After cruising the east coast of Australia and then crossing Bass Strait, how wonderful it was to have returned to Hobart, Tasmania. We had been looking forward to seeing our friends, indulging our passions for Hobart's music and arts scene, fine markets and restaurants, and the local cruising grounds.

			Our first visitors aboard were our dear friends Peter, Arlene and son Andrew.  We took them for a day sail on the River Derwent.  Other friends came aboard for the occasional sunny Sunday sail, including Steph and Helen and their son Jack, Margaret and Gordon, Heinz and Helen, Pat and Roger, Les and Joanne and many others.  One day we counted 17 people scattered about ADAGIO's decks and saloon.

			Our friend Sam was in town aboard his immaculate fishing vessel STORM BOY, as were Peter and Barbara aboard their sailing vessel RALLINGA from Port Davey on the west coast of Tasmania. We invited Peter and Barbara to dinner aboard ADAGIO to reciprocate the hospitality they had offered to us at their home several years ago. Kevin and Beth were still in Hobart aboard their Alaskan vessel RED, and Rolf and Debra arrived aboard their Antarctic adventuring sailing vessel NORTHERN LIGHT.

			In March we sailed south to North Bruny Island and invited Lesley and Robt Swan for dinner. Their two Kiwi friends Jim Dollimore and Jill Telford, from Warkworth, New Zealand, dined with us, too.  The next morning we went ashore for a marvelous B&B breakfast at Robert and Lesley's Swanhaven on Bruny, then motored around to Apollo Bay for BBQ on the beach with fellow cruisers Margaret and Gordon, Les and Joanne and Patricia and Roger.  We motored back to Lindisfarne on a windless late afternoon.

			At the end of March we put ADAGIO up onto Hobart's Domain slipway for four days of repairs and hull and engine maintenance.

			Tasmania's Ten Days on the Island music, drama and arts performances kept us royally entertained, and by contrast we watched dolphins swimming and feeding between ADAGIO and the marina shore while a large seal swam by.

			In April we spent two beautiful days of cruising down the d'Entrecasteaux Channel south of Hobart. We helped our friend Margaret and her husband Gordon celebrate her birthday by dining aboard their fun boat, BIRD OF DAWNING, and eating her yummy minestrone soup.  I had a cake to contribute to the birthday celebration. The second night we anchored in a snug cove behind a little island, in the shadow of a 1227 meter high mountain, with clouds and mist flowing around its peaks in the morning's sunrise.  We sailed past a pod of small dolphins and watched a large seal snorting its way through the water.

			Some of the anchorages were becoming filled with salmon farm floating pens, much to the disappointment of the boating community.

			The weather was so mild that we traveled many times by bicycle, crossing the bridge over the River Derwent and into Hobart and the Salamanca Market on Saturdays. Dorothy particularly enjoyed biking the riverside trail through the forest on the eastern side of the river.

			We spent parts of June, July and August visiting relatives and friends in the U.S.   Steve's father passed away at the age of 96, and it was good to be with his mother and sister for a while.

			Back aboard ADAGIO in August, we decided to replace our ship's batteries, and  still had a lot of reorganizing to do on the boat in preparation for our passage to New Zealand.  We attended concerts almost every day as part of the Conservatorium of Music's Spring Chamber Orchestra Festival. Wonderful violin and piano, viola, cello and guitar.  The audiences were small, so we always sat in the front row.  It was a good way to spend rainy days.

			We had delayed our departure to the end of September.  With snow on Hobart's Mt. Wellington just about every day since our return, the top of the mountain was usually white each morning, and with the snow melting during the day. Our weather was quite unsettled -- not at all conducive to voyaging across the Tasman Sea.    So we kept working on preparing ADAGIO for sea, and are enjoying our friends and wonderful music performances.

			Our friends Peter and Arlene and their son Andrew told us about their plans for for building their cruising yacht. Our cruising friends Jeremy and Penny flew home from New Zealand, where they have been cruising aboard ROSINANTE and sending us valuable descriptions of their adventures. Our friends aboard KATIE KAT were also in New Zealand, looking for a weather window to sail to Fiji.  And our circumnagivator friends Beth and Evans contacted us from Fremantle, Australia, where they were hoping for a weather window to sail to Hobart. We were looking forward to meeting them in person, after a 5 year email friendship.

			So there we were, monitoring the weather while happily enjoying the company of land-based friends, and keeping track of the whereabouts and plans of our cruising friends.  Our Alaskan friends Beth and Kevin kindly annotated our maps of the West coast of the US, Canada and Alaska, as we were considering cruising in that region.

			Meanwhile I needed to solve the corrosion problem on our kayak -- which seemed not suited to salt water use (although the company claims it is).

