Thursday 26^th August, (day 39)

Will tomorrow’s plans come to fruition? After 5 weeks here, we have had enough and need to move on if we are to see and experience all we hope before we must turn around and return home before the monsoons. Will we actually have all we need done? We’ve crossed all our fingers and toes, but we know that we still have some hoodoo to overcome.

Today we saw this squiddly swimming right beside a boat nearest to the pontoon leading up to the ablutions block. 

I promise that we didn’t eat him, although we did enjoy another seafood meal including some saddle-tail snapper, squid and scallops along with an indulgent salad with microgreens for our last night at the marina and the last of my special ‘retirement rum’ to celebrate finally getting going again.

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We took another walk to the rocky headland to inspect the sea conditions and watched a kingfisher near one of the fishing boats.  He was far too quick for my clumsy attempts to video or photograph.

Friday 27^th August (day 40)

I am way behind in my blog writing and attempting this from memory, some notes and calendar entries. We share this laptop and often don’t have the time, the mobile phone signal or the charged batteries to write every day.

We departed Rosslyn Bay at about 11am as we require near high tide to ensure a safe exit in the narrow and shallow channel.  Light winds don’t allow us to dally given we needed to get anchored and settled ready for an early departure tomorrow, so we motored the last few miles to Leek’s Beach. 

As is often the case I lament that we haven’t gone ashore here to explore the beautiful creek.  I have no idea if it is as pristine as it was 12 years ago – somehow, I can’t imagine it could still be so clean and clear with the heavy traffic that people have more expendable income and escaping Covid has seen massive increases in boating.  Geoff and I promise ourselves that we will visit this (and likely other places) on our return trip, but I know how the best laid plans can go awry (for example 5 weeks delay in Rosslyn Bay).