"Congratulations. You made it!"

Tuesday Morning, 3am.

We woke and started the preparations for a 4pm departure, glad to see the back of Denham. It had been an uncomfortable stay. It was pitch black and we followed the channel out into Shark Bay again heading north with the promise of better weather. We were motoring as the wind had died but we were greeted with an awesome sunrise over the starboard side.

Sunrise just after leaving Denham.

The absence of swell made a pleasant change and we headed up the Peron Peninsular admiring the sights of this amazing landscape and forcing me to pull out the Canon to record the colours and textures in all their glory.

Aqua Vitae and Divided Sky heading north to Cape Peron.

A late breeze allowed us to deploy the trusty genoa and on reaching Point Peron, we rounded the cape and started south again on a course to Monkey Mia. We relied on the iron genoa for this part of the trip as it was directly into the wind. Monkey Mia loomed over the horizon and we were really looking forward to seeing Margie's sister Tineke and brother-in-law Bill who are staying in their caravan at MM. 

Rounding the top of the Peron Peninsular.

The west side of the Peron Peninsular.

After rounding the final marker into the anchoring area we were approached by this official looking speedboat with two officious looking gentlemen and we thought, "Oh No. We are in the wrong place." No need to worry though as the speedboat was Bill and Terry in 'Y-Knot', on its way out to welcome us to Monkey Mia.

The welcoming party arrives to greet Moonshadow!

Tineke, Bill and Terry tied up alongside Moonshadow and came aboard for a celebration. Tineke made the comment to us, "Congratulations. You made it." I'm not sure if she meant we had made it to Monkey Mia as promised, but Margie and I chose the wider context as having achieved our dream of adopting the 'cruising lifestyle', after all these years of planning and preparation. Yep. We made it!

Nick watching his dinghy go!

Nick, Robyn, Mike and Karen joined us for the now obligatory liquid celebrations pertaining to a safe arrival. Tineke and Bill had invited all of us to dinner so it was time to settle the boats down and head to the caravan for a slap up meal. I'm not sure if Nick had been celebrating our arrival a little too much, as to his great embarrassment, he just somehow let go of the painter to his dinghy and it went floating off in the breeze.

The errant dinghy!

Margie to the rescue!

And safely re-united. :-)

He was torn between jumping in to chase the dinghy and appealing to us to go chase it with ours. He chose the appeal to Margie, who, like the superwoman she is, leapt into the dinghy in a single bound, started the outboard and headed off in pursuit. Returning like some conquering gladiator of the seas towing the escapee behind her. Nick could hardly hide his embarrassment realising at once the value of this incident as blog fodder and also the fact that the camera was in hand for the whole story. Maybe I shouldn't include the story in the blog but... nah!

Dinner with the family and friends was a wonderful occasion, full of stories and laughter. The meal was superb with contributions from all directions. Maureen's puddings capped off a superb night, and then time to head back to the beach and the dinghys and wending our weary way, trying to avoid all the dolphins on our way back to the boats and to falling into bed.