by Judy Handley | Oct 31, 2007 | Arriving Australia, Sailing Logs Year 2 |
Day 190, Year 2: Life on the Dock
Date: Wednesday, October 31, 2007
Weather: Sunny and Very Warm
Location: Bundaberg Port Marina, Australia
Mark spent his day washing the engine with fresh water, finding and repairing tiny puncture holes in the dinghy, repairing a through-hull fitting, and replacing rusty hose clamps under sinks. I did yet another hand laundry, cleaned the cockpit cushions and the cockpit, and as Mark says–generally washed everything in sight. Mark and I both worked online trying to find flights from Boston to Charlotte so we can go to my sister’s 50th wedding anniversary party and then wrote a lengthy email to our
kids to share the information with them in hopes that they can join us. In the late afternoon I cut Mark’s hair and then it was time to go to the first Port-2-Port Rally gathering. Tonight it was a bar-b-que and it was fun to talk with many of the participants and to reunite with some good friends. Bob and Dianna on White Swan came in last night and Cynthia, Tim, and Cameron on Arctic Fox came in this morning, so we visited with them this evening. I forgot to mention in yesterday’s log that Ute
and George of Miami are here, and tonight we saw Alison and Paddy of Zfarse who must have arrived today. Most of the boats are in although we have not seen Christina and Blue Marlin. Maybe tomorrow. Our day begins in the morning with a Rally breakfast and ends tomorrow evening with a curry dinner. In between, we will continue to do all of the little jobs that need to be done before we can leave Windbird in Australia while we return home. We are enjoying life here on the dock.
by Judy Handley | Oct 30, 2007 | Arriving Australia, Sailing Logs Year 2 |
Day 189, Year 2: First Trip into Bundaberg
Date: Tuesday, October 30, 2007
Weather: Mostly Sunny
Location: Bundaberg Port Marina, Australia
Bundaberg Port Marina is just at the mouth of the Burnett River on what is called Burnett Heads. From here it is probably about fifteen miles to the center of Bundaberg. Every day the marina runs a shuttle into town at 9:30 and again at 10:30, and once in town you can return on Duffy’s City Bus. So at 9:30 this morning, we hopped on the marina shuttle and made our way to town. Donna and Gerry of Scot Free II were also on the bus, but once we arrived we went our separate ways. We looked around
and saw a K-Mart, a Woolworth’s, and an IGA–all familiar store names. Mark and I also spotted a second-hand shop and we ducked in to see if they had any $2.00 suitcases like ones we had bought in New Zealand last year for our trip home. They had one really large soft suitcase for $8.00, so we bought it. We only had a $50 bill, and the shop had no change, so we had to run across the street to the IGA grocery store to get change. This looked like a good place to buy the food items we were after,
so we decided to walk around town and return here just before the 2:15 bus home to pick up our suitcase and buy our groceries. After getting the change, we went back to buy the suitcase and left it in the store saying we would pick it up later in the day. We then continued our walk about town. We had only walked a few blocks when we spotted Donna and Gerry in a park talking to a gentleman. We stopped and found that the man was a city employee working in the park and he had given Donna and Gerry
lots of leads on interesting places to visit. This man, like most everyone we have met here, was so very friendly and helpful. Our next stop was the Tourist Information Center and we found really helpful people there as well. The most exciting thing we discovered is that early next week the sea turtles start coming ashore just south of here to the Mon Repos Conservation Park. The turtles coming to nest represent the most significant loggerhead turtle nesting population in all of the South Pacific.
So I know we will be making a trip to Mon Repos in the next week or so.
Bundaberg is a town that appears to have been built in the late 1800’s and not much has changed since then. It has a population of around 50,000 and evidently the Bundaberg Rum factory is the biggest thing going in town. We found more stores with familiar names–Blockbuster Video and Target being two of the largest. We went with Donna and Gerry down to the river and found the Mid-Town Marina. Mark really enjoyed looking through the chandlery to see what he needed to buy, and Gerry and Donna checked
out the prices of keeping a boat there. We had lunch with Gerry and Donna, and then Mark and I visited a great little book store and went to Target to look for new pillows. Ours are sadly flat. We found out that you can’t buy queen-sized pillows here, only standard or king. Oh well, standard will just have to do. We slowly wound our way through town and back to our starting point.
