As I mentioned before HaveFun had prepared an excellent voyage plan with nav notes and strip maps.

MorningBird brought along his Garmin chart plotter, iPhone with Navionics and 8 or 10 Easy meals. Check them out here.

http://easymeals.net.au/

They are really quite good if you do not get the ones with any sort of pasta or rice in them. The beef stroganoff and the beef bourginon are great if you have spuds and peas on the side.

Before embarking on a voyage such as this, protocols have to be set so there are no surprise disagreements along the way. I went through everything on the boat with HF and MB so that they knew we had all the necessaries aboard and then we had a sit down talk with plunger coffee and biscuits to set the ground (or should I say water) rules.

HaveFun was appointed Chief Navigator, Morning Bird was appointed Sailing Master and I was appointed Chief Engineer, cook, bottle washer and arse wiper.

This prompted the question from MorningBird, "Does that include head jobs??" I responded with, "Definitely not, and there is no barrel on board that we have to take turns in either." So we have a crew with a sense of humour.

On the serious side, as I was the Master and owner of the vessel, and therefore responsible for the safety of the vessel and crew, I stated that we would do things by consensus but that I would have veto or if you like final say.

Life aboard a ship at sea is not democratic. It is autocratic, ie one person has supreme authority with which goes supreme responsibility.

We each agreed on this structure.

So here we are, about to slip the lines and adventure forth.





HaveFun had been quite insistent that our bridge opening and therefore departure from the Swansea Channel should be at Noon. I disagreed based on the tide time at Fort Denison (1300 hrs), Swansea Heads 15 mins later and the continued tidal in stream to Lake Macquarie for 3 to 4 hours after. I had booked a 3 pm bridge.

The day before I had organised the "Big Guns" ie Local Knowlege Guys to be there at the dock before we left so the arguement could be settled. Without too much fuss we left the dock and headed out on the Lake.

It was an absolutely gorgeous day with the locals either on or beside the water just having a fat old time on Easter Monday. Just beautiful and I will never forget that day. We got the main sail cover off, hoisted the main, rolled out the header and around 2:30 pm we entered the channel.

People were fishing from tinnies, sailing yachts, young guys impressing their half naked spunkettes on their speed boats, fathers teaching their kids how to jet ski and families having pic nics on the beach. It is so rare that one sees this happening en masse. Lake Macquarie is one of the most beautiful places in the world, no doubt.

So here we are putt putting down the Swansea Channel with the tidal stream against us (better than with us) headed for our 3 pm opening. There is a 40 odd foot racing type yacht on the courtesy mooring doing nothing and we are a tad early and do circles. Finally the traffic stops and the bridge opens. Protocol is incoming vessels go first.

Approach.



Bridge is open but let the incomers go first.



Then it is our turn.



On MorningBirds advice, "Always have your mainsail up at least when crossing a bar in case you have an engine failure.", we had the mainsail up. Good advice but not in this case.

A booming voice from the bridge controller says "Vessel approaching the bridge. Reef your sail." Whoops, quick turn around and drop it.

OK. Here we go. The bridge opening is quite impressive. It made me think and ask the question "Is this the 'Gate to Paradise' or 'The Jaws of Hell' ??

Coming in the former, going out to bad weather, the latter.



That is all I have got in me tonight folks. Off to Brisbane tomorrow and back Saturday arvo. Catch you then.