Due to work Sue and Karen had to return to the mainland by air on Sunday but the blokes stayed on enjoying as BBQ at the boat club and a trip to the cheese factory and the town of Naracoopa courtesy of Glen's wife who had her car volunteered. The weather window looked good for Tuesday so the crew of 4 set off before the wind turned to the north and enjoyed being blown back in 16 hours. The trip from Queenscliff to Melbourne was also conpleted in record time of 4 hours with strong southwesterlies.

Other highlights were Peter catching a poor little Port Jackson Shark twice, a birthday dinner for Sue at the Currie pub complete with cake and candles, and seeing the local police sergent, Glen, doing donuts in the sailing clubs brand new rescue boat. By Sunday 30th December the sailing club members were making the club spick and span for the arrival of kids from all over for the Stonehaven Cup (International Cadet Dinghy competition. Gangajang (SYC)arrived with a rather shaken up crew having beat into 40kt winds during the night en route from Apollo Bay.

Pottsie took to hoooning around in the dinghie

And Karen got some reading in.

Dovie took to torturing fish

And this...ROb (pictured) and Helga arrived in a S&S 30 from Hastings planning to go down the West coast of Tassy. I'm not sure why Rob didn't just jump in the water.

We arrived at King Island Round mid day to be greeted by Ray, the cafe owner who gave us a quick tour of Grassy ( it didn't need to be long...pop 150) a badly needed cappucino and an intro to his mate next door who makes things out of kelp. We stocked up on milk and bread at the Grassy supermarket, located the pulic phone ...only CDMA and next G work on the island..., checked out the pub and hit the sack early. Next morning I was confronted by this.

We set of at 1500hrs and made it to Grassy 22 hours late which is quite respecable. There was a windshit to the north east at 0100 hr which caused a few unintended gybes and a bit of a disagreement with the auto pilot. Bryan had to come up to sort out the techology.

KING ISLAND DEC 07

Bass Strait is one of the most dangerous stretches of water in the world. The big swells come in from the Southern Ocean to a Strait that was formerely a land bridge between Tasmania and the mainland. When superimposed on the local wave , wind and tide states huge waves can arise. On the Western border of Bass Strait, midway between Cape Otway in Victoria and the North West Tip of Tassy lies King Island. It is large (30 by 80 km) with the main town being Currie on the west coast and the second largest town being Grassy which lies 2/3 of the way down the east coast. The harbour has been built because of a scheelite mine which was in operation until 1997 and will possibly be opened again soon. King Island is famous for its dairy products and crayfish. A great weather window presented itself on 28th December and the crew of Folie A Deux set off out the Port Phillip Heads at 1500hrs and set coiurse in a modaerate southeasterly to King Island.