It is January 1999; after our first incredible year of cruising we are enjoying a busy off-season, living peacefully aboard Dione at Lawrie’s Marina in Mooloolaba while we wait for the 1998-99 cyclone season to peter out. We both have casual work and that is helping with preparations to Dione for next season's cruise to New Caledonia and perhaps Vanuatu. But what have we been up to this season?

The last ten months seem to have flown by. It seems like yesterday (…okay, last week!) that we left Sydney. I think that was the hardest thing to do of all - to actually say that's enough, we are as ready as we will ever be, it's time to set sail. There are always more jobs to be done on a sailing boat - it is a dynamic environment; one that adapts to new conditions and needs - a boat is never ''finished''. There is always more money to be earned, too. So there comes a time when everyone intent on cruising has to say ''we have enough; those jobs can wait''. For us, that time came when our good friends Bruce and Barbara, who at that time sailed the stunning New Zealand ketch Sassafras, pointed out that we had spent almost three years ''preparing'' already. Were we, perhaps, perennially putting off leaving? Weatherly, a long-term neighbour at D'Albora's Marina in Sydney's Middle Harbour, was leaving for Europe next month; our friend and neighbour Roger, on Whimaway, had already left for Australia's lovely Whitsunday Islands. Our friends were right. It was time to stop talking and start sailing. Sassafras was headed to Hamilton Island in the Whitsundays before crossing to the Solomon Islands for winter. We decided to wrap up our city lives then join them at Hamilton Island.

Glen handed in his notice; I shopped and re-packed and stowed and shopped some more. We had been moored at D'Albora's Marina at The Spit, Mosman, in Sydney for eighteen months, spending the last six months in a slip (AKA 'berth' - more convenient but not as private as a mooring) to access power during the interior refit. When the time came to tell the Marina we were leaving, they kindly gave us a visitor's slip for a week at no charge. We had enjoyed our stay here in Middle Harbour immensely, with its access to wonderful weekend hideaways, Sydney Harbour and the Parramatta River, all within an hour or two from our home mooring. Being just fifteen minutes by bus or car to the centre of Sydney and even less to Sydney's pretty northern beaches didn't hurt either. But a city is a city and there was a whole world to explore outside Sydney Heads.

We made our ''left turn at North Head" on April 18, 1998. The Weather Bureau had been forecasting a ''southerly buster'' to blast up the coast from Tasmania overnight, and rip through Sydney at 3 pm on the 18^th. We thought we would let it pass and jump on the back of it for a fun ride up to Broken Bay, fifteen nautical miles north of Sydney Harbour and our first cruising ground. D'Albora's Marina is on the inside of a road bridge that stops traffic hourly to let boats pass underneath. We slipped away from the Marina for the last time and went through into Sydney Harbour on the one o'clock opening. We were free!

The city Waterways authority has set (pink) moorings on the outside of the bridge for boats to use while waiting to pass into Middle Harbour. We tied up to one and spent the next two hours putting out jacklines, harnesses and winch handles, and putting away sail covers and loose items, while we waited for the southerly to 'hit and run'. Believe it or not, forty knots of cold front struck Dione at precisely 3 pm! Amazing. The rain traveling with the front sizzled down the spit like a jet, obliterating the whole harbour; we couldn't see to the bow. But as fierce as it had been, the front passed quickly overhead and moved on up the coast, leaving a clean fresh smell and dazzling blue sky. We let go the mooring and motored past familiar landmarks, wondering what lie ahead, equivocal for a time about the sanity of our adventure, nervous and excited at the same time.

From Sydney, the sail to Broken Bay is short, straight-forward and pretty - an ideal way to start any cruise. Broken Bay is formed by the Hawkesbury River, which travels from many miles west of Sydney to the ocean at Barrenjoey Head, and its many branches and offshoots. One of these offshoots, The Pittwater, lies north-south just a few hundred metres inside the heads. The Hawkesbury River meets The Pittwater at right angles just before it empties into the sea. The Pittwater itself is a wide, deep body of water that parallels the southern coast of Broken Bay. It is home to thousands of small craft and our 'spiritual' sailing home - we learned to sail on The Pittwater and bought both our boats here as well.

