Ready for Tassie!!!

Miss Southern Belle looking resplendent after her "bottom" clean.  Such a pretty boat!

It seems like we've been, George mostly, talking about sailing SOUTHERN BELLE to Tasmania for a long long time.  The subject has been bantered around for what seems like decades - and the proposal is always met with a bit of a grimace from me when mentioned.  Why the grimace?  Because I can say without exaggeration, "I have NEVER wanted to sail into the 'roaring forties', I've never even dreamed I would be foolish enough to try".

Never say never.

Tomorrow we leave the beautiful confines of Pittwater and Broken Bay - the most perfect of cruising grounds - for the southern ocean and the beautiful, and often stormy, island of Tasmania.  Somebody ... something, help me.  I won't bore you with the shit going on inside my head since the date of early December was set except to tell you my mind swings wildly between, "It will be fine, we'll have a great time" ... to, "What do you think you're doing!!! You aren't a southern ocean sailor, hell you're not much of a sailor full stop!!!"

What's the old saying?  "Feel the fear and do it anyway"  O.K.

In spite of the talk and planning the run up to departure has been full on.  Here, in pictures, some of the prep.

The dirty, smelly job of cleaning our Belle's bottom.  This is necessary if you want the boat to travel at maximum speed!

At the stove cooking multiple soups and casseroles to freeze so we can have something quick to eat after long hours at sea.

The kitchen counter laden with all the necessities of cooking multiple meals.

Wrapping wine bottles individually in bubble wrap for storage in the hold of the boat.  We famously carried over 100 bottles to the Louisiades, which turned out not to be overkill.  So for this trip we only wrapped and stored 65.  Not overkill at all!  I may be able to force myself to sail in far away southern oceans but I most certainly can not abide the thought of doing without wine!
 

Now, here we are.  Tomorrow afternoon, probably about 5-ish George will drive the boat out of the RPAYC marina and head out to sea for Jervis Bay, 84 nautical miles south of Sydney.  Another adventure I've dreaded but now that it's here I'd like to get moving.  However there is one little love that will be as hard as ever to leave behind ... My Molly.  Goodness I love that dog.  Steph is staying with her again and I know they love each other, but I'll miss my girl so very much.