![[Company Logo Image]](Small%20Long%20Island.jpg)
|
|
|
|
19/4/2010 We managed to catch up with Al and Deb on Sunboy, who we had last met at Madeira, when we came across them on the Eastern side of the causeway (we spent a night on the western side and moved because of all the wakes from the ships coming through all the time. Then after a couple of days looking around Panama City and stocking up on final important items like enough coffee to get us back to Oz we were ready to go. Yesterday we motored down here to Isla Chapera and anchored next to another boat called Marni, who forced us to have sundowners with them last night :-) . 21/4/10 The next morning we headed out, hoping to find some wifi to let our families know that we would soon be under way. We tried to get into the town of San Miguel on the island of Del Rey, but on our first attempt we found it too shallow to get into the bay and decided no to push our luck, so we decided to go to a town called Esmerelda on the south of the island. On our way down there, the wind came up and we decided to head towards Galapagos. The next day, I discovered that I had a guide book in electronic format for cruising Panama (an old, old one) and discovered mention of being able to get gasoline at a place called Guanico on the last headland before we were into the Pacific proper. Being worried about the amount of fuel on board (there was a good chance we would have to motor most of the way to Galapagos because of next to no wind), we decided to stop at Punta Guanicobriefly and top up. When we got there, Shelley stayed on board and I headed into town. I found that to get to shore, I had to go up on a beach with a small amount of surf, which left me concerned for the return trip with a heavy dinghy (I was hoping to pick up 80 litres of fuel). When I got ashore there was a very friendly fisherman, who didn't speak english, but I manage to make him understand that I wanted to buy diesel. There was none in town, but he called a taxi for me, which took about 20 minutes to arrive from the nearest town. This was my first real view of country Panama, and it looked a lot like Oz, fairly dry, with a lot of dairy cows around. I managed to fill up with fuel and get back fairly quickly. Once loaded up on the beach, I pushed the dinghy out till it floated, put the oars in, and rowed as fast as possible. Once throught the first set of breakers, I tried to start the outboard before the second set hit me. Murphy's law struck and it wouldn't start, but I managed to stay upright and got thoroughly drenched getting through another four sets of breakers. Then I tried the outboard and it started straight away. Doh!!! Once back to the boat we pulled the unloaded the dinghy and got it on deck. As we did so, we found that one of the lids on the fuel continers had been cross threaded and decided to leak, and we ended up having to clean diesel off the deck before we could get under way. The wind has come from many different angles, when it has come, mainly when there is a squall somewhere nearby. I hope we get some more sailing in so that we can get all the way with the fuel we have!! 28/4/10 Well we just crossed the equator at 10.20.27a.m. on April 28th, 2010 , I hope you will excuse my grammar. I was forced tp drink 2/3rds of a bottle of champagne to celebrate. After we last wrote, we were heading southwest, well guess where the wind decided to come from? That's right, the southwest, so we had to tack, and for two days we headed south and just east of south. Very frustrating! And just after we had to change course, it decided to rain, and not normal rain, but proper tropical rain, which we hadn't seen in years. We have discovered that we will have to put a waterproof coating on the canvas covering the cockpit, as the water came through the same way it does when you are inside a tent when you touch the sides. And it didn't just rain for an hour, it lasted about 10 or 11 hours. Normally we like rain, as it rinses the boat and gives us a chance to collect water, but this was too much!!! We disconnected all the radios from their antenna, because there was lightning all around us. I forgot to hook up the SSB radio the next morning and couldn't get onto the usual radio net, I thought it was because reception was bad.... Doh!!! Smack self in forehead. We are now 98 miles from our destination of Wreck Bay on the Island of San Cristobal in the Galapgos, it has turned out to be a beautiful day, with the wind working in our favour (about 60 degrees apparent)and we are cruising along at just over just over six knots, and we hope to arrive at our anchorage at dawn tomorrow. Apparently there is WiFi available in the harbour, so we should be able to upload this website update then. 30/4/10 We made it! This is our second day here now, and so far we are very impressed with the place. The locals are friendly, although the humans are more approachable