Oh my Gawd, have you looked at the countdown

Sandy and I bobbing along doing what we do and having a great time suddenly realise that we have about two weeks until we are supposed to riding around the Atherton Tablelands!!!!

Quickly last weekend we load up the bikes with front and rear panniers filled with stuff to simulate a load and go for a 40km ride. The result was not too bad, could've kept going so we feel a bit better. Having said that there are no mountain ranges in Darwin :)

Gary's new dynamo hub

Now I cant have Sandy having a dynamo hub and me not :) So I ordered a groovy Schmidt hub and spokes and I built the wheel myself.

Gary's first Inshore Skippers practical session

I enrolled in the Inshore Skipper Certificate course. The course is a sailing based course accredited with Yachting Australia and run by the Winter School of Sailing here in Darwin. It's an intensive 10 week course with theory session one to three times per week and four practical session on John and Jenny's Farr 38.

Last Sunday we hit the harbour for our navigation practical and what a nice day it was. Overcast so not too hot but enough breeze to get some decent sailing in.

The aim of today was to plot a course to sail allowing for the tidal current. For those who dont know Darwin harbou

r we have BIG tides and of course Sunday was a spring tide so we had plenty of current to allow for. During my turn at plotting the chart tidal data said we would have 2.5 knots of tide pushing us out of the harbour and the wind was on the port quarter. Naturally as soon as I gave the helmsman/person the course

the wind change and we could hold my course so they then gave me what they could steer and I then determined where that would take us and a point at which we would need to gybe to get to our mark 10 nautical miles away. It wasnt long and the helmsman gave me more bad news on the course they could steer as the wind shifted.

Little did I know that they guys up on deck had a GPS had having quite a good chuckle at my use of the charted 2.5 knots of current that was actually 3.5knots. Sailing at 5-6knots that tidal stream made a huge difference.

Jenny had a big smile on her face as we each battled Darwin's big tide.

Fighting our way back to the pontoon was fun with the tide and the wind eased. We were making 1.5 knots over the ground while the log showed us sailing at 4.5 through the water.

The action at the chart table.

Click here to see these photos in full on Picasa

New Autopilot for the boat

The dry season is getting closer so Sandy and I are starting to get the boat ready for a new season of sailing. I went out and bought a new Autopilot (Raymarine ST1000+) so we dont have to hand steer all the time. For those that dont know, steering a boat is fun for about 10 minutes :)

Will be fitting it this weekend.

Sandy's new flat bar tourer

Sandy's Vivente has low handlebars, this combined with the not so efficient brakes made us think about converting her bike to flat bars and putting a set of v-brakes on the front.

Wow!!! What a difference. The bars are higher so she's more comfortable and the brakes are fantastic. We trialed it with the gear of my mountain bike but then bought her shiny new LX shifter and brakes levers and a set of v-brakes for the front. Fitted it all and she loves it.

Will post photos later.

Sandy's Beetles are finally finished

I guess it's technically not an adventure but Sandy put heaps of work into these little guys so I wanted to share them.

Sandy started work on these a couple of years ago.  It's 'stumpwork' which is like 3D embroidery.

(click the image to get the supersize version)

Gary's new front racks have arrived.

My new Tubus Duo racks for the Cannondale are here and I fitted them last night.

Sandy ordered the rest of our Ortlieb panniers yesterday so we're nearly ready.....well the equipment is nearly ready.