17,000 Pulau - the Sailing Adventures of SY Mad Fish

Our hurried departure and sail to Port Denison Dear family and friends.     Yes, we did leave Mandurah, albeit rather hurriedly.     We were pretty much prepared to leave on Saturday morning, but the Premier’s announcement of the Covid lockdown meant a quick departure late Friday afternoon 23 April 2021.   We left Mandurah marina about 5 pm in order to get out of the Perth Peel region before the lockdown commenced at midnight.   It was all a bit of a rush, but S2ee did manage to fit in a last minute trip to ALDI for even more chocolate and peanut cookie supplies! This was the start of a two night sail and our first big passage on Mad Fish.   We headed North West from Mandurah, going about 12 km around the back of Rottnest Island before turning North East toward Jurien.   At one stage we were   45 km from the coast and in 110 m deep water – very exciting.   We took three hour shifts overnight, but did not manage to get much s...

Will we ever be ready to depart Mandurah?  Yesterday, 18 April 2021, the end of the school holidays in WA, was our target depature day.  And of course the weather is perfect for sailing north.  But sailing friends and the internet are full of stories about people preparing to go sailing, but never actually leaving! We are almost ready.  I spent last week filling the holds under our seating with $1200 of shopping which raised lots of questions like "how many tins of tomatoes will we need?" and "does S2ee really need that many packets of chips, biscuits and chocolate?".   I have also been cooking some meals to freeze for our early days at sea, in case sea sickness sets in and we don't feel up to cooking.  S2ee has done an amazing job servicing every engine and piece of equipment on board, and has been buying spare parts for EVERYTHING.   We have visited travel and personal doctors and now have a comprehensive medical kit with enough antibiotics...