2006 has once again been a very busy year with the addition of a new son in law and a new grandson and us continuing our adventures on Momentum – at least in the first half.

Last Christmas we had sailed as far as Mooloolaba and spent time in Brisbane and the gold coast before heading down the NSW coast to Coffs Harbour where we needed some major repairs to a section of our mast. Bars at the river mouths and summer storms added some excitement to our sailing. On one such occasion we lost two bolts from our mast spreaders which meant motoring till we got it sorted out. We explored the Camden Haven, Lake Macquarie and Port Stephens areas then spent about 5 weeks in both the Broken Bay area and in Sydney Harbour where we caught up with friends and family. Both destinations were magic.

Broken Bay was our favourite and included the Pittwater, Hawkesbury, Brisbane Waters, Smith’s, Col ‘n Candle and Cowan Creeks with their many peaceful refuges and anchorages. Our main base was at the Hawkesbury Marina where many a lunch and lattes with friends were had. It was a wonderfully convenient location, next to the railway station where one could watch a different world go by as the locals got about in dinghies to their island or waterfront homes.

Sydney Harbour was busy and different, never-the-less still beautiful. We explored most of the harbour and a highlight for us latter day sailors was sailing under the Harbour Bridge under full sail – not an easy feat at times as there are ferries flying everywhere and they absolute have right of way. Most of the time was spent at anchor near the city in Blackwattle Bay, opposite the Fishermen’s Coop and at Birkinhead Marina near Drummoyne. Lunch at the Fishermen’s Coop was just a short dinghy ride away and Birkenhead was located at the factory outlets with plenty of shops and eateries, so needless to say we didn’t do much of our own cooking. In late May we left Momentum moored at Cammeray Marina, a quiet spot at the end of a waterway adjacent to beautiful bushland, to go back to Perth to prepare for our trip to Italy and Turkey and to catch up with Sharon who was over in Perth for a conference.

Sharon and Alex’s wedding in San Gimignano, Italy on 16th June went wonderfully and to plan. All our immediate family was there together with Alex’s family and godparents from Atlanta in the US. We all stayed at Romitorio de Seville, a stone villa in Tuscany on top of a hill surrounded by vineyards. We all had separate self contained apartments so were independent yet had the togetherness to get to know each other’s family. The wedding was held in the old town hall in the midst of the ancient city and was officiated by the town mayor in Italian, we had a German fraulein translating. Alex recited his vows in Italian, so we’re not sure what was said, hopefully it was appropriate (just joking). The reception was held in a restaurant in the town overlooking the city walls and down onto a distant rolling rural and forested landscape.
The following week we went to Rohan and Toni’s wedding in Titignano, a large villa/ village in a more isolated hilly and forested area in Umbria. Rohan is one of Anthony’s best mates who he has known since childhood. The wedding was attended by friends and family from Australia and Italy and was quite different from Sharon and Alex’s in that guests were mostly young singles so festivities went almost till dawn. The service was held in a quaint little church which was part of the villa.

After the weddings we drove to Cinque Terra, Napoli, Pompei, Tivoli, Isle of Capri, Amalfi Coast, and many other interesting places and ending up in Brindisi where we caught a 30 hour ferry trip across to Cesme in Turkey.

We hired a car and visited Cirince, a quaint little old village with cobbled stone streets lined by old shops and stalls. We visited Ephesis, Parmukale, Marmaris, Fethiye, Myra, Antalya, Konya, Gerome, Cappadocia, Kirsahir, Troy, Cannakkale, Dardenelles, Gallipoli and Istanbul. Gallipoli was very moving but the highlight would have to be Cappadocia where we stayed in a room carved out of the limestone hillside and visited complete underground ancient cities. We returned to Perth on 24th June to meet up with Tanya, Ragan and the boys who were moving to Angola and were visiting Perth briefly to check on progress and make necessary decisions on their new house which was under construction.

On the 10th October we flew to Melbourne to be with Sharon and Alex for the pending birth of their first baby. Whilst boarding the plane we received a call from Alex that Mitchell, our third grandson, had arrived. Sharon’s labour was extremely short, about 1 1/2 hours, and everything went well. On landing in Melbourne we went directly to the maternity hospital. Mitchell is a gorgeous little fellow of course and we thoroughly enjoyed our 3 week stay with the 3 of them. While we were there we took off for a few days and toured along the beautiful and rugged South Coast highway and caught up with Peter and Sue Pritchard with whom we sailed down part of the Queensland coast from Port Douglas. We also caught up with fellow yachties from Perth. Paul and Tracey Bushell on Cockatoo.

In between times we have been designing our future house for down south. We submitted the plans for planning approval prior to our trip to Melbourne but have had to submit a lot more details such as a Fire Management Plan and a Visual Landscape Assessment. This will delay our submission for building approval till 2007. We have been so busy with that and other matters that we only made it back to Momentum for about 10 days early in December during which time we sailed back up to Broken Bay and caught up with some of our family and an old friend of Max’s who live up that way. We caught up with the rest of our Sydney family prior to returning to Perth for Christmas.

2007 promises to be another very busy year. We are putting our house on the market on 20 January and are hoping to commence building our house down south around March provided we do not have any more holdups with the council with planning approval etc. At this stage we are planning to owner build but haven’t made a final decision on that yet. We had planned to sail to Tasmania for a few months in January but selling the house and building down south have become a priority (as we are paying a small fortune in land tax) so our sailing plans have been put on hold for some time. At this stage we have left Momentum with yacht brokers in Sydney. If we get the price we want for her then we will sell her otherwise we may bring her back to Perth.

We have a full house this Christmas as Tanya, Ragan and the boys and Sharon, Alex and Mitchell and Jenny’s Mum are here for Christmas. As Anthony is still officially minding our house he is also here with his girlfriend Jannine so all of us are under the one roof which is great. Mum will return to NSW on the 27th and we will all go down south for about 8 days. Cameron and Kristian now 6 and 4 will have their first taste of camping.

After a traumatic start to their stay in Angola Tanya and Ragan and the boys particularly have settled in well and for the most part are enjoying the expat lifestyle. They had a holiday in South Africa in October and spent most of the time at one of the game parks which they all found “brilliant”. The boys had the cutest little pommy accents after their 3 years in the UK and hopefully they will retain them.

Anthony continued to house sit for us whilst we have been on Momentum and travelling overseas. Between his work, diving, basketball, golf, motorbike riding, looking after our pets and doing our house plans plus his own trip to Italy for both weddings and 2 weeks in Croatia, he hasn’t had much time for anything else. He is having an investment property built in Secret Harbour south of Perth which is coming along well and he expects hand-over early in the New Year. Then the fun starts with reticulation, gardens, curtains, floor coverings etc, etc. He plans to rent it out as soon as possible so it pays for itself. Now that our house is to be sold he will move back to his own place again at some stage. It has been wonderful having him mind the house while we have been sailing.

We trust that 2006 has been a good year for you and your family and if not, that 2007 will be better. Have a safe and happy Christmas and our very best wishes for the new year.