We caught up with Sassafras in The Pittwater and we enjoyed several wonderful days in the company of our friends while we all waited for the right weather to continue north. Bruce helped Glen re-fit the inner forestay, which had been cut ten inches too short by an incompetent rigger. They also fitted tough new tangs to the mast for the running backstays and I made up a pair of runners for them to fit while up the mast. The pleasure of spending time with good friends is the best part of the cruising lifestyle. Having each other over for lunches and dinners, going for walks ashore, fishing quietly together off the back of the boat or out in the dinghy, or just lying on deck together listening to soft music and reading a book about some exotic island - pure magic.

Sassafras left after three wonderful days - they had a schedule to meet and couldn't wait for 'perfect' weather. We waited another three days for a better weather window. Port Stephens is sixty-five nautical miles further north and the place Glen and I met and got to know each other. The forecast was for ten to fifteen knots, northwest to west. The coast here lies southwest to northeast, so a northwesterly would give us a close-ish reach; being an offshore breeze the sea would be calmer too. A westerly would be simply perfect! Thinking we were in for a pleasant and fairly quick passage, we made our way out of Broken Bay at 7am on a clear, mild Saturday morning. Oddly, it seems that the best laid plans of mice and sailors come to grief as soon as the decision is made to leave a comfortable anchorage!

Dione sails quite well to weather (thankfully, as we do it often enough!)  but only up to fifteen or so knots true wind speed. After that, seas build enough to make the ride uncomfortably rough and wet. The East Australian Current sets south the full length of this part of the coast. It can run up to three knots at it's worst, and is a real factor on any trip north, especially in a following breeze, which opposes the current and produces awfully short sharp waves on top of the established swell. Today things were not so bad as the wind was from the northerly quarter and throughout the morning we trucked along happily on an energetic but not boisterous ocean. As predicted, the wind rose during the afternoon until by 5 pm we had twenty to twenty-five knots apparent and not only was the ride rough, it was just plain nasty.

With two reefs in the mainsail and half the genoa furled away, Dione hobby-horsed through the head sea. One moment we were a submarine, the next a breaching whale, shaking spray from the bows, before plunging into the next trough with a resounding BOOM, spearing a 'V'-shaped wall of seawater high into the air. Boat speed was down to four, maybe five knots, but with the current against us, speed over the ground was even less. Though the weather hadn't changed at all, the afternoon seemed a whole lot gloomier than the morning had. It was simply a case of grit your teeth and get on with it. And so we did; for another nine hours. Happily, the wind eased off sometime around 6pm and remained at fifteen or so knots until the next day.

We made a good landfall off the twin peaked headlands of Port Stephens half an hour before midnight. Never having entered the Port before, and knowing very strong currents ran in the entrance, we were grateful that the tide had turned in our favour and we ran safely in between the southern headland and a central rocky islet, glad for the calm waters and clear night. Shallow tidal races are a feature of Port Stephens so we picked our way very carefully from buoy to buoy along the channel leading to Nelson Bay - the port proper. There are walled marinas along the waterfront of the Nelson Bay township but we were planning to anchor off the beach in the lee of a headland if we could. The wind had other plans, though we didn't know it then. A few hundred metres from the town beach, to the south, is a little crescent of sand known as Fly Point Beach. There are several public moorings set off the beach here but all were taken. We ended up anchoring behind the moored boats - shoreward slightly - but in four to five metres of water. Though we had set the anchor in between the lays of two other boats, the wind veered during the night so that we were lined up right behind another cruising boat that was on a public mooring. We weren't close, though, so there was no problem; we thought.

Aside from damage to the windless due to the severe load cause when Moonshadow struck Dione in the bows, and a plate-sized ding in her topsides, Dione was only damaged cosmetically. Moonshadow, unfortunately, did not fare as well. Despite her obvious solid construction, the impact with Dione's bows had smashed her massive timber bulwarks and splinters of timber had showered her decks. Worse, her topsides were stoved in right at the port chainplates, which were bent. We felt very sorry for the owners, though they had the good sense to be insured. An inspection of the mooring line showed that sharp edges on Moonshadow's bow roller cheek plates had sawn through the line with wave motion. It was a lesson we remembered when the time came to re-design Dione's bow roller just a month later.

