Looking over the Wollombi valley towards the Watagan mountains with Mount Warrawolong, 641 metres (2,103 ft) above sea level, taking a direct hit of lightning in this shot. The Watagan Mountains, or Watagans, is a mountain wilderness area that forms part of the Great Dividing Range, located in the Hunter region of New South Wales, Australia.
Smokey sunset, Wollombi Valley, New South Wales, Australia. Our friend Helios has a diameter about 109 times that of Earth, and it a mass about 330,000 times that of Earth, accounting for about 99.86% of the total mass of the solar system. With a surface temperature of approximately 5,778 K (5,505 °C, 9,941 °F) it keeps us warm despite being a distance of 1.496x10^8 km, or 8 min 19 s at light speed, away .
“It’s never too late in life to have a genuine adventure.” Robert Kurson So after ninety one days stranded at anchor in various stages of enforced lockdown in French Saint Martin, we have finally had a chance to move south. Grenada has graciously opened their borders to a limited extent to let boats stranded in the hurricane zone in. With several tropical cyclonic storms already being named this season, and the risk of borders closing quickly again in the event of a second wave of the pandemic, we knew it was time to go. The direct passage from Saint Martin on SV Cirrus took a little over three days and three nights. All in all, we had a fast albeit lumpy passage with a short period swell. Each day dusk would bring reasonably high squally winds forcing us to sail at night under three reefs with just a little bit of headsail. On the second night at dusk we watched a long shelf cloud form behind us then spawn two tornadic funnel clouds / waterspouts which made it about halfway down from the shelf cloud to the sea. At dusk on the third night we almost lost the boom as a nylock nut on the gooseneck that connects the boom to the mast worked loose and came off the main bolt. Luckily, Adriana noticed the bolt hanging half way out the gooseneck on the boom as she was putting the 3rd reef in for the night. After lashing the boom on with some dyneema as a precaution we were able to bend the bolt back into shape and hammer it back in and secure it with a new nut. The days however were much more relaxed with moderate winds most of the time and a few lulls. We caught 4 fish, a delicious mahi mahi, two giant amberjacks, and the highlight of the trip was when Augie caught a great barracuda as long as he is on a homemade lure he made himself when he was just four. That Grenada graciously opened their borders to a limited extent to let stranded boats in we will always be grateful for. Shot taken in a squall off Barbuda
