Another fab week in Sydney! The weather since last Friday has been fabulous. Monday's highlight was the X Factor finale (Altiyan deservedly won). Tuesday I took a surf lesson with Manly Surf School. Really good fun, despite the fairly strong winds which made paddling extremely hard work and some massive waves which totally smashed us! Had a huge brunch with Suvi at Ground Zero after my lesson and then headed into the city to catch up with Kiyomi over a bottle o...

One hour on the bus from Manly is an beautiful spot called Pittwater (named after William Pitt the Younger). Michael Doherty, who was part of the Lord Howe crew manages a YHA there in the middle of the Kurin-gai National Park with his partner Sarah and suggested that I went up there for a couple of days. The hostel is water-only access and the "normal" way of getting there is by the little ferry from Church Point which drops at various points around Pit...

Recovering from Lord Howe and sorting out my gear took a couple of days, but it was really nice to be back in Manly and catch up with everyone. We spent a morning scrubbing Copernicus down and cleaning everything after the race and I had a much needed haircut! Went to my first gig in Australia at the Metro Theatre on George Street with Carl, Carl and Maria to see the Charlatans (UK mid-90s band) which was good fun. The entire audience was English. We are really ...

Arrived back through Sydney Heads on Monday night to a huge electrical storm which had been building over land for most of the day. The way that the lightening was lighting up the city was incredible, but I was very pleased to be back in my flat and not still out at sea! The race from Pittwater to Lord Howe was pretty eventful. Crew on Copernicus (a Radford 40) consisted of Greg the skipper, Jim, Michael, Felicity, Alex, Ken and me. Pre-race prep was slightly hu...

I have been remiss and meant to blog before I headed out to Lord Howe. As it was I was too busy and so am writing after I have got back, but will pretend that it was before I went! In the couple of weeks since my last blog I have been packing in the shifts at the Wharf Bar. The girls that I am working with are great and on Thursday one of the girls from work (Kate Fitz), her cousin Cian and my friend Suvi and I all packed into the car and drove down to Coogee to...