Once all the formalities were taken care of we enjoyed a fabulous shower in the D'Albora's Marina facilities - probably the best on the coast, with individual, fully appointed bathrooms and a waiting room with TV and videos! After the excitement of the morning it was wonderful to enjoy a relaxing lunch onboard Shannon, owned by friends and neighbours from Sydney - Norm and Sue. They had traveled north a week or so ahead of us and were enjoying the hospitality of Nelson Bay. They had listed to the morning's drama on the radio, as I had called the Coastal Patrol to let them know a yacht had broken its mooring. We discussed repairing Dione at the marina but living aboard is not permitted during vessel repairs at this marina so we decided to continue to Mooloolaba to repair Dione there. Not the best start to our trip north, being battered by a Moonshadow!

With high tide turning mid-morning, we wished Norm and Sue on Shannon fair winds, then set off across the bay and out to sea. The fierce southwesterly winds of the past two days had abated completely leaving a huge swell running against a light head breeze (NNE). Not the worst conditions for sailing though and we made between four and five knots over the ground with the aid of a counter-current we picked up by running close inshore south of Cape Hawke. The fine sunny weather made up for the rolly ride and we enjoyed the day, reading and picking out headlands as they slowly loomed and faded. Alan Lucas's "Cruising the New South Wales Coast" is a good reference for this with its many photographs and drawings of coast and headland profiles. During the 7pm to 10pm watch, the wind suddenly leapt around to the west and only seven or eight knots of breeze reached the sea, slowing us further.

With Cape Hawke abeam the wind settled in the northwest and strengthened to a more comfortable ten to fifteen knots, but only for two hours - darnit! After teasing us with six knots-plus of boat speed, the breeze died away completely and by the time Diamond Head was abeam, Glen had given up trying to keep some shape in the sails and decided to motor-sail. Fortunately, the lull only lasted between 4am and 6am; with sunrise, a light land breeze reached across from Tacking Point, helping us along at five knots. Then just as we passed Port Macquarie a burst of fifteen knots stretched the sails and we were excited to see over seven knots on the log for the first time since leaving Sydney. The rest of the day was really quite enjoyable. The challenge of maintaining boat speed in variable breezes kept things interesting and despite long lulls, we logged 110 nautical miles for the noon-to-noon run (98 otg) at an average speed made good of four knots (we estimated an average opposing current of half a knot for the day).

The forecast was for winds to turn northeast and increase to fifteen knots. Given the shape of the coast, northeast is smack on the bow. One tack has you sailing toward the beach and the other has you headed out to sea - next stop New Caledonia. It was a tough day. Throughout the morning we battered and crashed our way from trough to crest, more ploughing through the seas than sailing on them. The sea on this part of the coast turns a brilliant deep royal blue in a breeze and under a clear sky the ocean simply sparkled. Sea birds whooped and soared among the waves - they are spectacular to watch. I was doing just that when an extra loud BOOM resonated through the hull as Dione slammed into a deeper trough. It shook me from my reverie and looking around I could see that the wind had picked up quite a bit. Glen had the watch but I had made dinner and stayed on deck with Glen after dinner to enjoy the sunset. It was now around 7pm and the wind, which had been a steady fifteen knots all day, was now gusting to and holding over twenty. I had the 9pm to midnight watch and hoped it didn't get any worse.

We reefed the main and furled in some headsail to reduce the slamming but as soon as we had everything re-set the wind sprang up further. Between 7pm and 11pm we endured headwinds of twenty knots steady, gusting to twenty-five and holding over twenty-five knots for one half hour period. The log at this point reads simply - "filthy". Anyone who has spent a night urging a small sailboat ahead against a Force 6 breeze knows how ragged the crew feels afterward. The noise is pervasive and persistent: from the whistling of the wind in the rigging, to the shuddering of sails, the clatter of blocks and the boom and whoosh of the hull smashing through crests and troughs, hour after hour. Every muscle and nerve in your body is over-stimulated to the point of exhaustion after a night like that and the forecast becomes the centre of the known universe - when will it ease?!