than the seals (The seals smell, but are very cute). There are seals everywhere, we can't use our dinghy because they would take it over. The water taxi is 50c a trip, we are getting spoiled rotten. Went to dinner at a place recommended by our agent, soup followed by beef with rice and plantains, $2.50 a head!! 7/5/10 We have done a tour of the island in a taxi, seen the giant tortoises, iguana's, couldn't see the lake in the volcanic crater at the top of the island because of the cloud that we were in. Had fuel and water brought out to the boat in a water taxi, ready to go, but our agent is on another island, so we spend another day here. Our destination has now changed, Shelleys mother is gravely ill, so we will head to Raratonga in the Cook Islands so that Shelley can fly back to Oz to spend time with her. I'll pick up crew there if I can find some, for the rest of the trip back to Oz. The next leg on our trip is 4300 nautical miles and we expect it to take about 5 weeks. Her Perspective So Far Panama Canal We LOVED transitting the Panama Canal. One of those once in a lifetime experiences. Our transit took two days and we had John and Chris from Sara II and Will and Susanne from Far Niente on board as line handlers. We had a lot of fun. Our Advisor/Pilot for the first day, Elvir, was very good, fit in well with the crew and he and Marno got on like a house on fire. He even gave us his contact details and invited us to his home. Unfortunately, we didn't get the chance. So the first day we started on the eastern locks late in the afternoon. Elvir met us on board around 17:30 out in the anchorage, east of the canal entrance. The ship we were meant to lock through with was running late, so we were able to lock through with another earlier ship. Before reaching the first lock, Alidade, a French 38' vessel from St Martin, rafted with us for the transit. Surprisingly, Attitudes was the biggest vessel of the two, so Marno had to motor and steer both vessels through the locks. It was dark when we entered the first lock around 19:30. We watched the HUGE lock doors close slowly behind us and the enormous transome of the ship in front of us. Marno kept the vessels centered in the lock. There was a little turbulence where fresh water met with salt plus the prop movement from the ship in front, but nothing to be concerned about - none of the horror stories we've heard and read about. Standing at the top of the lock on either side, 4 men threw Monkey Fists (a ball of line with a weight in the middle) attached to long lines to our starboard line handlers, forward and aft, and to Alidades port linehandlers. Quickly we attached these lines to our long 125 foot lines which were then fed back up to the top of the lock. And then the water started to rise. Surprisingly the process wasn't noisy - no sound of pumps, huge engines or turbines. The water rose quickly, and our line handlers were busy keeping the lines taught. Upon reaching the top of the lock, the ship in front powered on to the next lock and we followed after quickly pulling our lines back aboard. The 4 men on shore walked with the boat, at times running up several flights of steps to keep up with us. The ship had similar line handlers on shore but they are seated in small locomotives which help pull the ship forward. Along the shore are bullseye targets where the workmen practise their aim throwing monkey fists. Apparently they hold annual competitions. Only once did they miss during the entire process. After the top of the third lock we entered the lake around 22:30, unrafted from Alidade and motored on in the dark to a huge ships buoy where Marno jumped onto it and moored us bow and stern. It was a late dinner and we were all quite tired, but happy and content. Our line handlers slept below while Marno and I bunked in the cockpit. The howler monkeys woke us around 04:00 to let us know it was about to rain. I now know why they're called howler monkeys - they howl like it's the end of the world. Following an early cooked breakfast our new advisor, Titi, joined us at 06:30. We were quickly underway and enjoyed our motor through the huge lake. We had a 12:00 locking through on the other side and needed to keep our appointment (or lose our deposit of US$900). The engine runs a bit warmer in fresh water and we really pushed it to make our time. Keeping an eye out for toucans, fresh water crocs and howler monkeys. Unfortunately we didn't see anything but pelicans and passing ships. Titi rang ahead to the Gatun locks and found that we could make an earlier transit, so we pushed up the revs and kept a sharp eye on the temperature. It was well and truly exceeding normal parameters. We didn't make the earlier transit, but did make the original time and after re-rafting with Alidades started on the western locks around midday. The first and second locks on the western side can be made into mini locks to limit the