Today was a good introduction to Bundaberg. I know we will return many times to buy all of the items on our shopping list, and we felt like we got a good handle on what is here today. When we got back to the marina, we made visits to the yard where boats are put on the hard and we visited the only canvas shop out here. Bevin runs the chandlery and owns the canvas shop and he is coming to Windbird tomorrow to give us an estimate on a new and improved cockpit enclosure. We ended our day with a
dinner on Ranger, who is by the way, our next door neighbor. We were neighbors in Whangarei and now here in Bundaberg.
When I wrote last night’s log, I thought the Port-2-Port activities began tonight, but I was a day early. Tomorrow evening the festivities begin. Maybe we will have our first XXXX beer. It is the official beer of Queensland and some say it is XXXX because no one could spell beer. Bad joke. We’ll have to wear our Boston Red Sox t-shirts tomorrow night to celebrate the Sox triumphant win of the World Series.
by Judy Handley | Oct 29, 2007 | Arriving Australia, Sailing Logs Year 2 |
Day 188, Year 2: At Home in Friendly Australia
Date: Monday, October 29, 2007
Weather: Overcast: Winds North 15 Knots
Latitude: S 24 degrees 45.703 minutes
Longitude: E 152 degrees 23.160 minutes
After what is likely the best passage we have had in our two years of cruising we made it to Bundaberg early this morning and anchored in the designated Quarantine area awaiting a call to come into a dock to be processed. Even though many boats arrived today, we were called to come to the Quarantine dock in a very short time. It was windy and we had difficulty getting into the slip without totally destroying a yacht named Gitano, so they let us come to the outside of the dock. There we went through
the very thorough Customs, Immigration, and Quarantine process. Before coming aboard, the Quarantine officer asked if we had any plants or animals onboard. I said we had a plant, but asked Joel from Quarantine if I could tell him my plant story before he came aboard and took my precious ivy away. He replied that I could tell him all the stories I wanted, but the plant had to go. I explained that I grew that ivy for our daughter’s wedding and really wanted it to make it around the world, but Joel
was unmoved. So Joel and a young woman in training named Pita came aboard and the ivy went into the quarantine bag. Everything else that they took, I expected, but what we didn’t expect was that they would go through every cabinet in the boat. They look for bugs of any sort in food and wood products. While Joel and Pita were taking the boat apart, Mark was hosting three people from Customs and Immigration. It was a little crowded, but we made it. Quarantine found no bugs, so they were satisfied,
and the Customs piece was just routine. It was a bit of an ordeal, but we have never met such efficient and friendly officials during our voyage.
The next step was to leave the Quarantine dock and go to our reserved slip where we will spend the next month here in the Bundaberg Port Marina. The young man who runs the marina operation is Jeff and he was very helpful during our moves and extremely friendly as well. By the time we checked in with the marina office and settled in to our marina slip, we felt at home here. There is a fantastic ship’s store like a West Marine in the US where I’m sure we will spend too much money, a little restaurant
and bar, a laundromat, bathrooms with showers, and a complimentary shuttle bus we can take into downtown Bundaberg. What more can a cruiser ask for?
It is early evening, but Mark and I are totally exhausted. Neither of us got more than four or five hours of sleep last night and we are tired. I cut one of my three-hour sleeping shifts short so that Mark could get to sleep for at least two hours of his next three hour shift before we were approaching land. He was up just after 5 AM and we just both stayed up after that. We had many boats in close range and it was important to be watchful. But tired as we are tonight, I must say it feels really
fantastic to be here in Australia. Now it is time for dinner after which we will go straight to bed. Tomorrow we start our explorations here with trip into downtown Bundaberg and the first of the rally activities in the evening. We have to rest up for the festivities.
by Judy Handley | Oct 28, 2007 | Passage to Australia, Sailing Logs Year 2 |
Day 187, Year 2: Sixth Day of Passage to Aussie Land–Almost There
Date: Sunday, October 28, 2007
Weather: Beautiful and Sunny; North 10-14 Knots
Latitude: S 24 degrees 09.471 minutes
Longitude: E 153 degrees 42.202 minutes
Location: On Passage to Australia
Miles to Go: 84!!!!!
