33 52.312S, 151 10.507E

21 months since Dubai departure - the epic ends, but nothing really stops. You'd have thought the arrival at the end, would be somewhat triumphant, wouldn't you? Sailing through the Sydney harbor heads, dodging the Manly ferries, passing the Opera house, and gliding under first the Harbor bridge, then the Anzac bridge ... epic ?

Yes, it was a bit epic, really wonderful, but it was also one of 500 slightly stressful arrivals. The important thing is, that at the end of a trip of a lifetime, I didn't step ashore, and expire!

I kind of spoiled the arrival, by 'doing' the Harbor, the day before. I went to town, to visit the Irish Consulate - starting inquiries to my getting an anti Brexit Irish Passport, courtesy of my dad. Naturally after so long away (more than a decade), I bimbled down to the Bridge and Opera house. I'd planned to go back via the same bus I came in on, but as I was right next to the city center ferry terminal, I got the Manly ferry for part of the way. That was also my 'risk management' side talking, as it was a good recce for bringing the boat in.

The final voyage day, started well - the boat yard were true to their promise, and I was back in the water at 08:15. They wanted to clean the boat when she was back in, but as I had a weather imperative, my response was "I'd rather travel dirty and spent hours at the destination cleaning up myself, than travel clean and be hammered by the weather" ... a good call. x86 with super shiney bottom, did an average of 7 knots, and I beat the incoming offshore southerly breeze - most excellent.

I took a couple of distant offshore photos of the beaches Karen grew up on, and the headland hospital that Chance arrived in, and a couple of selfies in the Harbor - but mostly, this my last passage on x86, was work and risk management as ever.

Now I'm in Rozelle - a tiny 20 boat marina just 5k from the center of Sydney. I'd thought that it was a bit of a 'messy' area of the city, but it's actually really nice. Dog park, and excellent inner city streets with period style houses surround me. I've been out riding a several times, but my days are now mostly cleaning. I def need to get off the boat - every time I clean, it highlights more areas to clean - enough already!

While I was out riding, by amazing chance I passed a motorbike rental business, that I'd been unsuccessfully trying to rent a bike from (fully booked). I popped in to see if anything had changed - it had! I was able to rent a BMW 1200GS for a week - frikkin awesome - until the lady spotted that my UAE driving license was six weeks expired - ah tits! But lucky lucky, I found my missing UK license, and the next day, went back and did the deal. I'll now be going North to the Hunter Valley to see friends, and South to the Snowy Mountains to visit family.

To pick up on my opening sentence of this blog post ... The reason why this doesn't feel like the end of an epic, is that it rolls seamlessly into the need to re-establish the land life adventure, and rescue Karen and Bosun from their long holding pattern - the next 'adventure' looms. It's like retiring - going from an office job to a boat job - the transition was seemless.

Was this Adventure a good idea? Of course, by a thousand percent. Did it go as planned - of course not ... what fun would that have been :-)

All's well on x86, as we continue to groom her for sale.