We woke to a beautiful sunny Sunday morning and enjoyed a cooked breakfast to start the day. It didn't take us long to realise, though, that the temperature was rising rather rapidly. By mid-morning we decided that taking the dinghy to the little beach at Echo Park Point to clean it and then have a swim was probably a good idea instead of spending time onboard. When we returned to Paw Paw, Roy continued to play in the water and cleaned her bottom as well; the first time since leaving New Caledonia. Surprisingly, there weren't too many barnacles, but rather a layer of black algae that we haven't seen before, but, fortunately, came off easily enough.

We had known from the weather forecast yesterday that it was expected to be a sweltering day today, hence our decision to visit Bondi Beach yesterday instead, but we definitely hadn't realised just how hot it was going to get and we're not sure anyone else did either.

Penrith, a western suburb of Sydney, reached 47.3C / 117F, originally believed to be the highest temperature in 79 years, recorded by a weather station in the Sydney metropolitan area. However, a tweet just after 1600 from the Bureau of Meteorology indicated that they had missed a temperature in the north-western Sydney suburb of Richmond, where 47.8C / 118F was recorded in 1939. Either way, it was a very hot day!

Being on the water, with at least a breeze blowing, thankfully, kept it slightly cooler for us, so there was no need to turn on the air-conditioning. The only energy we managed to muster, though, involved a lazy afternoon of reading and not much else!