Following on from the amazing weekend I just attended in Port Stephens, I’ve come back home buzzing with ideas of what we might do in the future. Every presentation set off a little spark of something, a germ of an idea, a frisson of excitement! OK, not the sailing in Antarctica or the dismasting 1000 miles off South Africa or the rescue in the Pacific. But listening to some of the speakers describing their voluntary work in the Pacific or bartering with the locals for lobsters and veggies or reading to the kids in schools in Vanuatu and the Solomon Islands really got me wondering if we could go again. We loved the little bit of the Pacific we did in 2009 and always said we would go back some time.

I got back home and said to Andy ” Hey And! I’ve been thinking…….” He knows now that that actually means “I’ve got a plan and I want you to help me make it happen!”

And I’m not the only one. Every woman there will be home now thinking about what they might achieve themselves whether it’s taking a sailing course, making bread on board, servicing their own Diesel engine or single handedly sailing round Australia.

My friend Cheryl who has sailed many thousands of miles around the world texted her husband “Hey Bruce, Sorry, just when you were thinking of hanging up your oil skins ….I’m ready to go out on the wild blue yonder again…… His reply “Life with you is like a box of chocolates… Never know what will happen each day. Bring it on!”

Inspirational women.