Our return south of latitude 25⁰S signifies the end of our voyage on the Great Barrier Reef. Even though full-time cruising is our life, it feels a bit like the end of a holiday and return to work! We are getting organised to make improvements on the boat and are mapping out how we will spend summer.

The good thing about being back from the Reef is that we have reconnected with catamaran buddies along the way: Bossa Nova, Hurtle Turtle, Aqualibrium, Sengo at long last, and met up with blog followers and readers of our articles, which is always nice. We missed having the company of other boats for the past few months, even though we had a lot of fun on Anui.

We find ourselves making lots of to-do lists: medical list, boat maintenance list, purchase list… We are also organising schedules and project managing our next few weeks. We feel like this turtle which was surfacing near our boat at Fraser island: one large breath before we take the big plunge!

When you have a permanent address, live on land and have transport, things are relatively straight forward. But we have none of that! So ordering gear, lining up tradesmen, fitting in medical tests and appointments while we are sailing south along the coast and are dependent on weather forecasts, requires a bit of juggling. The hot spots for us are Mooloolaba for all things medical and Boat Works on the Gold Coast for Anui‘s maintenance.

As we firm up dates and schedules, we will share our plans with you. For now, we are are heading to Mooloolaba where we will spend a few days. This is the anchorage at Inskip Point last night prior to the infamous Wide Bay Bar crossing! Lots of boats are ready to go further south like us!