by Judy Handley | Nov 6, 2007 | Arriving Australia, Sailing Logs Year 2 |
Day 196, Year 2: Melbourne Cup Day
Date: Tuesday, November 6, 2007
Weather: Rainy, Rainy, Rainy
Location: Bundaberg Port Marina, Australia
Although there is an official Australia Day, most Aussie’s refer to Melbourne Cup Day as the official Australian national day. This is one horse race that is taken most seriously and the whole nation stops to watch. So it was a perfect day to have the final Port-2-Port rally celebration as well. We all dressed in our yachtie best and attended a Champagne and Chicken luncheon just before race time. Wearing a fancy hat is a tradition for Cup Day, so many of us found most creative ways to decorate
otherwise nondescript sun hats. Kathy of Two by Sea won the hat competition with a hat of balloons topped off by a BCYC (Bundaberg Cruising Yacht Club) pendant. By race time, we had all placed our bets and were ready to root for our horse. I dressed in purple today, so I was rooting for Purple Moon. This was the favored horse, but Efficient came in at the end and won the race leaving Purple Moon in second place. After the race and appropriate amount of celebrating, we returned to Windbird to
work on projects. But by 5:30 PM we were back up in the rally tent for a final farewell to our wonderful hosts from the Bundaberg Cruising Yacht Club and to all of the other rally participants. Some of us are staying here in Bundaberg, but most are moving on to other locations on the east coast of Australia. Some of us will meet again in Darwin next July for the Sail Indonesia Rally, but most we will not see again. The Port-2-Port Rally has been great fun. The BCYC does a wonderful job of organizing
the rally and providing opportunities for cruisers to meet and have fun together. We have really enjoyed our first week here in Australia and have felt most welcomed by the people here.
My early morning hours were spent in the marina laundromat. I have not been in a laundromat since New Zealand, but with the forecast of days of rain, I decided that using a laundromat was better than having wet clothes hanging all around. Windbird still looks like a cyclone hit, and I didn’t need to add wet laundry hanging to the chaos. Mark launched into the fun project today of removing one of our toilets and replacing the wooden base it sits on. That project will not be completed until tomorrow,
so that added just a little more chaos. Maybe we will get things straightened out tomorrow.
by Judy Handley | Nov 5, 2007 | Arriving Australia, Sailing Logs Year 2 |
Day 195, Year 2: Dark and Stormy in Bundaberg
Date: Monday, November 5, 2007
Weather: Overcast, Then Pouring Rain
Location: Bundaberg Port Marina, Australia
Late this afternoon, the skies opened and the rain has been pouring down all evening. This part of Australia has not seen rain in months and they have been on water restriction due to the drought. Evidently we need at least a week of pouring rain to make a dent in the diminished water table. I don’t look forward to a week a rain, but on the other hand, I guess I hope it happens and helps to break the drought. We had taken down our dodger and bimini so that I could varnish, but when the black
clouds hung overhead this afternoon, we decided to put the dodger back on and then hang a tarp over the mast to protect the back part of the cockpit. I have only two coats of varnish on the cap rail around the cockpit and need at least six to eight straight days of dry weather to finish the job. We have three weeks before we leave here, so hopefully we will get another dry spell so I can once again be in the varnishing business.
