We emailed our Christmas greetings mid December and received many in reply – good news from all around the world! Another year over and an exciting 2025 ahead of us! This year we plan to visit the USA and Cuba in July and August. At the end of the year we plan to sail down to Tasmania and cruise around the island for a month.
December, as for most of us, was a busy month. Michelle came back from Fiji and is staying with us until she has lined up her next project. We spent time with the girls on the beach as well as attend various events with our sailing friends.
It was good catching up with old friends from South Africa and local friends over lunches, as well as our neighbours at 153 Garden Street, in Warriewood.
To work off all the festive food and drinks, I did a lot of cycling, Annie a lot of gym and together, we did walks and swimming along our local beaches.
The girls asked us to sail down to the harbour for the New Year fireworks and we had the pleasure of meeting a lot of their friends. We ended up spending 10 days on Sydney Harbour (Port Jackson), before sailing back.
We celebrated our friend Gavin Birch’s 80th birthday for lunch and music on the Zephyr charter boat, cruising on the Pittwater.
Our friends Jim and Gail Petrie arrived at their apartment on New Year’s Day. Over dinners, we caught up with their Cape Town news. We visited Pretty Beach for two nights, did a coastal walk to Maitland Bay and attended a Joe Camilleri and the Black Sorrows concert in Gosford.
Australia Day on the 26th January fell on a Sunday, with a public holiday on the Monday. We started the festivities with champagne and canapes at the RMYC and ended with the SCD members at Bonny Doon beach.
Michelle, in the meantime, discovered that some of her frequent flyer points were about to expire. So off she went to Sri Lanka on a two week surfing holiday – evidently, the new Bali for surfers and yoga lovers. Latest news is, she was having a whale of a time.
Annie is getting excited about the prospect of becoming a grandmother on or about the 5th February. I have asked her to hold back until the baby has arrived. We will report back with the deets on gender, weight and name in our next post.
Cheers for now
Annie and Dirk
You guys are amazing….still sailing around enjoying the Big Blue! Cuba and USA! – Cool beans. So you’ll be hitting the East Coast. We’ll follow more closely along and see if we could fly over to see you. Kandu is still around….but we haven’t sailed her at all since we got back – over five years now. Crazy.
Hi Leslie
Good to hear from you! According to our financial advisor Australian male life expectancy is 88 years. So I have 10 years left to pack in as much sailing and travelling as possible! From Sydney, we will fly to LA or San Francisco and spend time in California to see the Redwood forests up north. We’ll also visit our daughter Karen, who will be in Portland, Oregon, doing a 6 month stint in Pediatric Orthopaedic Surgery. So, we may catch up with the Rigney’s on the West Coast, before we head to the East Coast and work our way down from NY to New Orleans and Cuba. We’ll keep you posted.
Cheers
Dirk and Annie