10 September 2004: Townsville

It's been a bit of a struggle but tomorrow we untie our lines again and head off for the long awaited cruise - this time in home waters. Our plan is to do a slow crawl to the Hinchinbrook Island group and tuck away in one of the many mangrove creeks and do the wilderness thing - watch the wildlife, catch a barrumundi or two and read a book. We've been nearly 12 months out of practise at this, our stay in the marina to do a "quick" refit was very pleasant but somehow very time-consuming - it's easy to get distracted by all the other cruisers doing the same thing. We've installed a new PTC modem and upgraded the HF radio setup so getting that working will be fun. Hopefully this diary will now be more up to date and more about the joy of cruising.