Well we have been in this area for about a year now! How time flies.
To all those spending more than a few seconds perusing this blog and site, we wish you Merry Xmas and a happy new year.

Many of our friends are on Facebook, and that along with Messenger has become our default method for communications, particularly mass mailouts of what we are up to. Accordingly our website has taken second place.

We are about to depart in a few days time, sailing with a friend to help deliver his boat from La...
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Well it is the same again, no updates to our blog and photos for a long time!
This is just a brief update so any friends checking on our health know that we are still alive and well.
I am hoping to do a more substantial update with photos before Christmas.
Very briefly we have continued our travels from Kudat, down the west coast of Borneo to Kota Kinabalu, Tiga Island, Labuan, Brunei, Kuching, and then to Sebana Cove on the Santi River, bottom of Peninsular Malaysia.
From here we left the boat f...
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Wow, so much time has gone since our last blog, although we did add photos of our 2015 motorbike trip. Facebook has certainly become our diary of choice, but hope those few of our friends who are not FB users do get to see this website and don't worry when it hasn't been updated regularly.
From our last blog in Bonbonon harbour we continued sailing over the top of Mindanao, Apo, Siquijor, Camiguin islands through to Surigao straits, Siargao Island and Bucas Grande. Another incident here when ...
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Wow time flying very fast as usual, and we are behind in updating this website. We communicate more readily on Facebook and the website seems to get forgotten - my apologies!
Very briefly we left Samal at the start of April 2014, and sailed via Talicud Island, Zamboanga, and then Sandakan in Sabah (Borneo / Malaysia) About 3 days to get to Zamboanga where we stopped for 2 nights to repar a sail, then 2 days more to get to Sandakan. At Sandakan we visited the Sepilok Orangutan Reserve, and Aust...
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A brief update as internet has been particularly bad lately.
All is well with us and we are nearly ready to leave for Borneo / Sabah, then work our way back through Palawan & the Visayas, so that we are back here towards the end of the year, and can leave the boat to fly back to Adelaide for my sister's 50th birthday.
Only excitement since the last post was a jetty collapse on New Year's Eve - about 10 of us fell about 10 feet into the water which was only a foot or so deep. a few cuts & scrape...
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Another update, this is becoming a habit!
We are here in Miri, a short 10 day day holiday as our Philippine visa was getting towards it's limit - when we return we should get another 16 months in 2 month increments. Our trip here was an Air Asia promo, only $22 each way from Manila, plus oncosts, departure taxes, airport charges etc and the flights Davao to Manila return. Never the less good value.
we have had a few long walks here so hopefully lose a few grams of weight. The day before yesterd...
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It has been a long time since we updated our website!!!!! So long that we've forgotten how to do it somewhat and we don't seem able to upload photos. Never mind, we will keep working on that as a separate excercise.
We purchased a 150cc Suzuki Mola motorbike early this year and spent almost 3 months and 6000 kms, touring the Philippines from April to June. Our travels took us through Mindanao to Camiguin, Bohol, Cebu, Negros, Gyimaras, Panay, Boracay, Mindoro and finally Luzon. We had a wonder...
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Uh Oh - it's been 10 months since updating blogsite!! The good news is that we are still alive, with facebook being our more regular forum for updating for posting lifestyle updates. I'll just make this a short post as the dodgy internet connection often lets us down & we lose long postings.
All is well, we are still at Samal Island, near Davao, Mindanao, Southern Philippines. Since our previous post, we flew back to Australia for a couple of months in June & July last year. Returned here in A...
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May 22nd, 2012
We are now in Davao (actually Oceanview Marina, at the very northern tip of Samal Island, near Davao) Mindanao island, Philippines. Internet access is a bit better here, but still have trouble uploading photos to website.
From Lamotrek we had a 5 day trip to Yap in gentle tradewinds. The quarantine officer at entry was Robert, the cousin of Ester from Lamotrek, so there was no problem bringing in turtle meat, turtle eggs, and the other goods we delivered from Lamotrek. We also ca...
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Lamotrek must rate as the highlight of our sailing career. A beautiful lagoon with clear calm water, and a small island at the eastern end with about 380 people living there.  No airport, shipping only every 3 months or so when all is well, but it could be only once a year, and only a handful of yachts visiting.
We had permission from (expatriate) chief Patrick to visit, and reported in to his cousin Chief Manuel on the island, with a gift of 40 lbs of rice, and a few other goodies.  During ou...
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Just a brief update as wifi keeps dropping out. Hope to depart here on Monday, bound for Lamotrec lagoon & Yap (1200 miles) Had a good time here, particularly sailing 20 miles to Nan Madol - google it to see better pictures than we have! Bonus a couple of days later was seeing half a dozen manta rays in a feeding loop, surfacing right next to the dinghy - 3.5 metre wingspan, and close enough to touch. Also had a nice walk to a waterfall and a swim in the pool at the bottom - quite refreshing....
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Just lost my update due to a timeout by the service provider, so will keep this brief! All well in Kosrae, met up with IVALU last seen in Tuvalu, and also 2 other yachts here.
Friendly helpful people, green volcanic island, with mountains forming "the Sleeping Lady".  Have had gifts of bananas, meals, fish, sugar cane, etc. Lovely singing at the church which we hear from the boat. Have caught lots of rainwater & filled the tanks, and also fixed a few little jobs on the boat.
We both went to the...