amount of water loss. Apparently each side loses about 50,000 gallons per transit. The new mega grande lock they are building will capture and recycle the water back into the lake. We made our way into the first lock under the eager and friendly gaze of several hundred waving tourists. This time we had the entire western locks to ourselves. Elvir and Titi called up to the tower to have the webcam focussed on us, especially for our family and friends back home. We woke our families in Australia (around 03:00) to let them know we were live on camera. Di and Tony in the UK downloaded some screen shots for us (thank you!). We exited the final lock around 13:30 and headed out into the harbour. I can't begin to tell you what a moving and very special experience it was. We were doing the Panama Canal! And about to enter the Pacific Ocean. Given the chance would do it again. What an achievement that the canal simply exists at all. A big thank you to our line handlers and new friends, John, Chris, Will and Susanne, and to our two advisors, Elvir and Titi.          Galapagos From Panama we had a challenging 10 day sail to
the Galapagos, coming across some interesting weather in the ITCZ
(Inter Tropical Convergence Zone. As the name would indicate it's where
tropical weather systems tend to meet and gather). We had no wind, then
wind on the nose, confused seas, green water over the bow which flooded
our bilges and 14 hours of unrelenting, absolute pouring rain - sheets
and sheets of it - so heavy we couldn't see ahead and had to rely on
radar.
But we
saw
so
much
fish
life - rays
and
huge Marlin jumping out of
the water, lots of dolphins.
About 3 days out of Galapagos we had 3 hitchikers board the boat; 3 boobies. They landed on the bow and stayed the night. One of them continued on to Galapagos with us. We were astonished how uninhibited and how absolutely hilarious they are. The bickering between them was almost human. At times they'd flick each other off the bow and to watch them try and land back on the boat had us in stitches - several face plants and full throttle tumbles on the water. They didn't seem to be afraid of us at all. Marno was able to get up quite close to the one that stayed the journey. We thought we'd have to push it off the bow to deploy the anchor, but it seemed to know that it was back in the Galapagos and obliged us . We've been surprised at how developed the island is, but equally impressed with how clean the locals have managed to keep it. The water in the harbour here is very clean While, understandably, there aren't many facilities for boats, it seems to be quite cheap here. You can have a 2 course meal for US$2.50. Cheaper eating out than on the boat. The locals are very friendly, happy and helpful. Contrary to popular belief, it is not difficult for boats to enter the Galapagos. We were concerned that we would be rejected, as we hadn't organised an Autographo from Ecuador (clearance to enter the Galapagos). But upon arrival we had Bolivar, a very friendly agent meet up within an hour of anchoring and organised all of our immigration and entrance details. We agree with others that he is the agent you want to deal with (cruisers will need an agent whether or not you've arranged an Autographo). As we don't have an autographo we are limited to the one port we arrived - we cannot move the boat between the islands or even to another cove on the same island. This hasn't bothered us as we've enjoyed the island, but if you wanted to see everything without an Autographo, Isla Isabela is the one to visit. So saying we are not limited to travelling the other islands by ferry or plane. We've really enjoyed our stay here in San Cristobal. We've done a walking tour, a jaunt around the island, and been able to get up close to the wild life. The sea lions (which I could just watch for hours on end) come out and swim around the boat and hang around along the boulevarde in town. It's amazing to walk through them. Use of private dingies is discouraged as the sea lions will claim it as their own; climbing onto it to bask in the sun. Instead we use water taxi's for 50 cents a throw. We've watched sea lions board our friends catamaran up the back steps - hilarious! They also take advantage of any other boats anchored in the bay - climbing on to any flat surface they can reach. Marno had the wonderful opportunity of frolicking with one for about 20 minutes one afternoon while cleaning the bottom of the boat. It was so lovely to watch and I managed to get some great shots. Tomorrow we will depart and head directly for the Cook Islands, Skipping French Polynesia (Family health concerns call us home). This will be about 4,200 miles - approximately 5 weeks of sailing. From Raratonga I can fly home and Marno will look for someone to help him sail the boat back to Brisbane... any takers? What an adventure it's been! There are things that we've missed along the way and wished we'd done, but as our friend Al of Sunboy says, 'you need to save something for next time'.          