			On September 8 I phoned Lesley at her home on North Bruny Island and learned that during the previous week's storm (aboard ADAGIO we were experiencing wind gusts of 50 knots), thousands of farmed salmon escaped into the D'Entrecasteaux Channel, our favorite cruising grounds.  The first morning Lesley caught in her small net 27 salmon, 2-1/2 to 3 kilograms each. Over 20 more were in the net in the afternoon.  Dolphins and seals were gorging themselves on the salmon throughout the area.  Lesley was hauling salmon up from her boat dock in a wheelbarrow, for her freezer, and for the man in the town of Snug who smokes her fish.  She was giving salmon to all of her neighbors, some of whom went out and bought new deep freezers.  In exchange, her neighbors brought her huge bouquets of daffodils and freesias, which were in full bloom this time of year.

			Our friends James and Jenny live north of Hobart, in the Coal River Valley, where James grows poppies and Jenny is a physician in Hobart.  I took two bins full of books that we no longer need to keep aboard ADAGIO, and which Jenny and James and their two teenaged children might want to be reading.  James' spring poppy seedlings were just sprouting through the dark black soil in the fields surrounding their restored sandstone, slate-roofed home.  Tasmania is the world's greatest producer of poppies, which are used to make medicinal morphine.  The growing and harvesting of poppies is closely regulated in Tasmania. When the poppies are in full bloom, the hillsides are clothed in pale pink blossoms.

			This year's Tulip Festival at the Royal Botanical Gardens was blessed with a day of sunshine, sandwiched between the greatest number of rainy days for a spring season in many years (according to the locals).  The University of Tasmania's Taiko Society performed and showed us their huge Japanese drums.  An alpaca farmer was displaying his stock and selling the very soft alpaca wool. Tulips of every color were blooming by the thousands, among other flowers and beneath a wonderful collection of giant trees growing on the expansive lawns where picnickers had spread their blankets and children played chase.  We visited with our friends Les and Joanne, fellow cruisers from the CYCT.

			Dorothy had enrolled in a Spanish class, and attended several cooking classes at our favorite deli The Wursthaus.

			We were privileged to take the docklines of s/v HAWK, as she arrived in Hobart, having carried owners Beth Leonard and Evans Starzinger safely across Bass Strait from Fremantle and Albany, Australia. They had made landfall first on the west coast of Tasmania, where they cruised the lovely waters of Port Davey.

			Steve first made the acquaintance of Evans over the internet while both HAWK and ADAGIO were under design and construction. Much technical information was shared over the years, and finally we met face to face.  How pleased we were to be able to introduce Beth and Evans to our favorite town and cruising waters.  We were also looking forward to introducing them to our ADAGIO.

			At the end of September, with Evans and Beth aboard, we sailed ADAGIO south to North Bruny Island to introduce them to our friends Lesley and Robert.  We berthed ADAGIO at Robert's tiny floating dock, securing bow and stern lines to the trees ashore. Their graceful, century-old, classic sloop WEENE' was moored nearby. We made a second trip south a on November 17, this time with Beth and Evans aboard their sailing vessel HAWK, and we aboard ADAGIO.  Our mission was a photo shoot of the two boats under sail.  We succeeded in capturing the two beautiful vessels "Looking Good", as Latitude 38 would say.

			As we had delayed our departure we found that we were in the spring season of "equinoctial gales".  Steve prepared our parachute anchor in case we might need to "park" our boat and let a cold front pass over us.  After three years of cruising, it was high time that I go through the entire boat and take off the items that we were not using, and update our computer-based master inventory, so we would know where everything was located.  I was also unpacking the emergency equipment, testing it, and stowing it in more accessible cabinets.

			Aboard ADAGIO, my goal was to stow all items which might go flying across the room if ADAGIO were hit by large waves during our passage to New Zealand.  I was also trying to move heavy items from the forward areas of the boat to the stern areas, to keep the bows from burying themselves under waves in heavy weather.

			By mid November, Steve was recovering from a bout with the flu. ADAGIO was clean, stocked and ready.  Peter Cook had agreed to sail with us to New Zealand.  His professional skipper's training and experience, many years of yacht racing, and relaxed Aussie disposition was mightily welcomed aboard ADAGIO.  His boss, Peter, demanded a ransom for his release from duties in the form of a copy of the video tape that I had taken of his wedding reception, which had been held at Constitution Dock. I had photographed the reception from the deck of ADAGIO, particularly enjoying the bride climbing aboard the getaway boat in full bridal regalia, and taking the helm while groom Peter raised the anchor.

			We had faxed our entry papers to New Zealand Customs, and had prepared our exit papers from Australia.  All we needed was our clearance forms so we could purchase duty free diesel at half price and depart.

			I was looking forward to being at sea again, seeing our friends in New Zealand, and cruising the best areas there during the southern summer.  A deep low pressure system passed over Hobart, bringing peak gusts of 52 knots.  We had put on a second bow line and re-rigged the reacher sheets direct to turning blocks and rolled in another 2 turns on the reacher furler to be sure we didn’t have an unfurling disaster in high winds.

			On November 22, 2003 we took on 1000 litres of diesel fuel and departed Hobart for New Zealand.