Jeanneau part.

 
Checking if the bilges were still dry after the 'fix'.
Praying? Maybe just a little bit.

Our departure time was governed by when the Spit Bridge is raised. Midweek, the first lift is at 10:15 so we were off the marina jetty smartly at 10:00 to join the queue and then hopefully pick up what was left of the southerly to push us along to Pittwater before it petered out. There had been a nasty accident earlier on the traffic pinch-point created by the bridge approach. Some poor people had their day suddenly and radically wrecked. The traffic jam didn't ease and it became evident that something very serious had occurred when a helicopter landed to perform the medivac. The Bridge controllers announced to the circling vessels that there would be a 20 minute delay to assist with the congestion. Boat ballet followed. The delay ended up being 40 minutes and we expected that 'our wind' would be missed but on the scale of what had caused the delay, it was small fry!

Our patience was rewarded with a fabulous cruise up the coast and we can't complain about that!

 The Bloke's pleasure at a lovely sail is evident.

 
False Head.
We were sailing close in-shore - because we could.

Clues as to how the land was made.
Always fascinating.

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