Tom Reynolds: From the boat...

4:00am after wedding day. We arrive home after OWNING the dancelfoor at Veludo's for hours on end. I threw my credit card behind the bar and bought drinks for anyone and everyone. Great!

Honeymoon- Day one
After the stress and time-compressing madness of wedding week, we found ourselves in the same way post-wedding day as we were due at the airport early and were supposed to meet most of our various families at the Beach House in Elwood on Saturday for breakfast.

Thankfully we'd both packed our clothes and items for the trip a few days earlier.

My windsurfing kit was in a sad way- some at Donny's, some still at mine, and packing would take a while. Some of our wedding presents were in Mike and Alison's car, so there was much to sort out in a short time.

I woke Don, Mike and anyone else I needed. All assembled at our house. Donny and I whacked it all together and we went back to the reception place to clean up and clear out. Breakfast had to be done n' dusted in just a few minutes. We then went to load the windsurfing kit onto Rachel's car using wrap racks- these are almost roof rackes, but the gear was going to collapse the roof, so Kat and Carl jumped into Carl's van Morriss (as in Van Morrisson) and they took the kit, we took ourselves.

Mad dash to the airport ensued- complete with stop off for video camera and inverter for 12v-240v (hence I am writing this from the boat using my charged up lap top). My darling wife and mother-in-law felt the best way to spend the trip was to talk about how late we were going to be and with my gear it would be extra stressful.

I am very happy to report that nothing like they predicted occured. No on wanted to fly out of Melbourne on Saturday lunch and we were 45 minutes early checking in.

We flew Melb-Syd, Syd-Proserpine. The Virgin Blue flight attandent asked us about our holidays and I told her it was for our honeymoon. A few minutes later another flight attendant came down and gave the couple behind us a free drink "with the compliments of Virgin Blue". I knew it was for us, but I wasn't about to speak up. Virgin may have the prettiest flight attendants, but perhaps not the smartest.

We arrived in Airlie Beach via the bus (gear in the hallway!) and were shown to our 32' Catlina named "Beach House". Irony? Perhaps. We managed, despite growing exhaustion, to go shopping, run around getting various things, and get fed and watered. I bought some alcohol- (cask red, slab beer, 6 ltrs of Tonic Water, 8 Bacardi Breezers). This added neatly to our bottle of gin, 2 bottles of pinot noir and bottle of chardonnay. It's a fair mix.

Slept fitfully as it was (and is) hot n humid. Up early for our briefing from 8:30, then picked up our diving gear and headed out to sea with Craig from teh chrter company. I kept (for me) quiet) while Rachel learnt 10 years worth of sailing in an hour. She was clearly overwhelemed, but I assured her I'd keep it simple once we got going. Craig wished us well and took off in his rubber duck. We tacked about for a bot of practice and then set all possible sail for Nara Inlet. Rachel got a touch of sea sickness and "did a Rachel"- went to sleep. I sailed the boat to Nara Inlet and we arrived just after 4pm.

Rachel having a steer before the ravages of sea-sickness sent her to sleep. My Dad always told me that giving someone a steer normally prevents seas-sickness. What can I say, my Bride ain't normal...

Once anchored, we jumped in our duck and went to see some Aboriginal caves further up the inlet. It was so hot n' humid that once we'd seen the caves, we sped home for a swim and a rinse off under the shower. Beautiful sunset followed (short twighlight up here). I got carried away and rang about five people to gloat/pass on information and after all of this excitement, we crashed out about 9pm.

The wind looks like it will persist from the North and get stronger today. We are effectively going to circumnavigate Hook Island and hide behind Border Island so I can get a windsurf. We'll then go and hide in the inlet parallel to the one we're in at present...