day 1 (August 24th) - buy buy new caledonia!

With the early morning sun Quickstar is leaving the visitor dock of Noumea. On board: captain Peter and his two new crew members David and Barbara. Motoring her out of the Marina we wave goodbye to Diana - "see you soon in Coffs Harbour - have a good flight!!" Following our finds catamaran, we headed for the pass and out of the channel, from where we seperated and each followed our own way - Bubas to Brisbane and Quickstar to Coffs Harbour. With the uprising of a fair apparent 15kts. south-south-easterly breeze, we hoisted the genova and happly started sailing towards Australia. After Barbara and David both had a little bit of practice on the wheel Peter set up the windpilot and left the helming to "Max" from then. With beautiful 6-7kts. we started off on a close haul - aiming for 215, the best possible course south.
At 10:40am the green hills of New Caledonia start getting faint in the distance - and only 842nm to go to Coffs Harbour!