8/5/2010 We left yesterday, after being delayed a day waiting to clear out of customs, our agent was sick I believe, and at the hospital on another island. His wife ended up doing the paperwork for us. We headed off as soon as we had cleared out. The wind was blowing 16-18 knots, and with all our sail up and the wind on our port quarter, we were doing 7-8 knots and occasionally 9 knots, which is very fast for us, but we had a knot or so of current helping us. The wind started to ease off as the sun went down and by dawn we were motoring with no wind. There have been about 5 tuna swimming alongside us since sun up, they are very pretty, and I have been given strict instructions that I am not to catch any of them!!! I briefly saw some kind of whale surfacing early this morning, there were at least 3 or 4 of them, maybe 3 or 4 times the size of a dolphin. We had agreed with quite a few other boats to start a morning radio net. The only one that answered was Ray on Meander, who is only about 14 miles away, everyone else has forgotten so far. Shelley has been disappointed with the lack of wind and started calling it an hour or so ago, I think she needs to be much louder, nothing has happnened yet. Our first 24 hours saw a good start though of 154 miles, which would be wonderful to do every day. 10/5/2010 Shelleys wind calling finally worked, just before midnight last night, while she was on watch the wind came back and we have been sailing again ever since. It's great not to have the noise of the engine, and to be able to conserve fuel, we may need it later. The radio net has finally kicked in, we had five boats on the net this morning, Meander, Ghost (who have a shroud that is slowly coming apart) Kijro and Salacia. It makes a high point in the day when you have contact with others, and there is always help available if you get into trouble. 12/5/2010 The wind has remained fairly constant over the last couple of days, except for two periods where we turned the engine on for an hour or so. Last night I had to reduce the amount of sail we had out to meke the boat more comforable, and we didn't lose any speed. We still have the sails reefed and are moving at between 6.7 and 8.5 knots over the ground according to the GPS. We are really enjoying the Pacific, it feels more like home to us. The sky is a stronger blue, more like what we are used to in Oz, the weather and the sailing conditions have been a lot more comfortable. We hope it stays this way. We seem to be able to see even more starts than we are used to at sea. Away from the lights, the whole sky is bright with stars, and there seems to be light even when the moon is not up. The light from the stars is added to by magnificent phosphoresence coming from the wake from the boat and the trail behind us at night. We are really starting to enjoy long distance sailing for the first time since we started five years ago. We just did our best ever 24 hours 169 miles!!! 13/5/2010 Today we covered the most distance we ever have in 24 hours, 191 miles. Its fantastic out here, comfortable, no stress and we are still screaming along. I had a fun job today, we have had a sink which has been slow to drain, and it finally stopped draining altogether. Great!!! After probing, and cutting bits of hose for the best part of four I hours I had it fixed and back together, although I would like to replace that drain hose altogether (I couldn't find an open hardware store out here). Shelley as usual when it comes to plumbing jobs was traumatised by the end of it (How does that work, I'm the one having to do it). She thought it smelt as bad as when I have to fix the toilet. We couldn't figure out what day it was today, had to look it up on the calendar. 15/4/10 We have changed our course to run a bit further North, because we are now thinking about the possibility of a nonstop trip to back to Australia, if we change our mind, it is easier to drop down to the south, and meanwhile at this lattitude, the weather is warmer and there is less chance of bad weather for the bulk of the trip. We hadn't seen any ships until yesterday, when we got on the radio to one that was quite close, and he chose to alter course to go behind us (very friendly guy, might have helped that Shelley was chatting to him), and then we saw two more ships last night, though thankfully nowhere near as close. Shelley told me that she just saw a mixture of what she thought were pilot whales and dolphins around the boat, and that they were sitting upright in the water. Yesterday, Shelley spotted that one of our halyards was chafed through the outer braid near where it would sit at the sheave near the top of the mast, I'm glad she spotted it now, as it was easy to cut the offending piece off. I wouldn't want to go up the top of our masts while at