July 2020 Sydney tio Southport...

The crew and I met owner Ric at Gibson's Marina Pittwater and after having a very thorough hand over took Ric ashore and settled in for the night to wait for the weather to abate. Up the next morning to near perfect conditions and dropped the mooring line at 0800.  As we turned left off Barrenjoey, a gentle NE breeze had us unfurl the screecher with gave us an extra 1.5 kt and we cut back to one engine running at 1900 rpm to give us 6.5 kts in total. All going very nicely until 3 hours later a call from owner Ric asking if we had heard the news (which we hadn't). Queensland border was to close which meant Ric and his crew would be unable to get to Southport the following week to take Bella to Hamilton Is for race week. After consulting with the crew, the revised destination became Coffs Harbour.  Bella was a lovely cat to sail and cruise on, along with Ray and new crew member Phil we enjoyed our time onboard. Thank you to both the crew and Ric.