The good ship Mustang Sally left Port Stephens around 6am Monday morning, early but worth it as we got to watch the sun come up! Awesome. Today we are headed for the twin towns of Forster-Tuncurry. The sea was calm and it was a sunny day once the sun reached its full height in the sky. There is a bit of bad weather following us up the coast so we were hoping to get in before it gets us. The time passed pleasantly with beautiful scenery, good food and company. There is something special about the perspective you get from viewing the landscape from the sea. Well for me anyway! It is probably a good time to mention what a great job Di has been doing navigating us from place to place. Having done it in the past, it can be quite a nerve wracking time, particularly entering and leaving harbours! Also a mention for the skipper Mark who has been getting the weather timing pretty spot on.
With our precisely planned timing and exceptional crew work, mostly on the part of Max the Autohelm (or maybe it was luck!) we made it into Forster Tuncurry with plenty of time to spare before the weather caught up with us. When it did we had quite a bit of rain. We ended up anchoring in the inlet on the Tuncurry side given the marina at Forster is tiny and also very shallow. We were near the bridge and had dolphins swimming passed every now and then! Also a part of the middle of the harbour dried out at low tide and was filled with pelicans and seagulls. We went to the pub for dinner in the hope of seeing the Carlton V St Kilda game live. Despite the publican's willingness to put it on for us, it just didnt appear to be scheduled. Instead we ended up trying to watch it via the computer on the boat. Has anyone else used the 'watch live' application on the AFL website? Its ludicrous (but have to say, better than nothing for a couple of footy tragics!). Its an animated oval that presents footy jumpers with a description of the action (eg Gibbs long kick). Its behind the match, slow and just about does your head in. We endured this knowing we could also watch the replay which started about 11pm. We were trying to negotiate with Phil to spend the night in my cabin (no, not with me!) as he was sleeping in the saloon right under the tv. It is safe to say that Di and I like to 'participate' while watching our matches so it would have been a bit noisy for Phil or limiting for us for him to stay there. Despite me thinking it was a splendid offer, Phil was not too keen but eventually I wore him down and he moved. It was a rather late night to bed though by the end of it all. Particularly as we didnt win that match mainly due to poor kicking. But still...GO BLUES!! 
Given the weather we decided to stay another day in Tuncurry (the 10th). We had a nice day lounging around and a couple of us even made it up to the gym for a bit of exercise before enjoying dinner on board, Chilli Con Carne a la Leapy Lynda. I maintain that it was not because of the nagging Phil got to move bunks the night before Phil, but he had to head back to Melbourne unexpectedly so we also gave him a bit of a send off over a few glasses of wine. He made all his arrangements and left first thing in the morning.
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