Of course, it always does ease, and it is always a tremendous relief. By 3am the wind had returned to a steady fifteen knots; by dawn, ten to fifteen, but still flush on the nose. Ah, the joys of sailing! Would we have it any other way, I wondered? [It is interesting now to compare this day's run with the previous day. On both days, we recorded identical miles logged - 110. Yet one day was light and variable, sometimes on the nose, sometimes not, while the next day gave us moderate to strong winds all day, dead on the nose, and a very rough ride, for the same distance overall.] It seemed that the wind had settled in the northerly quarter for the duration - typically - as the third day out from Port Stephens again produced northwesterlies, though today, we saw between ten and fifteen knots for half the day then up to ten knots for the rest.

We were grateful that the weather was holding; sunny skies certainly helps keep a buoyant mood as does being able to spend time out on deck. We kept busy trimming for boat speed though, as the forecast for the next day included a deepening southerly front that was roaring up the coast and could catch us before we made port if we dragged our feet. The Seal Rocks Coastal Weather Area was already being belted by thirty knot winds. Glen estimated we would be comfortably anchored in Southport by midnight on the 1st-2nd of May, whereas the front wasn't due to go through up there until mid-afternoon on the 2nd. Still, the threat of being overtaken by a southerly ''buster'' kept us on our toes and we were able to maintain five to six knots of boat speed through the water in a ten-knot easterly.

The best part of the passage I think was cruising past the southern beaches of the Gold Coast. Huge round light globes lining the waterfront glow out across the bay. Neon-lit high-rises are streaked by a stream of car headlights, tiny in the distance, but a sign of impending landfall. The brightly-lit breakwater curves right out to sea up ahead, its red sector lights bobbing in and out of view as Dione rises and falls on the waves. A good fifteen knots was pushing us shoreward so we tacked out to line up the bar entrance and began our run in. Though it was after midnight as we passed the first lead light, we could clearly see that the bar was calm enough to cross. The tide was running out still, unfortunately, but not so strongly as to be a problem.

We find the run into a port the most satisfying part of sailing. Slipping silently past red and green leads, searching ahead for the next few leads, taking in all the details of the shore - landfall is a special moment, especially after four days at sea, and even more so knowing a storm is trailing you by only a few hours. We tried to anchor just inside the breakwater but couldn't find a deep enough hole - there were many vessels anchored already - so we continued down to Southport Yacht Club and tied up on an empty outside arm for the rest of the night. By 2am, everyone aboard Dione was sound asleep for the first time in a week! Sailing is wonderful; settling into a snug anchorage after days at sea is bliss.

The southerly front that had been trailing us up the coast hit the Southport area late the next day bringing heavy rain before moving on and leaving strong southwesterlies that blew for three more days. We could have risked crossing the bar to continue north but the heavy swell was setting right into the Gold Coast Seaway and the whole entrance area was a seething cauldron of breaking waves and spume. We decided to play tourist for a few days instead and jumped on a bus down to the Gold Coast and spent the day window shopping and walking along the beaches. The next day we visited Seaworld; the complex is beautifully laid out and fairly peaceful even though it was quite busy. The aquarium is not as extensive as we had imagined but the dolphins are spectacular and it is worth the visit. The next day we caught another bus up to Dreamworld, a park of rides and little else. We tried just about all of them and had a couple of trips on the new (at that time) double CORKSCREW!! Rollercoaster - fun that!

With the weather settling it was time to prepare for the final leg of our first passage as cruising folk - the run up to Dione's home port of Mooloolaba. Glen grew up on this part of Queensland's coast and he has family in the area so we chose the popular cruising port for registration of Dione as an Australian ship. The southerly airflow had built the seas outside Southport into a rolling lumpy and uninviting mess and the entrance itself was seething white with foam from breakers and from spume being thrown up and over the breakwater as it was pounded relentlessly by the big swell. The wind was favourable for the run but the bar crossing looked too intimidating so we waited one more day for the swell to settle. At full flow, a two to three knot current runs in the Seaway so it is important to run out with a good ebb flow. With a big southwesterly swell running straight into the Seaway though, a full ebb tide slams head-on into the incoming swell, forming nasty, sharp waves right across the entrance. For us, we would have to cross at 5pm and sail overnight to Mooloolaba; Glen estimated we would arrive late the next morning.

