On Saturday Roy was up bright and early to install our new barbecue and make a rather unceremonious offering of our "not so old", completely rusted, falling apart Kuuma barbecue" to Neptune, following which he spent some time replacing one of the dinghy davit lines again. Then, after an afternoon on board, it was time to head off in the dinghy to Sugarloaf Bay, where we had a great evening on board Raya. It was lovely just to be able to relax and catch up with Roz and Rick for a few hours, while enjoying our sundowners and snacks.

Yesterday,  after a fairly lazy morning initially and Elaine baking cream scones for her afternoon outing, we had to deal with a slight collision when the boat next to us t-boned Paw Paw in the high winds that had all the yachts swirling in various directions.  Fortunately there wasn't any damage and setting a stern anchor to keep us at a safe distance  helped the situation temporarily.  It was all resolved permanently a little while later when the owners of the other boat arrived and were able to shorten their mooring line.

Then it was time for Elaine to enjoy an afternoon "tea party" in celebration of Angie's mom's 85th birthday. Elaine also had the pleasure of being "chauffeur" driven to and from the event by Angie's friend, Dani. While the pick up and drop off arrangements had a clandestine feel to it all, since Elaine and Dani had never met before and then having to meet in the carpark of Echo Point Park through Elaine's recognition of nothing but the description of the "blue Toyota" which Dani drives, it was a fun-filled afternoon with plenty of laughter. It was lovely to meet all of Angie's friends,  not to mention the fact that we all rolled out of her home after all the eats and treats we enjoyed. While Elaine was out playing with the girls,  Roy busied himself with continuing his work on the watermaker.

Today was a rather frustrating day, though. We had prior arrangements with a courier company to collect our liferaft from the Davidson's Park boat ramp and deliver it to the Plastimo agent in Sydney for recertification. So, after breakfast and with amble time for the 0930 pick up, the process began. Drop the dinghy in the water, lower the swim platform,  tie the dinghy to the swim platform, remove the liferaft from its locker, place the liferaft on the swim platform, move the liferaft from the swim platform to the dinghy without dropping it in the water,  dinghy to the boat ramp, tie the dinghy to the boat ramp,  lift the dinghy onto the dock,  again, workout dropping it in the water, haul the liferaft across the ramp and then leave Roy with the liferaft on the dock. To put this in perspective,  the liferaft is like trying to lug around a body weighing approximately 68Kg / 150Lbs.

Well, 5 hours later and after numerous phone calls, there was still no sign of the courier company and we had visions of having to repeat the entire process in reverse to get the liferaft back onto Paw Paw. Thankfully, they eventually arrived late this afternoon. Lets hope this level of service is not indicative of the recertification we're actually going to get and that we get the liferaft back before our planned departure date from Sydney.

In-between all this activity, Elaine has also spent the last few days catching up with family and friends around the world and sorting out our photographs of Vanuatu and New Caledonia. She definitely got behind on all these website activities,  but is catching up slowly,  but surely!