We left the marina early this morning on the tour bus taking us to the Bundaberg Rum Factory. We really enjoyed seeing how sugar cane is processed into molasses and then into rum. We got to walk through a building that was one of the molasses holding tanks. From the molasses “swimming pool” the raw molasses is processed, yeast is added, and then fermented. The alcohol content goes up through each of the processes, and when the final product is poured into huge barrels made of white oak from the
eastern part of the United States, the alcohol content reaches about 78 per cent. The rum sits in these gigantic wooden vats for at least two years, and then it is bottled. The tannins in the white oak give the Bundaberg rum its specific flavor. After the tour, we were taken to the bar and offered free drinks. I had what is called a Dirty Harry. It is Bundaberg Royale Liqueur over ice with cream added. Even though it was mid-morning, I have to admit that I enjoyed that drink. From the rum
factory, we visited the gingerbeer factory, and then on the Bunnings Hardware. I’m afraid Mark and I got in trouble here. We didn’t hear that there was a 20 minute time limit on the visit, so we went up and down every isle looking for things on our shopping list. I finally felt like we had been there a very long time, so I started walking the isles looking for anyone from our tour. I found no one, so I went to the front of the store. Our guide, Judy, greeted me there and said she needed me to
come to the bus. I dashed quickly to look for Mark and couldn’t find him anywhere. I thought maybe he had gone to the bus, but no such luck. I came back and found him, but I’m afraid we held up the bus for quite some time. The last stop was a grocery store. This time we made sure we checked on the time limit and we came back early. Even so, people who went on the afternoon tour told us that we have become infamous and Latebird instead of Windbird.
When we returned from the tour, it was obvious that rain was on its way. We first had darkekned skies and then thunder. That is when we started bringing all of the lines we have been washing and drying for days now and covering the cockpit. We spent the rest of the afternoon organizing the lines and putting them back in storage. We had hoped to get rid of some of them, but in the end, we decided to keep most of the lines to use “just in case.” The rain came down harder and harder and it was
dark long before sundown. We got up our nerve to walk up to the rally tent to see if they were still having the Sausage Sizzle, and indeed, they were. There were only a few cruisers there, but we had a lovely evening as the storm raged on. Mark spent most of the evening talking to the captain of Kasume. The captain is a public health physican and started his circumnavigation solo. He met his wife in Madagascar and they now sail with their 14 month-old son, Pierre-Louis. We learned much about
sailing the Indian Ocean tonight, and it made us very excited for that part of our voyage.
Tomorrow it is off to the horse races. Actually, we will watch the Melbourne Cup on wide-screen TV in the rally tent while having a Champagne and Chicken luncheon. Even if it is raining, it should be great fun.
by Judy Handley | Nov 4, 2007 | Arriving Australia, Sailing Logs Year 2 |
Day 194, Year 2: Sunday Market and a Port-2-Port Dinner
Date: Sunday, November 4, 2007
Weather: Still Very Sunny and Warm with Lots of Wind
Location: Bundaberg Port Marina, Australia
Bundaberg Port Marina is a little more than ten miles from Bundaberg, so we always have to take the bus in. No buses run on Sunday, but the rally chartered a couple today to take us all to the Sunday market at the Shalom College (secondary school) on the outskirts of Bundaberg. It was a good food market with lots of other things for sale and the prices on fresh vegetables were much better than at the stores in Bundaberg. Mark and Gerry talked the bus driver into taking them on into town to the
marina area. There was a little marine trade show today and they just couldn’t miss that. We were all back at the Bundaberg Port Marina by noon and I launched into the projects on my radar screen. The wind has really picked up and there was a perfect mare’s tail in the sky above us with a mackeral sky on either side of it. We hear that very strong winds from the south are coming tomorrow and definitely the clouds in the sky were a little unusual. But back to the work at hand. I continued to
soak and then rinse lines that were hanging in our anchor locker all season. They hang in the locker in such a way as to drape slightly on the chain when it is all pulled in. That means they get dirty with bottom muck that comes up with the chain and that is what I am cleaning off. I then sanded and put a second coat of varnish on the cap rail around our cockpit. Mark wired up the solar panel he bought yesterday at the “monster bilge sale” and worked on reorganizing the things that go back under
our v-berth and before we knew it, it was time to go to the Port-2-Port dinner. We were all supposed to dress up for this one and if there had been a prize for Best Dressed, it would have gone to Bob of White Swan. He had on a white tux jacket with tails with back short pants, topped off with a devil’s horns headband. He was “stylin.” We were all treated to complimentary Dark and Stormy drinks made of Bundaberg Rum mixed with Bundaberg Gingerbeer. They actually sell this drink here pre-mixed
in cans and it is very popular. We had oysters on the half shell and a wide assortment of appetizers. Dinner was great and it was followed by live music by Nostalgia. We had fun dancing to music from the past, and in fact, I can still hear the music, so many are still up in the rally tent dancing and having a great time. Awards were given after dinner and Anna and Clyff of Koncerto that beat us in the boule semi-finals were the first place winners.