sea, with all the flex they have near the top, it would be like sitting on the top of a giant fishing rod. Speaking of fishing rods, we lost ours yesterday. The line had been brought in at dusk, with the two thirds of it sitting over the side of the boat, like when we are fishing. It had been tied on, but the rod was gone and the line was sitting there on its own. We had a fish take one of our handlines, but unfortunately we didn't manage to land it, it got off the hook before we got it in. 19/5/10 A couple of nights ago, I was moving around in the cockpit and trod on something moving, made me jump a bit. It was a flying fish, we generally find a few on the decks in the morning, although for the first week out we were finding more squid. The next morning before the sun came up, I shook out a reef as the wind had lightened up. When Shelley came on watch after the sun came up, she noticed that I had snagged one of the lazy jacks near the top of the mast on one of the Batt Cars and torn the sail. Doh!! We got it down and drifted for the next hour and a half while Shelley sewed it back together and taped over the repair. That is one of the downsides of the Battcars, we really need to head up into the wind to raise and lower the sails, even a little bit, if we can't see them at night. In the day time you can see what you are doing and juggle it, I had used a torch, but obviously couldn't see well enough. The next night we both had a good laugh, Shelley had been standing behind the wheel and was very tired. She nodded off standing up, her head dropped forward, and she head butted the top of the wheel, leaving a bit of a lump. Anybody who has had to stand watches would understand. So far, we have travelled 1754 miles, with an average speed of 6.6 knots. We are very impressed, if we can keep this pace up, it will make the long trip pass quite quickly. I still feel that the wind vane isn't performing any where as well as an autopilot. We have to reduce our sail area very early, and the wind vane doesn't cope well with the full mizzen slowing us down. When we are running downwind in lightwinds we can't trust it not to gybe. If we hand steer, I believe that we can gain one to two knots of boat speed, which on a trip like this would make a huge difference. I have had spent quite a bit of time trying to improve my knowledge and skill at operating the windvane, but I think when we get back to Oz, we'll replace it with an autopilot. This will also allow us to use our boarding ladder on the transom again. 21/5/10 It was a busy night last night for flying fish, we found 10 on deck this morning when the sun came up, and we threw two back last night that landed in the cockpit, one of which hit Shelley and she did her big girl impression again. You'd think she'd be used to it by now! At 10.30 this morning, 13 days after we left the Galapagos, we had 5118 miles to go to Brisbane and we have already done 2060. We plan to go North of the Marquesas, Fiji and Samoa, then duck down and go South of New Caledonia. So far we have had a pleasant trip, none of the impatience of previous trips, where we just wanted it over and done with. See how we feel in another 13 days. 23/5/10 It has been an eventful 24 hours. Our plans to sail nonstop back to Brisbane are now no more. Yesterday afternoon, sailing along in a pleasant 12 -14 knots of wind, our mainsail tore in half. We decided to pull it down and put the mizzen up in place of the main, even though it is smaller, then we would have time to try to repair the mainsail. We managed to get the battens out of the main and off the boom and down below without it getting wet. We then removed the mizzen and got it on the mainmast and up, the whole procedure only taking two hours or so, on a rocking boat. Shelley planned to get started on fixing the mainsail today, but just as I came on watch to allow Shelley to go down below and have breakfast then get started we gybed when we didn't expect to. I went and manually steered, and then reset the windvane to steer. It didn't hold its course, so I reset it. It still didn't hold its course, so while I was checking the settings I happened to look down and noticed that the pendulum (rudder for the windvane self steering) was gone. Just gone, fallen off. The shaft is still there, but the two round welds holding the pendulum on have failed and it has just fallen off. We have now altered course and have to hand steer for the next five or six days until we get to Hiva Oa in the Marquesas and hope we can get something fabricated or sorted out there.  