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Thursday eve, and we are around our friend's place getting some internet access.  Still a bit slow, but not too bad.
We had an easy 6 day trip for the 720 miles from Funafuti to Tarawa, slowing down on the last day so that we would arrive at dawn instead of the middle of the night.
Easy entry into the lagoon, then anchored off Betio (pronounced Beso) and cleared customs immigration, & health, & chased down quarantine the next day.
Did some shopping, internet cafe - the usual things and after a f...
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On Line again, this time at an internet cafe in Tuvalu. No wifi access or mob phones here, so will see how we go.
Since leaving Samoa we had a quiet trip downwind to Wallis Island, taking 4 days to do the 300 odd miles. Basically just drifting on the last afternoon & night so that we would arrive in daylight at low tide, to minimise the currents in the pass into the lagoon. Whereas we had mozzies in Samoa, there were a lot of flies in Wallis, so that was annoying. Plenty of walking to see the ...
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It is Wednesday, and we are still in Apia, Samoa. Have had a good time here, meeting some locals, watching world cup rugby, touring some of the island, etc. On island tour we stopped at a lagoon & hand fed sea turtles that come & go from the ocean - they like white bread very much. Also swam in freshwater spring in a cave, saw waterfalls, & also tsunami damage from a few years ago. Gorgeous little children here, some good fire dancing, lots of rain, & very hot & sweaty. Glad we made a sun awn...
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Hi all, internet seems to be working a bit better today, so a quick update. Just got back into Nieafu, Vavau after a few days cruising around. Had some nice swims over coral, saw a couple of whales, albeit they were about a mile away.
Have remade our rain catching awning, spending about 12 hours to do a really good job.  The following day in about 5 minutes we cut some plugs to block up our scuppers & lo & behold we can catch gallons of water off our entire deck area without the need of the aw...
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Back on line for a while.  We are currently in Vavau, the (almost) top group of islands in Tonga. All issues relating to our knockdown on the way to Tonga are now resolved - dodger stitched up, clothes washed & dried, replacement glass for pressure lantern, AIS replaced, etc.
We have cruised up from Tongatapu through the western islands of the Haapaii group to get to Vavau. An enjoyable cruise in company with Akka some of the time.  Saw whales breaching & had one dive in front of us, about 30 ...
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Hi all sorry long time no action here.
We are now in Tonga, got her on 8th August after 10 day passage from Auckland. Internet access here is a bit awkward, & we haven't been able to get WIFI working yet, so no more photos at this stage.
We had a fairly straightforward trip up from NZ apart from getting a couple of knockdowns in a gale near the Kermadec Islands. No structural damage to the boat, but a lot of bruises to the skipper! Mike was thrown out of the double bed, over the top of the lee ...
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Wow we really haven't been too good at keeping up to date, and this is only going to be brief. From the Marlborough sounds we sailed to New Plymouth on the west coast of the north Island - a fairly ordinary harbour that copped a lot of swell from the Tasman. Found a rat on board who had obviously hitched a ride with us from Picton when we laid alongside the fuel dock for a while. A new friend lent us a car for a week or so which helped us do a bit of shopping & sight seeing, including a tour ...
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We finally managed to leave Akaroa during a brief lull in the weather.  The wind had been blowing from the south west at 35 knots for about 3 days, with only minor respite, and as the long harbour at Akaroa faced south it was impossible to leave in these winds. We had been anchored across the bay at French Farm to stay out of the wind as much as possible, and set off immediately that it went calm.  We motored down the harbour to the entrance where it was quite "lumpy", with the southerly swel...
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We are still in Akaroa. Wanting some consistent southerlies, but now they are here it is hard to get out of the harbour which faces south!  Never mind we have added some photos covering Adelaide to Tasmania, so we are gradually getting more up to date with the website.
We have moved around the harbour here a bit depending on the winds, currently at French Farm on the western side of the bay. Have enjoyed a visit here from Trevor & Ros from Adelaide, and made some new friends at the yacht club....
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Well it is a year since we started this website and we are just getting to know our way around it a bit better.  Have added a lot of photos from both Boat Building, and our Circumnavigation, so that may be of interest to those few people in the world who never got to see one of our slide shows.
Now we must get up to speed with more recent photos (and videos??) to add to the website, but it is going to happen.
We are currently in Akaroa, about 2/3 of the way up the East Coast of the South Island...
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Bluff is a small place famed for it's oysters - there is even a song about oysters from Bluff. Unfortunately the oysters are wild not farmed & the season was closed so we never got to taste a Bluff oyster. We did walk into town, do our washing at a backpacker hostel, top up our diesel tank with 10 litre jerrycans of fuel, eat a few vennison pies, and walk to the top of Bluff peak.  The devonshire tea we were drooling for on the way down from the Bluff was not to be as the 2 food places at Sti...
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We cleared Customs mid afternoon on 19th January 2011, 11 months after leaving Adelaide - not a lot of miles under our belt for 11 months but we did enjoy Tassie. Caught up with old friend Don McIntyre who called by after we had cleared & about to depart. The wind was blowing up the Derwent River so it gave us an increasingly stronger wind on the nose, and having to clear Tasman Island & the East coast of Bruny Island, it would have been an exhausting bash to windward to reach clear ocean. It...

