Welcome to Laurie and Eric's Blog !

Hi Everyone!  Welcome to Laurie and Eric’s new blog.  We are currently in the final stages of preparation for the Fremantle to Bali sailing Race/Rally, departing Fremantle, Australia on 16 May 2015.  The trip is approximately 1500 nautical miles, and should take us about 10 days, depending on weather/wind conditions. With a total of 20+ sailboats participating, it should be an interesting adventure.   We plan on spending several months Indonesia, focusing our sailing area east of Bali.  We’ll then sail back to Australia in August 2015.

Likely route to Bali from Fremantle

Our motivation to join the Rally was multi-fold:

1. We recently retired from busy, full-on careers so this was a great way to transition to sailing part of each year, which has been a dream for a long time.

2.  The structure of the rally brings with it great opportunities for safety training, such as courses in safety at sea, first-aid, medicine for sailors, as well as a rigorous set of standards that the boat must pass.  (see reference).

3.  We really enjoy the Fremantle Sailing Club, where we have been members for nearly a decade.  It is a fantastic organization, with world class facilities, activities and wonderful set of friends.  We are proud to be participating in one of their major events.

4. We have always wanted to see more of Indonesia.  Eric’s father was born in Indonesia to a Dutch colonial family near the turn of the century, so for Eric, it will be wonderful to see the places his father knew as a child and wrote about as a young man.

Our sailboat Katmai has been here in Fremantle since early 2008.  You can read about Katmai and the trip Dick and Peggy made to bring her to Australia from Alaska.

We have been here in Australia for the last few months, preparing Katmai for long distance sailing and spending time on the ocean with great friends who traveled down from Alaska. We also had a great couple weeks sailing locally with a cousin from the USA.  It also has been a time to reconnect with many wonderful friends we made during our years living in the Perth area and to make new friends.

So now, we are in the final stages of preparation:  Anyone want to help shop and pack on the boat food for 4 months ?  And of course there always is the final ‘haul out’ of the water to do the annual maintenance on the bottom of the boat.

More to follow, Laurie