OUR LAST DAY ON THE HOUSEBOAT

This was one of the most relaxing holidays I have been on... Not a lot to do but chill out... I think being on the water for me is calming and relaxing, and on our last day we spent quite a bit o time just cruising around.  We headed up towards Southport past some beautiful homes at Sovereign Island....  Most of our time was spent up on the top deck... WE even drove the houseboat from up there...

Enjoying the views and ocean breezes

This allowed us to enjoy the view and the beautiful breeze....
These guys sailed right past us and we had a wonderful view of the parachute.....

Tourists enjoying some of the water spotts on the coast

 We sailed past Sovereign Island and checked out all these massive homes...

Massive homes...

 Te large home in the above photo is still unfinished... It has been like this now for over four years... It has had four different owners, but they have all gone bankrupt trying to finish this home. It is kind of sad to see it just sitting there in it's unfinished state.  Mind you there is no way I would want to live in a house that big... imagine all the cleaning.  Appartently it also has 13 garages.  It is inconceivable to me that someone would build a home this big with that many garages....Who on earth would have 13 cars.....

Runaway Bay

 By coming this far up, it allowed us to anchor close to where we needed to be for the following morning when we needed to be at Hope Harbour by 9am...
 We saw more of this when we were up at Runaway Bay

Gold Coast fun and activies....

 We had to head back an hour or so to anchor, and this is when this young man got to actually steer our houseboat....

Captain Adam

 Under the watchful eye of the adults, Adam steered the boat back towards our anchorage for the night.  He was really chuffed to be able to steer us and he really did do a great job of it.  Kind of a highlight for him...

 We found our anchorage for the night just off Brown Island... In fact by the time we got there the tide was a little low and we kind of got stuck on the sandbank.  Still it didn't worry us to much as this was pretty much where we wanted to be so that we could make an early get away the following morning....

It was here that we were able to view this.....

Beautiful sunset on the Gold Coast

Magical moments as we sat and enjoyed this...

On our last night on board we had a feast..
We devoured all that we had caught this  week.
Great feed or fish and crabs...

Our seafood feast

It was a lovely evening...
We did however have to sit up until midnight when the tide came in again so that we could shift the Houseboat off the sandbank ready for an early morning take off...

The following morning on our way back to Hope Harbour, we had a pod of dolphins travel alongside us as we cruised along.... This was a real highlight for us as we watched.  Pity it was so hard to photographic.  It really was quite magical......

Pod of dolphins....

It was hard to believe that the time had come to head back to the Marina...
This was a holiday I had looked forward too but also dreaded as I wondered whether it would be a little sad without Daryl.
We missed him...
We know he would have really enjoyed this holiday...
We reminisced about the times we had spent with him...
There were a few tears,
There was lots of laughter too
I will be forever grateful, that we knew Daryl,  that he was our friend, and that he taught us so much. 
I am also grateful that he talked us into taking this holiday,,,
That he planned every detail of it...
That he booked us the perfect houseboat
I am thankful that we were able to share this special time altogether
and that it was relaxing and soothing to the soul...
I hope that we get to do it again one day soon....

And finally this was us heading home....

The end of a wonderful week....