It be a long way from the Canaries...

Any idea what time of day it is? Or in fact what day it is? No, me either. He doesn't know either. Welcome to jetlag ladies and gentlemen. Fortunately, the view's good...

After a long, agonising 1 1/2 days of travelling in an aeroplane, we finally arrived in Sydney at night, because the boat was still out of the water having the final touches done on it, we had to stay in a hostel. Just a coincidence that we started our relationship in a hostel, and now we start our new adventure in a hostel. (Editor - I thought the relationship started in a nightclub at Veronicas...) As we are sharing, caring kind of couple, Franco picked up a snotty cold from someone on the flight, which he has now shared with me.

The next morning we went to see our new home, her ex-captain and his wife. Both Italian. He speaks a little English and she knows no English other than the words ‘Hi’ and ‘Bye’. They will be doing the delivery to the Seychelles with us. As you may suspect, this is great for Franco. As for me, not so great. My Italian is non-existent (Editor - inesistente? OK, I'll shut up before I get fired). Despite trying to learn for ages, I remain stuck with my two languages of English (useful for a big chunk of the world) and Welsh (very useful for Ammanford, Bridgend and swearing).

Anyway, the boat is as lush as we expected. 5 double cabins, all en-suite, a HUUUUGE saloon, and a wonderful little Galley. Watermaker, dishwasher and even a washing machine! Definitely not our usual 3 cabin, tight 8 sleeping racing yachts. Welcome to the good life. As for Australia, we could totally get used to living here, although it is incredibly expensive to live!

We spent the next few days preparing the boat for sea, over 800 litres of drinking water bought, and a shed load of food! The Owner of the boat (who is also doing the delivery with us) is joining us on Tuesday night with a friend, and we plan to disembark on the Thursday morning. We are excited to get going now. We can’t wait to see the rest of Australia and obviously get to the Seychelles where we can really organise our boat ‘Franco and Annie OCD style’. The ex-captain has been on this boat since day 1, so she really is his baby. So he has his way of running her. Franco and I obviously have different ideas to how he does it. But we don’t want to step on any toes and confuse them by taking over and re-organising everything (not least because I couldn't explain to them where we'd put anything). It's like if someone came in to your kitchen and moved all your cutlery to other side of the kitchen, and your bath tub to the living room.

We’ll update you soon!

Ciao! Bye! Adios! Hywl Fawr!

#boat #vittels