Tomorrow we leave early for a tour of the Bundaberg Rum Factory, the Gingerbeer Factory, and a huge hardware store. We will return in early afternoon just in time to sand and varnish the cap rail a third time and then attend tomorrow night’s sausage sizzle.
by Judy Handley | Nov 3, 2007 | Arriving Australia, Sailing Logs Year 2 |
Day 193, Year 2: A Whirlwind of Activity
Date: Saturday, November 3, 2007
Weather: Very Sunny and Very Warm with Lots of Wind
Location: Bundaberg Port Marina, Australia
The Port-2-Port activities just keep on coming. The first activity today was a boat “yard sale” up by the rally tent. Everyone brought up the boat gear they wanted to get rid of, and as always, one person’s junk is the answer to another’s dream. We sold our wonderful Dahon folding bikes. They went from Windbird to Freebird. We loved them but used them so little that it was getting harder and harder to justify the space they took up in the v-berth. We bought a solar panel to replace the one
we lost on our passage from New Zealand to Fiji last May for less than half the price of a new one, so it was a good morning for us. While Mark manned the sale items, I came back to the boat and started to get ready to sand and varnish the cap rail around the cockpit. Doing this required taking down the dodger and bimini with all of the hardware that holds it up. I got started but was really glad when Mark came down to get something off the boat. It was only with his help that I had any hope
of getting the job done. We moved the dodger and bimini to the front of the boat and I literally just threw everything else from the cockpit inside the boat. By day’s end, I did get the cap rail around the cockpit sanded and varnished but inside and out, Windbird looks like a cyclone hit. There is stuff everywhere, but it will just have to be that way until we finish varnishing and can get things back in place.
Mid-afternoon, after sanding but before varnishing, we went up to play our semi-finals boule game, This time we lost. We played against Anna and Clyff of Koncerto and learned many new things about the game. They knew all the rules, and they also knew all of the nuiances of how to play the game. So no finals for Windbird, but we have learned to play a new game that is a lot of fun and can be played on beaches anywhere. When we finished our game, Pure Chance was waiting for Scot Free II to show
up to play the last game of the semi-finals. When Scot Free didn’t come, Mark went out on the dock to get them. Unfortunately, Donna had fallen off the boat onto the dock and bruised herself pretty badly. There would be no boules for them today, nor would they attend the Pot Luck. We just hope Donna recovers quickly and doesn’t have any broken bones. The last activity for today was a Pot Luck dinner. When I stopped to fix lunch today, I made an artichoke-rice salad to take. I was also going
to make some salmon cakes, but I ran out of time. It is a good thing as there was way more food than anyone could eat.
Tomorrow’s activities include an early morning bus trip to Bundaberg to go to the Sunday market. We’ll return from that, continue the boat work, and then go to the late afternoon rally dinner. We are supposed to dress up for this one which could be interesting since most of us don’t have dressy clothes aboard. But then, cruisers are always so creative. I’m sure we will all find a way to look extra-special for the event.
by Judy Handley | Nov 2, 2007 | Arriving Australia, Sailing Logs Year 2 |
Day 192, Year 2: Windbird Makes the Boule Semi-Finals
Date: Friday, November 2, 2007
Weather: Very Sunny and Very Warm
Location: Bundaberg Port Marina, Australia
Early this morning I heard Peter of Dutch Touch saying he hadn’t been in a quarter-final competition in a quarter of century. Well, Mark and I have never been in a quarter or semi-final competition for anything, but today we we made it with beginner’s luck. We were dreading our 9 AM boule game against Paddy and Alison on Zfarse. Alison is from Australia and has played boules all of her life and Paddy seemed enthusiastic about winning. They explained the rules of the game to us, and right off
I found that I had a knack for getting my silver boule ball closest to the white ball–the goal of the game. We won the game 11 to 8. So on we went to the semi-finals. Our afternoon game time was 3:30, so we had to stop right in the middle of some major projects to go back up to the lawn to play. This time our opponents were Bob and Dianna of White Swan. Again, they have boule balls on their boat and have played on the beach many times. We were just anxious to get the game over with so we could
get back to work. But once again, we won. This time the score was 11 to 3. So tomorrow is our big day. We had such a good time playing today, but then playing is always more fun when you are winning.
