Forward View

We expect to spend December and January at Mooloolaba on the Sunshine Coast north of Brisbane then move down to Scarborough for February, March and much of April. We will replace the standing rigging (the wires that hold the mast up), which is now 10 years old and will lift the boat out of the water in April.

We expect to fly back to the UK in February for about 2 months. We may even fit in a skiing trip!

We anticipate starting to head north around Anzac Day (25 April), which is when perceived wisdom says that cyclone danger is passed. Having sailed as far north as Cairns during 2007 we will probably go there with few stops on the way to give ourselves time to visit more of the Great Barrier Reef north of there before rounding Cape York and crossing the Gulf of Carpentaria to Arnham Land and Darwin.

From Darwin we hope to visit the Kakadu National Park and those parts of the Kimberley accessible by land. We woud have liked to cruise the Kimberley but this would virtually commit us to leaving Australia fromBroome in Western Australia and transitting the Indian Ocena via Christmas Island and Cocos Keeling, rather than heading to SE Asia.

We are booked to participate in the Sail Indonesia rally which leaves Darwin in July for Kupang in Timor (Indonesia) and on towards Singapore, Malaysia and Thailand. We should be in Langkawi or Phuket by Christmas.

We anticipate quite a lot of land touring in SE Asia, probably sbasing the boat in Phuket and/or Langkawi for about a year.

We are tending towards crossing the Indian Ocean and heading down to and round the Cape of Good Hope, rather than the route to and up the Red Sea. Early days yet!