First Female Circumnavigator - Where is she now?
Where is she now? It's just 20 years since Australian Kay Cottee became the first woman to circle the globe by sailing solo non stop and unassisted. There have been many since - Ellen MacArthur and Dee Caffari to name the most famous - and they have continued in the racing scene, both competitively and as a business. 
'Kay Cottee’s Book about her journey'
.
But where IS Kay Cottee now, 20 years later? What do such record setters do? Sail more races? Cruise the world? Run a maritime business somewhere? Maybe on the speaking circuit or writing sailing books? The yacht 'First Lady' is in the Sydney's National Maritime Museum, but you can't find her there.
The thing I remember most about Kay's triumphant arrival back into Sydney Harbour, was that, after 187 days at sea, she was obliged to wait off Sydney Heads for two days in miserable weather just so she could appease her sponsor and arrive home on a Sunday.
After 187 days at sea, it seemed to me that the most valiant part of her journey could well have been waiting those extra two days.
To find the answer to the question of where she is now, you have to travel several hundred kilometres north of her old tacking ground of Sydney. Here you'll find her, having taken the 'Seachange' option. She is painting - painting the ocean mostly, in the picturesque coastal town of Yamba in northern New South Wales. 
Of course she HAS written two books since her feat in her yacht aptly named 'First Lady', and was on the speaking circuit for some time, but now, well, she's made time to marry, have a son, now 14, and indulge her passion for painting and sculpting,
Marj Belessis of the local Sydney paper Manly Daily caught up with Kay when she was in Sydney to be feted on the 20th anniversary of her achievement.
She writes that wielding a paintbrush might seem pretty tame stuff after steering an 11.3m yacht around the world, facing down everything the world's great oceans had to throw at her and becoming the first woman to successfully complete the world circumnavigation, solo, non-stop and unassisted.
But, two decades down the track, Cottee finds it just as fulfilling to capture the infinite variety of the sea's moods on canvas as it is to come to terms with them at the helm of a boat.
So painting plays a big part in Kay Cottee's life today. `I had always been interested in painting and sculpting, but got into it seriously just after I got back from my voyage,' she said. 
She also has her own fine art gallery to showcase her work, set up on the first floor and the Yamba Marina, which she and husband Peter own in partnership with some Sydney friends.
And no sailing? 'Maybe in the future,' was what she told Belessis. She and her husband are renovating an old cruising boat, and she says, 'We'll go cruising again one day.'
by Nancy Knudsen 
Click on thumbnails to enlarge and find more photos:
Falmouth TASMANIA, VIC
