After being away for nearly a year, Take It Easy is back at her home port of Paynesville in the Gippsland Lakes. Last weekend we took the opportunity of a short weather window to make our winter migration. Wade and friend Greg brought the boat back from Port Albert where it had been since our return from Queensland. I did the car shuffle. The passage was uneventful, just as we like it.
The boys had a quiet crossing of the Port Albert bar in daylight on Thursday afternoon, and sailed to the start of the Ninety Mile Beach. They stopped and anchored for the night, level with McLoughlins Beach. At 3.30 am on Friday, they escaped their rolly anchorage, hugged the coast and motor-sailed in balmy conditions, to get to the Lakes Entrance bar before dark. It was a different way of making this 70 nm passage. Normally we wait for a Southwest front to come through and then follow it up in generally boisterous conditions. This time we picked a NW forecast, thus an offshore wind, and hugged the coast no more than 400 meters away from the shore.
Wanting to get in ahead of a forecast change, the guys did not mess about, so much so that they were inside the Lakes by 4 pm, before I could get to the lookout at Lakes Entrance to take photos! We met up in scenic Metung for a pub meal at the hotel next to the jetty, and stayed there overnight.
The next day they continued to Paynesville while I followed them by road. It was odd seeing Take It Easy sailing past Shaving Point at Metung, then later arriving back at her berth alongside the jetty.
We now have a long list of chores to attend to over winter and spring as we continue to ready the boat for full-time cruising life. It is still well over a year away, but time will pass very quickly, and of course there is our usual Summer cruise in December-January to prepare for before that.
Sv-Anui 
Love these posts!
Hello Matty! Nice of you to visit and say hello😊
Welcome back. Good luck with the list of jobs
Yes, the jobs… We start this weekend with an appointment with the shipwrights and the gas compliance man – could be scary!
Beautiful place for a mooring 🙂 Time to get all the barnacles off the keel!!
Hi Sarah – yes the Lakes are beautiful. Time to get to work now…The hairy bottom is probably the least scary… It’s everything else we want to tackle!
Oh really!?! Complete overhaul then! Mind you, that boat of yours has travelled quite a ways this season. It’s been lovely to be along for the journey 🙂
Thanks Sarah… Yes we did not do the usual maintenance last year with the boat in QLD and it shows, plus while we are still working we are doing serious stuff before we move on it and officially retire!
It never stops does it!?! I was medically retired from work about 10yrs ago with Crohn’s and fibromyalgia and I hate it 😦 I miss being in a work place! As you know from the blog though, I do keep myself as busy as possible 😉 We have a couple of very good friends who have a boat moored down in Brighton and I hope we’ll be out with them a fair bit this year 😀 Just love being out on the water! I can’t do much of the work on the boat but can manage the winches a bit. I’m always made to feel useful 🙂
I hope you get a chance to be out on the water. It is good for the soul and somehow replenishes you when you feel a bit ordinary. It does for me anyway😊
So very true 😀
Nice!
Thanks Elgar 🙂
Wow, sounds like a lot of work to do! Love the sunrise images
Yes this year will be heavy.
Good to hear the passage went well and yes, that year will fly by! What are your initial plans for full-time cruising? Do you have a rough itinerary? Or is it not yet to be divulged?
Cheers!
Ellen
P.S. I just realized that your clam photo is on the cover of Dynamic Range! Huge congrats!!
Hi Ellen! Our rough plans are to do the Australian coast – north in winter and down south (TAS and SA) for starters, then may be a full circumnavigation of Australia and eventually south Pacific… See how things develop. Not sure we are interested in long ocean runs! And yes the clam is mine😊😊 it’s a good feeling!
That sounds great! There’s so much to see in Australia – we still wish we’d made more time for it. We really only saw Queensland and Northern Territory, so I’ll be reading your posts with interest!
🙂 it’s a way away yet😊
True – but fun to plan!