Birthdays, cyclones and a lovely cod.

A very brisk sail for my birthday, another stopover at Hillary's and dinner at the club to celebrate. Brendan & Jan met us at the boat to celebrate my birthday which was lovely of them.
Terribly hot, humid and yukky, with the news that cyclone Bianca is heading down the coast. We left Hillary's at 11.30 to head back to Mindarie with a head wind all the way, so it was motor all the way bashing into it. Frank showing Bob the track back to Mindarie that he takes which at times gets pretty shallow but quite safe.
It was the sort of weather that you stop worrying about what you look like and just dress to keep cool. The sun was fierce and could feel it burning into my back as we motored along. It was actually a great trip back, I sat on the rear seats and enjoyed the rocking and admiring the colour of the water as Meridian ii pushed her way through it.
A sighting of sharks as we passed Mullaloo beach with the Westpac helicopter following them and hovering over, only a few people swimming at the time.
A perfect reversing into the pen as there was no wind in the marina. Made her secure and then Bob collected his gear and bid us farewell.
Activity on the marina in view of the cyclone heading down and it would appear we were in its path, as well as Bunbury. So emails were being sent out for everyone to properly secure their vessels.
Jarrod from Stormy came to sort the boat out and as he was leaving gave us a beautiful freshly caught cod. Gary, Rae, Katrina and Dan came to help us eat it. Frank bbq'd it whole and it was absolutely delicious.
We retired at 11pm feeling extremely tired and were rudely awakened at 5am with a loud bang and pelting rain. Of course all the hatches were open so it was a mad scramble to shut everything down. After which Frank went back to bed and I sat up waiting for the worst to happen.
It was just a front passing over so I fell back into bed and woke at 8.30 to another hot, steamy soupy morning.
Grib files tell us it will pick up around 8pm tonight and then increase tomorrow, so in the mean time, we batten down, do all that we can to ensure the safety of the boat and go home to batten down there as well.