June 2022...

Formerly named Sea Lady when we sailed her from Townsville, Stuart and Sheree decided "Impi" Zulu word meaning a body of Zulu warriors was a better name. This trip, Stuart joined myself and Ray to reverse the journey and head north. Limited by time due to my next commitment, the agreement was that I would help get Impi as far north in the allowed time. We departed Launceston intending to fuel up at Beauty Point but after our phone messages were not returned, on arriving at the marina found that fuel was not available anywhere close by and the next available tanker was a couple of days wait! After checking exactly how much fuel we had we calculated we could steam overnight and get to Lady Barron so I phoned my contact there and arranged to meet the following morning. Quick stop then on our way. Almost perfect conditions across Bass Strait and we managed to continue to sit right in the middle of a significant high all the way north. Just a couple of quick fuel stops and arrived at Kepple Bay marina after 8 days and on time to get back to Pt Stephens later that day.

As we were going to arrive at Kepple Bay around 0200, we decided to call into Lady Musgrove and have a look. Having been past so many times, it was wonderful to finally have the chance to stop and admire the amazing beauty of this coral island and reef. After negotiating the very small entrance with 4 kts of tide against us we picked up a mooring had a rest, lunch then motored on.

Later that afternoon, due to great perseverance Stuart finally go t return on his fishing tackle investment, a beautiful yellow fin tuna.

Thank you to Stuart and Ray for their wonderful crewing and companionship on this voyage.

January 2020...

Rocky and I arrived at the Rosshaven Marina Townsville and was met by extremely hot and humid weather and a vessel which had a lot of maintenance recently done however there were still several issues to sort. With the help of the local shipwright and mechanic, we got her to a state of readiness in just one and a half days.  So we headed off to the Breakwater Marina to refuel and departed the second evening after we arrived. Thank you owner Stuart who didn't baulk at the purchases I asked for which I considered absolutely necessary.

We had no significant further issues and was fortunate to have absolutely perfect weather for the entire 1650nm apart from a minor southerly which was around for only 12 hours south of Sydney.

Sea Lady was very economical burning as little as 13 lt per hour at 1500 rpm and 7.5 kts in flat water. The sunset shot blew is off Green Cape and was typical of the conditions for the entire Bass Strait crossing. We did purchase a new manual bilge pump which was expertly fitted by Rocky - Thank you.