Feels like we are back home?!

In the last blog we were in Vanuatu starting to think about heading back to Australia. We spent our last week in a beautiful anchorage called Port Orly at the top of Santos where we waited for a favourable wind to hopefully blow us back towards Australia, destination Townsville. We decided to return to Townsville as we knew we had a safe, free anchorage there for REAO, we knew the marina had a fun social boatie scene and it would be a great place to base ourselves again.

We gave ourselves a couple of days to catch up with friends, do grocery shopping and relax before we decided to start looking for work. The first thing we did was stop by the Yongala Lodge (where we had worked previously) to see whether they would be interested in hiring us again. The answer was a resounding yes and we were to start work in 2 weeks time – how perfect was that!

We have now been working at the lodge for almost 5 months (where has the time gone). From the budget we have done which includes a 3 year sailing budget as well as upgrades we want to do to REAO (such as: new furler sail, new tender, new computers, new outboard motor plus a list of other smaller items) we have worked out that as long as we stay employed the entire time we need to work until May 2025. While it seems like a long time as well as building up our sailing kitty we are both working on getting ourselves back into shape as the “social” boating lifestyle we enjoy while being fun isnt ideal for keeping ourselves in tip top shape 🙂

If we finish work in May 2025 that leaves us June to do work on REAO as well as look at a weather window and we can set sail early July aiming for Vanuatu. We want to spend a few months there before heading over to Fiji in September in time to take part in their world famous Musket Cove regatta week……think dress up parties and drinking……..oh and I think they do some sailing races inbetween as well. From there who knows what our plans will be.

Over the last few days I actually went back and read our blogs from the beginning and what strikes me as funny is in one blog I will be happily writing about where we will be heading next and then in the next blog we have ended up somewhere else (ie: another country). That’s the beauty and fun of this lifestyle we have chosen. New friends to be found. New places to be discovered and explored. New fishies to snorkel with. And who knows…..when we set sail in 2025 we may just have convinced a couple of other boaties to come out into the big blue yonder with us.