The race is on. After motoring for almost 24 hours, the winds returned this morning and we were in the sailing business again. Right now, we can see two boats, and we are starting to hear traffic on the VHF radio. If all goes as planned, we should arrive in Bundaberg tomorrow, along with Scot Free II, and probably with New Dawn, Monkey’s Business, Rendezvous Cay, Dutch Touch, Rascals Two, and Ranger. This is based on miles to go reported on the radio net this morning and the radio traffic I am
hearing. We are having to motor again right now as the winds died down a bit in the late afternoon, but we have hopes that they will increase again after sunset. In any case, it has been a wonderful passage with less motoring than most and great sailing. It has been a wonderful ending to the cruising season. The last 50 miles tomorrow are in a shallow bay and up a river, and tides and winds could cause some havoc there, but we hope we have things timed right.
I was having so much fun yesterday when I wrote the log that I forgot to mention that I was eating Brie and French bread and drinking Pouilly Fume to celebrate our anniversary. Maybe I had just a little too much wine, but it was a wonderful evening. This morning when I got up for my 4 AM watch, it was dark. That has not been the case on the rest of the passage. I have awoken to first light each day. We changed our clocks to Aussie time as soon as we left New Caledonia and that gave us very early
sunrises for the passage. Obviously we have moved further west and now the sunrise is closer to 5 AM. This morning I got to watch the full moon go down as the sun came up. I love that time each month. It makes me feel like the world is in balance. I know this is an illusion, but I enjoy it just the same.
We talked to our son Justin on the SAT phone this morning. We had talked to him breifly while we were in Noumea, but he was in meetings at Marina Del Ray in Los Angeles at the time, so we didn’t really get to talk. Today’s conversation was great but it reinforced just how much we miss our kids. We’ve always had them both close to home, but now that Just is in New Mexico, Heather is in Massachusetts, and we are half way across the world, seeing each other becomes most challenging.
It is time to send emails, have dinner, and start the night watches. We will have to be especially watchful tonight as we are nearing land. We have seen two cargo ships today, the first on this passage. We also hear that there are fishermen that set out from Bundy before daylight, put their boats on auto pilot, and go to sleep. So we will be especially watchful for them. If the skies stay clear, at least we will have great light from the moon.
by Judy Handley | Oct 27, 2007 | Passage to Australia, Sailing Logs Year 2 |
Day 186, Year 2: Fifth Day of Passage to Aussie Land
Date: Saturday, October 27, 2007
Weather: Rain Showers Early, Otherwise Sunny; Winds NNW 10 Knots
Latitude: S 23 degrees 51.814 minutes
Longitude: E 155 degrees 48.619 minutes
Location: On Passage to Australia
Miles to Go: 201
While celebrating our 33rd wedding anniversary today, we managed to steam up the engine room. No worries, however. There was no connection between the two events. The big excitement for the day was mid-afternoon when I walked back to the aft cabin and found water on the floor which looked like it was coming from the engine room. My first thought was that engine room must be full of water and that we might be sinking. I quickly opened the engine room door and found water dripping from everything.
I didn’t know what the problem was but I did know we weren’t taking on water. There was just a salt water spray going everywhere. I called Mark and after a little detective work he discovered that the cause was a missing hose clamp on the mixing elbow going into the exhaust system. This means that water that should have been going out through the exhaust hose was just spraying all over. The hose clamp had probably corroded and broken loose. Mark quickly found a new one and put it on the hose
and all was well again. Whew!
Last night was interesting. After sailing wing and wing for over 36 hours, we started getting fairly heavy winds and had to change the sail configuration. We sailed all night with a double-reefed headsail and full main. We had a steady 18 to 22 knots with gusts to 25, but the wind was behind us so it was no problem. Ross on New Dawn called us in the middle of the night to warn of the high winds in front of us, but we were already in the middle of them. He thought we were further behind than
we were, but we appreciated the call. We also had a positive current during all of this, so we were having a good run. But as morning approached and the full moon set and the sun came up, the winds started to die down and move to the northwest. This put them in front of us, so after four beautiful days of sailing, we had to start the engine. We have been motor sailing all day against head winds, but now as the sun is setting, the winds have gone back to the north which puts us on the beam reach.
