In our back yard

By Marijke Stuart

I would sincerely like to thank Ray and Sue Perry for inviting my husband Barry and myself  (Marijke) along to last weekends (8^th & 9^thFebruary) Multihull Shake Down on Moreton Island.

We were introduced to Ray and Sue by Dudley and Jenny Young with whom we sailed with last year in Turkey on a 42’Lagoon. The reason for this new friendship was to introduce us to more multihull sailors and also for the intension of sailing with them in the Brisbane to Gladstone Cruising Division in April.  So Ray and Sue thought it would be a good idea for us to attend the Multihull meeting in February and meet some people who belong to the club and who were also going on the weekend sail to Moreton Island.

When we arrived at the meeting we met a great group of friendly people with a common interest of sailing multihulls. We were all introduced and settled in nicely.

The sail to Moreton Island was very pleasant doing about 6-7 knots with no healing over as we do in the mono’s on WAGS!  Ray and Barry did all the sailing and Sue and I unpacked all the food and made “Purr-fik’ comfortable for the week-end.  We anchored in between several other yachts all known to Ray and Sue as well as some yachts from CYC, and then proceeded to travel in the tender to the small sand dunes where a fit, hot and sweaty bunch of people gathered together after completing the race up the sand dunes for the prize of a “Stubby Cooler” donated by a very generous sponsor...(I thought to myself, boy these people don’t need much of an incentive to run up sand dunes and get all hot and sweaty!!)

We were very disappointed to have justmissed this exhilarating event but had a fun time listening to their adventures of running up and coming back for a cold drink and soak in the beautiful waters of Moreton Bay. After a while of laughing, meeting new people and making new friends we all returned back to our respective boats making arrangements to meet up on McMoggy’sfor sundowners. As we were new kids on the block

Bruce Weiland on Shanda - Photo by Bruce Reeler