by Judy Handley | May 8, 2008 | Australia Bundy to Cairns, Sailing Logs Year 3 |
Year 3: Shop ‘Til You Drop
Date: Thursday, May 8, 2008
Weather: Beautiful, Warm Days; Cool Nights
Location: Bundaberg, Australia
We are preparing as quickly as possible to leave Bundaberg on Saturday morning and start our 2,000 mile trek to Darwin. So today was provisioning day. We rented a car here at the marina that is about 15 miles from town. We got an early start as I wanted to make a Skype call to talk with our grand baby Sam before his bedtime. Strange that our early morning is evening on the East Coast of the US. Gerry and Donna of Scot Free II went into town with us and we were in town and in the internet café
shortly after 8 AM. It’s only been three weeks since we left Sam in New England, but he looks so much taller than he did then. He’s losing some of that baby fat and starting to look so grown up. We can’t imagine what he is thinking when he sees us on the computer screen, but he does kiss the screen when we say goodbye, so we are hoping he knows those strange people on the computer screen are the same ones that spent the winter with him. We also talked to our son Justin and his wife Jo in New
Mexico, my sister Patsy in North Carolina, and to Paul and Marie Miller in Oregon. I was so glad to be able to thank Paul and Marie for all of the wonderful goodies they left aboard Windbird when they left Australia. They seem to be enjoying their new life on land, but as I said in yesterday’s log, we will really miss them as we cruise this year.
After the phone calls, we started the shopping frenzy. We are a thousand dollars poorer at the end of the day, but we have a boat full of food and drink that should take us through the next two months. That is how long it will take us to reach Darwin. If it were possible to do the two thousand miles in one passage we would be there in about fifteen days, but since we will be negotiating our way through the Great Barrier Reef long passages are not possible. We will be doing a number of overnight
passages at the beginning of the journey and once we reach the northern tip of the east coast of Australia, we will be doing longer passages as we near Darwin. But for now we will take one day at a time.
Shopping is just the beginning of provisioning a cruising boat. Once you get back to the boat with all the food, you have to find space to store it away. In terms of cruising boats, we have a lot of storage space on Windbird, but much of it is not as easily accessible as I would like. So as I write this log, there are still many bags sitting in the main cabin waiting to find a home. Our freezer is almost full. The bottom section of the freezer currently contains four pounds of butter, eight
pounds of ground beef, six pork chops, six Porterhouse steaks, eight beef sausages, and twenty chicken breasts. The top layer has three pounds of bacon, more sausages for barbecuing, two packages of English muffins, one package of whole wheat dinner rolls, and about a dozen whole wheat buns. Tomorrow I will add the ice trays and the freezer will be totally full. The refrigerator is bursting at seams with fresh veggies, cheese, and eggs. When we provision in the out islands we are able to buy
the vegetables and eggs before they have been refrigerated. When that is the case, we leave them in plastic bins in our forward berth until they are eaten or desperately need refrigeration. There is also a fresh food market here, but it is only on Sundays so we will miss that. The vegetables from the in town grocery stores are refrigerated, so we have to keep them that way.
Tomorrow our priority is to get our sails back from the repair shop and get them back in working order on Windbird. While Mark is doing that, I will make granola and get the remainder of the provisions stowed away. At that point, we should be good to go. I’m sure we’ll think of many other things we “must do” tomorrow, but our hope is to get them done and be ready to sail out of here on Saturday morning.
by Judy Handley | May 7, 2008 | Australia Bundy to Cairns, Sailing Logs Year 3 |
Year 3: Settling In
Date: Wednesday, May 7, 2008; 5:30 PM (sunset here)
Weather: Beautiful, Warm Days
Location: Bundaberg, Australia
We arrived here in Bundaberg on Sunday evening, but it really took us until today to start to settle in. We’ve unpacked all the bags we brought from the US and have stowed everything away. I have been working inside the boat getting her ready to sail and Mark has been working above decks. We took all our lines down when we left to protect them from UV damage and it has been quite a job getting them all reinstalled. Our sails have been in for repair and they are not done yet. In fact, the first
canvas person we left them with went out of business while we were gone and we had to find another sail maker to come get them and do the work. We have called constantly since returning and were only able to reach that person today. He had never picked up the sails, so that was done today and he says the sails will be ready tomorrow. We hope to leave on Saturday, so we just have to have faith that he will get the repairs done and the sails returned.
If you have been following our logs you probably know that last season we traveled in companion with Paul and Marie Miller on Ranger through Fiji, Vanuatu, and New Caledonia. When we reached Australia, Paul and Marie sold Ranger and they are now settling into their new home in Rockaway Beach, Oregon. After we returned to the US and after Ranger was in the possession of her new owners, Paul and Marie stayed on Windbird for a short time. While putting things away today, I found all sorts of goodies
that Paul and Marie left for us. I felt like a little kid in a candy shop. Among other things there was a travel iron that I have needed desperately for sewing, lots of canned salmon (one of my favorites), Wright’s Brass Polish that I had borrowed last season and loved, and Clorox Clean-up (another of my favorites not available in this part of the world). So thank you, thank you, thank you to Paul and Marie. Yesterday Mark and I went to town and started buying provisions for this season. Marie,
I missed you so much! We made a great team and love him as I do, shopping with Mark is just not the same. I know we will make new friends this year and reconnect with others that we already know, but we shared some very special times with Ranger and we will miss them so very much.
The other boat that we sailed in companion with for much of last season was Scot Free II and they are here at the marina. Donna and Gerry were planning on leaving tomorrow, but they have decided to wait and leave with us on Saturday. They met an Australian couple here that have been very helpful in terms of planning for the trip north through the Great Barrier Reef. We were on Scot Free for sundowners this evening and met the Australian couple. Donna and Gerry then came over for dinner and will
be going into town with us tomorrow for the final provisioning trip. We have rented a car so that it will be easier to get the heavier items out here from town. We plan on going in very early so I can make a video Skype call to talk with Sam. Our 8:15 AM is his 6:15 PM, so we will call just before his bedtime. This will be our last chance for a Skype call for a while. We are just not sure where or when we will have high speed internet as we go up the coast.
by Judy Handley | May 5, 2008 | Australia Bundy to Cairns, Sailing Logs Year 3 |
Year 3: Back in Australia
Date: Tuesday, May 6, 2008
Weather: Warm and Beautiful
Location: Bundaberg, Australia
This will be a quick note just to let you know that we did make it safely back to Australia. We arrived in Bundaberg on Sunday evening and found that we have no internet at our marina and the HAM radio email is very slow. Yesterday was a holiday here and there was no way to get to town to an internet cafe, so today has been our first chance to “communicate.” We have a number of logs written from our wonderful week in New Mexico and will get those posted as soon as possible. We are working fast
and furiously to get ready to leave Bundaberg and head north up through the Great Barrier Reef. Hopefully we will get the internet problems resolved and we will be sending daily logs from now on.
