Back in Civilisation

The kids with a nesting Green turtle

Haydee with a newly-laid
Green Turtle egg

Cam snorkelling at Lady Musgrave Reef

The tasty lobster

We've had no reliable phone or internet coverage for a few days but are now back in civilisation (we're at Urangan at the southern end of Hervey Bay after an overnight sail on Saturday/Sunday) so Happy New Year!! to everyone. We hope everyone had a great new year's eve and will have a happy and safe 2012.

December saw us cover the most ground of any month so far. We're now where we were just one week after leaving Brisbane back in July and expect to be back home within a week. Three-quarters of us are both happy and sad to be nearly home - I think Shane would just keep sailing forever if we could fund this lifestyle and in no way wants to get back to either home or work.

In the 250 nautical miles we've covered since Christmas, we've been back to Great Keppel, once again traversed the Narrows between Curtis Island and the mainland, revisited Pancake Creek (which wasn't as good the second time around in my view) and - the absolute highlight of recent weeks - made it out to beautiful Lady Musgrave Island. Lady Musgrave Island is on the edge of a beautiful coral reef lagoon. We all loved the few days we spent there and had even more special and memorable firsts - we were privileged to see a number of turtles nesting and Shane had his first (but not, I suspect, last) go at spear fishing with a new friend he made. He brought back three sweetlips and a rather tasty lobster. We also visited Lady Elliot where, sadly, we felt more unwelcome than anywhere else; while the island itself is stunning the resort is quite B grade and the staff are surly. Enough said about Lady Elliot.

We're letting someone else worry about tides, cooking, driving, entertaining the kids and what-not tomorrow and have taken the opportunity to book ourselves onto a day-tour of Fraser Island before we continue our run home through the Great Sandy Strait, back across the Wide Bay Bar for the fourth time and down the coast to Brisbane via Mooloolaba.

Before I sign off, I would like to share a little bit about the absolutely horrendous afternoon poor Cam had today - he plans to blog about it soon. You may have seen on Facebook that he somehow ended up in the water at the marina earlier this afternoon. The poor thing was by himself at the time but somehow managed to haul himself out of the water and back to the boat. After a shower, he dropped his clothes in the wash but managed to leave his marina access key locked in laundry. Some idiot in apartments overlooking the marina told him to shut up when he attempted to yell out to us to let him in, making his afternoon just that much worse - good one, winner. From there, he moved onto a minor panic attack about his scooter which was not in its normal storage spot when he went out to get it this afternoon but was, most fortunately, still in the laundry after we transferred his marina clothes to the dryer. And everything was topped off by our top-opening fridge lid dropping on his head after dinner. I'm happy to report that some sympathy and cuddles, an ice block and teddy made everything okay again. What a day; poor buoy, I mean boy!