The bar crossing gave me a few anxious moments; a few waves crunched hard into our starboard bow showering us all the way back to the helm. The entrance was a-swirl with foam from broken waves and from the strong current running out into the swell. Feeling nervous, I had put a life jacket on but Glen, being more competent and experienced, handled Dione superbly and as usual, we crossed in complete safety despite being a little damp afterwards. The ebbtide sets south along the coast here, so with a light southwesterly barely reaching ten knots it was an uphill battle to make headway for the first hour. Once freed from the grip of the current our boat speed increased suddenly and dramatically and Dione settled into a comfortable roll and sway on the big southwesterly swells.

Glen set a course well offshore out of deference to the notorious Cape Morton, whose rocky offlying reefs have claimed many vessels of all types. We have no qualms about sailing further if it improves safety. The light on the Cape came abeam at 6am. I had been up since 4am and had watched an incredible sunrise. The eastern horizon was lined with low, wispy strato-cirrus that softened the pink-gold sunrays and spread them in a wash across the sky. The rest of the morning was spent hiking along at a good pace on twelve knots of steady breeze; the swell hadn't eased at all. At 11am we spotted some of Glen's family waving to us from the hills on top of Point Cartwright. An hour later, we furled sails and motored into the Mooloolah River. It is a special feeling - arriving safely at the end of a long sea passage, even when stops are made along the way. A job well done.

Glen's uncle Dennis Crouch, an avid club racer at Mooloolaba, was kind enough to weld some stands onto the deck to hold the spinnaker poles. Though he sadly died later that year, we will always remember his passion for sailing and sailboats and his fun and live-life-to-the-limit attitude. We also had holders for the two propane bottles welded into each corner of pushpit so the bottles could be safely mounted and locked onto the holder for security. The main alteration completed that winter was the bimini top. We had already had a large frame welded over the cockpit to hold the three solar panels overhead. We were very happy with the framing and Glen designed an extension to it to hold a full-covering bimini for the cockpit and a windscreen piece to fit between the bimini and the dodger / spray hood. A local sailmaker did an excellent job on the canvas work and we now have brilliant shade and shower protection that is so well designed and made that we never have to take down even in the worst weather. Matching spray curtains and cushions complete a comfortable, practical cockpit that, with the spray dodger, blends unobtrusively into Dione's lines

Alterations were made to the bow roller and the anchor well. The existing bow roller was so small that even the 45lb anchors had done significant damage to the topsides: they just sat in too close to be practical. Glen designed a simple but very effective extension and a local welder completed the work. The new roller easily accommodates the 66lb Bruce bower we use exclusively while cruising and it now looks much more appropriately proportioned for the vessel's size as well. We then built a pair of hinged, laid teak doors to cover the on-deck anchor well; the doors match the cover over the cockpit lazarette. Interior work completed over the winter included fitting a PUR desalinator system and a high capacity alternator; converting one water tank to a fuel tank and fitting extra fuel filters and new pumps; re-finishing teak trim throughout the boat, re-designing and re-covering the upholstery and beds, re-gassing the fridges and a myriad of small jobs.

The task of provisioning Dione for six months of self-sufficient cruising proved to be a lot of work but a lot of fun as well. I really enjoyed the challenge of identifying everything we needed, estimating quantities and buying in bulk whenever different items were reduced in price. I think I filled a total of ten shopping trolleys; sacks of potatoes, onions and carrots and a freezer full of cryo-vacuumed meat completed the main purchases. Add a couple of crates of drinks, a few bottles of rum, loaves of bread - it just goes on! After re-packing everything that could be packed more efficiently and more effectively for storage on a sailboat, the task of stowing it all began. A week and several re-packs later, we were ready to sail. Dione was now a much-improved cruising boat as a result of the changes she has undergone since we rescued her from her marina graveyard in The Pittwater. We were now keen to try the cruising lifestyle and the Whitsundays were our target - we had heard so much about it; it was time to find out what it was like for ourselves.