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Life carried on in Hobart & we eventually got our new toilet holding tank from the plastics man at a very reasonable price. Had a battle with Telstra to have the phone we bought from them "unlocked" from their service as we thought that we had bought the phone outright & did not see that we should pay a hidden $100 unlocking fee to use the phone with other simcards as we travelled - success after hours of phone calls & threatening behaviour at the Telstra Shop!

With the Sydney Hobart Race comm...

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Shortly after arriving in Constitution Dock we secured the boat & flew up to Brisbane for a family birthday party - about 36 of us having a BBQ at the dam,playing with a canoe, dinghies, golf, & motor bike.  We stayed on at brother Peter's farm, and because Pete & Ginny were heading over to Thailand for a couple of weeks we spent time here looking after the farm & trying to do a lot of the chores that P & G were having trouble getting on top of - we fed a cat, chickens, 3 dogs, 10 puppies, & ...

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From Waterfall Bay we went past Breaksea Islands into the Port Davey Bay, meeting a significant leftover swell (9 metres 2 days before) but with not much wind.  We motorsailed accross the bay to the northwest before tacking to clear various rocks and islands off the south west point.  From here it was only about 15 miles to the fiirst cape on Tasmania's southern coast, South West Cape. We kept a couple of miles offshore to help avoid the backwash from the cliffs, and then continued our eastwa...
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Friday 23rd April 2010
We had a peaceful night at Schooner Cove, then had a dinghy trip around the bay and a short walk ashore. The Bathurst Channel then took us to a narrow section of water called The Narrows, before opening up again into Bathurst Harbour, a shallow area of water about 5 miles square.  We went to the southern side past Cellery Top islands and into a protected corner called Claytons.  We anchored for the night, not far from another yacht Tammahini who was moored to a short pie...

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We had a few days in Strahan which lies at the northern end of Macquarrie Harbour. Our first chores were to do some washing at the laundromat, and find the leak in the fore deck!!!!!!!!!!!  On the journey from Pearson we were devastated to find drips of water coming through the ceiling above our front vee berths - fortunately it only wetted a couple of magazines which we were able to dry out, but it is definitely poor form to have a leak anywhere on a boat.  The problem was that I had not ful...
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   Written in Hobart 15th May 2010
We had a reasonable hop the first day from Port Lincoln to Memory Cove named for the seamen who drowned on Mathew Flinder's voyage through this area. Thorny passage has significant current flows into and out of Spencer Gulf, as well as meeting the Southern Ocean swells, and is a notorious area in unsettled conditions. The cove was a delightful anchorage with sea eagles overhead, a white sandy beach and clear waters, and a blowhole a dinghy ride away. We walke...

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On our way to Pearson Island tomorrow.
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Let's see if we can add a second entry to this page!
We are still in Port Lincoln, and hope to depart for Pearson Island in a day or so.  Pearson is a granite island with spectacular rocks, seals, sealions, wallabies, and lizards. Crayfisfh in the water but we haven't got wetsuits. It is about 150 miles away, some distance offshore from Elliston on Eyre Peninsular. We will head straight to Tasmania from there so will be out of telephone range for some time - don't know if we can get phone at P...
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Sitting at the marina in Port Lincoln & just trying to set up a website using a free web designer called yola.com.  Hope it works, but so far it seem reasonably user friendly.

Briefly we left Adelaide on 19th February and have sailed (motored a lot) to Wirrina, Bay of Shoals on Kangaroo Island (in company with friends Gary & Moia on Madiba), Americain Beach, back to Bay of Shoals & saw quite a bit of old friends John & Daphne Riley. Moved on to Emu Bay then Snug Cove towards the Western end of...
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