As we awoke to another beautiful day we yet again performed the arduous task of packing the dinghy away before beginning our 270nm passage up to Croker Island on the Cobourg Peninsula.

With homemade bacon and egg mcmuffins for brekky, our tummies were full and we were ready to tackle the next adventure.

In the mean time Silver Fern were dealing with the problem of unblocking one of their toilets. I’ll refrain from entering any toilet puns here. This unfortunately seemed to be no small feat for the Silver Fern team and we took the extra time to relax before our trip. Aware of the time slipping by, David decided to retire his position by promoting his more than capable crew Sharon to Skipper, Lena to Chief Mate and demoting himself to toilet un-blocker.

We set sail around midday with conditions much the same as most of the week of 15-20knot South Easterlies, clear blue skies and an uncomfortable swell which yet again tested our abilities in playing Fridge Roulette.

The first unassuming contestant of fridge roulette happened to be Sally. As she walked past the fridges the dairy fridge violently swung open spewing almost the entire contents of the fridge on the floor. Having recently had this happen to me a few days earlier I could sympathise but not offer any help as I was still traumatised from my experience. I was however impressed with the lack of profanities Sally used compared to myself in the same situation. Our Sally doesn’t like to do anything by halves though. She decided to double down and have yet another go at fridge roulette the following day. Score……Fridge 10; Sally 0.

Contestant number two was Skipper Phil. As he opened the drinks fridge to get a cold beverage for the day, the whole shelving on the inside of the door fell off threatening to empty all of the drinks on the floor. Phil acted with lightning quick reflexes and managed to keep the entire contents of the fridge in the fridge! Wow! Score…….Fridge 3; Phil 7.

Contestant number three was young fisherman Bazza who also wanted to grab a cold beverage for the day. Unaware of Phils previous wrestle with the fridge Bazza quickly opened the fridge in hopes of an uneventful retrieval. Unluckily for Bazza the fridge was back with a vengeance. As the now broken inside of the door fell apart, drinks flew out in all directions scattering themselves far and wide. Thanks to Bazza we might even get to play drinks roulette later to see who gets the exploding can! Score…….Fridge 9; Bazza 1.

The afternoon and the next day was spent trying to spot any sea creatures lurking beneath the surface of the ocean. As Angie and I spied the most peculiar sight of a seagull standing on top of what looked like a tiny moving island, we both did a double take and realised the seagull was riding a turtle! What a sight! Angie spotted a sea snake and Phil spotted what was thought to be a big Lemon Shark.

On the afternoon watch Phil got out the sextant and gave his watch a lesson on how to navigate using sun sights.

Peter cooked a lovely Arrabbiata Sauce(ooooh fancy) with pasta for dinner, which was impressive in the trying conditions. The Arrabbiata was the gift that kept on giving when the next day Sandie piped up with “what’s that smell?!”. I had smelt it too…….an extremely oniony garlicky smell that I thought might be coming from the rubbish. As we searched for the source Peter exclaimed that he’d put a whole bag of onions and an entire bulb of garlic in the Arrabbiata! This was when we realised that the smell was potentially emanating from our own bodies! As Angie accidentally leaned against the oven switch turning the gas on I yelled “get your bum off the gas Angie!”. My bum was on the gas in an entirely different way……. and I don’t think I was the only one……..

Tune in next time to find out if any more contestants decide to enter into the Fridge Roulette challenge.

Jess :)