Arrived

Well it did work out much as I had hoped. The wind stayed strong and we moved into the coast where I had hoped for some easing but when I was close to the beinning of the amazingly well marked channel into the River, it was still a steady 24 knots. It was drak and the sky was clear and beautiful. There were lights along the coast but the navigation lights and a lighthouse made it all quite simple. I dropped the sails and motored in to calm water and follwed the channel to the marina, where with a torch I found an out of the way spot and dropped the anchor at about 1030pm local time. Its amazing those first few min utes when the motion and the noise all stops and you savour the moment of having at last arrived at a much anmticipated destination. I was worn out but decided to have some milo and a couple of biscuits before creeping into my grotty damp bedding and quickly falling into a sound and dreamless sleep.

The Customs and Quarantine people eventually arrived today, Monday, and the Biosecurity people were incredibly thorough, spending an hour and a half going through every thing on the boat, opening all the lockers and storage spaces, pulling everything out and peering into the darkest recesses for bugs and vermin.

I wasnt able to leave the boat till they had finished just before 2pm when I went ashore to a nice Marina Cafe and had mediterranean salad and lamb cutlets, and a beer! Hardly ever does one enjoy a meal so much as that one after a passage existing on tinned junk as I do!

I will get organised in the next couple of days and post some photos on the Blog once Ive cleaned myself up, dried the boat out and organized Internet.

That was a great voyage!

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