The winds are light so we will continue to motor, but at least we are not fighting those head winds. If things stay as they are now, we will arrive in Bundy on Monday, but if the headwinds come back, we might be delayed and arrive on Tuesday. The only boat we can see at this time is Scot Free II. They too are hoping for a Monday arrival, but we shall see.
Last note . . . I got word via email early this morning that the Red Sox won game two in the World Series. Thanks to all who sent the score.
by Judy Handley | Oct 26, 2007 | Passage to Australia, Sailing Logs Year 2 |
Day 185, Year 2: Fourth Day of Passage to Aussie Land
Date: Friday, October 26, 2007
Weather: Another Lovely Day of Sunshine and Calm Seas; Winds ENE 12-15 Knots
Latitude: S 23 degrees 47.887 minutes
Longitude: E 158 degrees 03.212 minutes
Location: On Passage to Australia
“The Red Sox totally creamed the Rockies last night … 13 to 1!!!” That was in an email from our daughter Heather this morning. My sister-in-law Sue and my sister Patsy also emailed the same. I call them the “Big Three” as they are always the first to email me important news, and the Red Sox in the World Series is definitely important. Thanks Heather, Sue, and Patsy.
We had another totally incredible twenty-four hours of sailing today. We have not had to turn on the engine since leaving Noumea except for charging the batteries, so to this point, this is the best passage we have had in recent memory. The seas are calm, the winds are light but steady, and we are making great time sailing wing and wing. Out mainsail is vanged out to port and our headsail is poled out to starboard. It would great if things would stay this way all the way, but maybe that is too
much to ask for. We reached the half-way point in our passage at 4:05 AM this morning, so even if we have to motor the rest of the way, we are happy. We thought we might have to motor most of the way due to the predicted winds of less than ten knots. I don’t know where they are, but I hope they stay away from us!
We are still within VHF contact with Jason and Laurel on Monkey’s Business and Ross and Laura on New Dawn. They can’t hear each other, but we are in between and can hear both and relay for them. Jason and Laurel are from Colorado, so we had to fill them in on the World Series. They didn’t know the Rockies were in it, so we will have fun relaying scores to them–scores that will hopefully be in our favor, not theirs. When we talked to Scot Free II and Ranger this morning, Scot Free was fairly
close to us but having to motor to keep up their desired speed. Ranger had sailed yesterday, motored for about six hours during the night, but were going to try and sail again today. We won’t know how that went until tomorrow morning, but neither Scot Free or Ranger seem to have the same winds that we have. Their winds are lighter and more variable. We had a positive current today of one to two knots as we went through a pass between two relatively shallow areas. We weren’t aware of this “pass”,
but Ross on New Dawn informed us of why we were enjoying the increased speed. The favorable current is still with us, but not sure how long it will last.
I spent my waking hours today catching up on correspondence and cleaning the dinghy. We carry the hard-bottomed dinghy on deck with the bottom side up. There were some waterline stains that I needed to clean and tomorrow I will apply the UV protectorant. It is important to get the dingy and outboard cleaned before we arrive in Australia. Their quarantine laws require anything that has come in contact with salt water to be thoroughly cleaned before arrival so as not to bring in unwanted organisms.
That includes engine water filters and salt water systems for the heads.
Some boats in the Port to Port Rally have already arrived, but only a few. If we arrive on Monday, I think we will be in the “top ten” of boats arriving. Mark spent his day working on brain teasers that the rally issued as part of a contest. He got them all but one. Here’s the one he is stuck on: “A knight wanted to visit a princess. He had to arrive at exactly 17h00. If he traveled at exactly 15 km per hour, he would arrive one hour too early. If he traveled at 10 km per hour, he would
arrive one hour too late. At what time did he leave? What distance did he travel? At what speed would he travel?” Don’t email us your ideas as that would be cheating, but enjoy the challenge.
As I prepare to send this log I looked over the stern of the boat and saw a beautiful full moon creeping above the horizon. It should be another beautiful overnight sail.