Before going to our 9 AM game, we cleaned out the space under the v-berth taking all the extra lines and spinnaker sail up on deck to dry out any dampness. Mark then emptied the anchor locker of all anchor chain and rope and put these things down on the pier to be cleaned. I took down all of the plastic side curtains around the cockpit, as well as the sunscreens, and worked to scrub these clean. I also washed some of the lines that were particularly dirty. All of this took most of the day, but
by time we headed up to dinner, We had the side curtains down inside the boat ready to pack away, the anchor resting nicely in a clean anchor locker.
Tomorrow we take the things we want to sell to shore, play in the boule semi-finals, and attend a Port-2-Port Pot Luck dinner. I’m hoping to sand and maybe even put one coat of varnish on the cockpit combing, so it will be another jam-packed day here in Aussie Land.
by Judy Handley | Nov 1, 2007 | Arriving Australia, Sailing Logs Year 2 |
Day 191, Year 2: Keeping Busy
Date: Thursday, November 1, 2007
Weather: Partly Sunny and Very Warm
Location: Bundaberg Port Marina, Australia
Outside, Windbird looks great, but inside she looks like a cyclone hit. We have the v-berth torn apart in readiness for getting under the cushions to sort out things we no longer need and to air out that part of the boat. So things stored on the v-berth are now in the main cabin piled here and there. Then I have been going through the accumulation of paperwork about the places we have visited this season. When I am finished, everything will be reorganized and ready to go when we return from
the US, but right now it is a mess. Mark took down all of the sails today, hauled them up to the grassy area in front of the marina complex, folded them neatly, and then took them to the canvas shop next door for repairs. We normally do our own repairs, but there are specific jobs to be done on each sail that need a bigger sewing machine than the one we have. Mark also got Windbird “dressed” for the Best Dressed Yacht competition coming up on Saturday. We have one string of signal flags and we
made another string of flags using the courtesy flags of all the countries we have visited during the voyage of Windbird. Tomorrow will be more of the same: cleaning and organizing, and hopefully by the end of the day, we will have the inside of the boat all back to normal. That’s probably optimistic, but I can always hope.
We have wireless internet on the boat here in the marina and today we received some pictures of our nine-month old grand baby Sam dressed as a penguin for Halloween. He just gets cuter and cuter. We started our day with a breakfast provided by the Burnett Heads shire. That is the political unit for this area. And then we ended our day with a Port-2-Port curry dinner. During the day we saw Idunne and Runae and their twin girls Hetta and Marita of Blue Marlin. They came in last night and went
through Customs and Quarantine this morning. We saw Jan and Christina of the yacht Christina tonight. They came in today, but had an unfortunate ending to their passage. While taking down the sails, they hit one of the large metal buoys in the bay just before entering the river. There is evidently considerable damage done to the boat. We were sad to hear about this, but they seem upbeat about it and say they will get the repairs done and continue. It seems that most of the boats in the rally
must be here now, so there are at least 112 people when we get together, plus the local folks organizing the rally, and some yachties who were not in the rally but join with us when we are together. It is quite a crowd.
We think the repairs we did on the dinghy yesterday are working which is a great relief. Tomorrow morning it is our turn to play boules. This is a form of bowling but on a lawn and with rules that resemble horse-shoes. There is a tournament among all the yachties. The Port-2-Port festivities include a luncheon sponsored by the marina and a seafood auction during the evening. None of us is quite sure how this will work, but soon we will see. The people of Bundaberg have been so very welcoming
and we are having a great time meeting other yachties from the rally. The fun just goes on and on. And somehow we will find time between all these activities to get the boat work done.
