We woke up to a lovely sunny morning in Missionary Bay. Onshore the sheep had moved over to a hill closer to the bay with Lucy keeping a close eye on them. Georgie’s school teacher Warwick had posted Georgie’s grade 6 t-shirt to the Kettering Post Office so of course Georgie was very eager to go and collect it. We motored across to Kettering, anchored at the entrance to the bay (at the edge of hundreds of other boats on swing moorings) and went ashore in search of the local post office.
After finding the Post Office we went for a walk around town which didn’t take long as there is only a main street. We were blown away by the number of boats in the marina and on swing moorings in Little Oyster Cove. The local cricket ground was very impressive, the club obviously takes great pride in keeping the grounds (most which looked as good as a golf green) maintained, it reminded me of an English oval.
We motored around the marina in the dinghy to check out where the boat yard and travel lift were – Mark was in boat heaven, he could have stayed there for hours looking!
After getting back to Escapade we were preparing lunch when Mark looked out the window and noticed that there was another boat really close to our bow. Our first thought was that we must have been anchored too close to a mooring buoy and the skipper was going to ask us to move. Mark walked up to the bow to speak to them and the skipper apologised for getting so close to our boat, he was having a few steering issues. Even after his close shave with us he continued to motor (zigzagging) his way into Little Oyster Cove, he certainly had more courage than us.
We pulled up anchor and motored around to Oyster cove with the intention of spending the night there. We dropped anchor with 40 metres of chain in 6 metres of water. After the boat had swung around into the wind Mark put the engine into reverse to set the anchor. After 15 minutes of trying to get the anchor to grab we admitted defeat, pulled up the anchor and motored across to Simmonds Bay on Bruny Island. The conclusion was that the mud was just too soft to provide good holding.
You look very “spiffy” in your final year Shirt, Georgie! It is great having all your names on it! A lovely keepsake too! Xxx