26/5/10 We have had some quite rolly days, as the wind has died down a bit, and it is taking a little longer for the seas to die down too. The wheel pilot managed to cope for about half a day, and we have had to hand steer the rest of the time, generally three hours on, three hours off. We were hoping to get to Hiva Oa on Friday, but with the wind lightening, we probably won't arrive till the small hours of Saturday morning, in which case we will wait till it is light to enter the harbour. The night before last, we had another flying fish in the cockpit during Shelleys watch, and it causes no end of amusement, watching her jump up onto the seats, side deck, pushpit, hang off the end of the boom etc.. so that the "Killer Flying Fish" won't get her. Just had another breakage. This is the most we have suffered in on passage up till now. The bracket that encircles the bottom of the mast, made of stainless steel, the loose end of the vang did some minor damage to the non skid on the deck. I swapped it with bracket from the mizzen mast. We are so lucky that the mizzen isn't needed at the moment and that it is almost an exact duplicate to the main. We have some more welding to get done at Hiva Oa if it is fixable.  29/5/10 We sighted land this morning, we have about 10 miles to go before we arrive in the harbour of Atuona. With any luck, I'll finally be able to update the website for the first time since leaving Panama. 11.59 am Passage details Distance on the GPS 3126 Nautical Miles Distance in a straight line 3016 Nautical Miles Time taken 506 Hours (21 days 2 Hours) Average speed 6.2 Knots     7/6/2010 We have just finished giving the bottom of the boat a clean. We are in a lovely bay on the island of Tahuata, just south of Hiva Oa. The water at Atuona on Hiva Oa where we checked in at, was muddy and unclear, so we waited till now. Shelley has fixed the mainsail, I found a technical college on Hiva Oa where they welded up the vang bracket, and have fabricated a new paddle for the wind vane (we will pick it up when we go back to check out). We had either a blockage or an air leak in a fuel line which I have also fixed, so we are just about ready to get back under way now. Tomorrow we will head back to Atuona and check out the following day. We will also have to pick up the bond that we had to pay so that Shelley could enter the country. It took 3 days to get enough cash out of the ATM to pay the bond, and now less than a week later we will have to claim it back.... On Wednesday, once we have checked out, we will fill up with diesel and water, pick up the wind vane paddle and head back to this little bay, where we will leave from early Thursday morning. Only 4000 miles to Brisbane!!! Depending on weather and how we feel, we may stop in Samoa or Vanuatu. 18/6/10 After not being able to get enough fuel, we had to sail overnight to Nuka Hiva after the weekend was over, to get more (petrol stations are closed Sundays here). On the way we say a 4 metre manta ray jump out of the water a couple of times near us, it was a real thrill, the biggest we have ever seen. Just before we arrived, then engine stopped. We had air in the fuel again, I saw it this time in the fuel filter though. So we spent an extra day here sorting it out and left on the 15 of June in the end. After a great first day sailing, the wind died off over the next day and eventually yesterday dropped the sails and spent the day drifting. It was quite pleasant, but it wasn't getting us anywhere and we were glad when the wind came up at long last this morning. 21/6/10 We have had a good run, our last calm was two mornings ago and we have had wind ever since. Last night we were able to tack onto a more favourable course because the wind had swung around enough. The only problem over the last couple of days is that we broke one of the pins on our Harken Batt Cars, this was one of the replacements from the ones that got broken on the Atlantic crossing. I have replaced it with a light dyneema lashing which is holding fairly well, although I have managed to find some heavier dyneema if there are any problems with it. If it works I may lash them all, and not bother getting replacement pins. At this point in time we have 1602 miles to our first waypoint near Samoa and 3448 miles to go altogether. 27/6/10 We had a couple more days of good conditions, very relaxing (boring, which is good, we don't want excitement). Then the weather started getting progressively more and more squally, each night we reduced sail by one reef until we ended up with the third reef in our mainsail and we are getting along quite nicely. We have noticed that it is getting colder, which makes being rained on uncomfortable, and we have discovered the leaks in our wet weather gear have gotten worse. 30/6/10 We had one more day of squally weather, but now the weather is glorious. We have our full mainsail up, and are travelling at just under 5 knots, which is a little slow, but we are very comfortable now that the seas have settled down quite a lot. We are a little excited, as we will be seeing land for the first time since we left Nuka Hiva, when we pass Samoa tomorrow or the next day. We should be seeing land occasionally now that we have finished the long jump from the Marquesas. We have 2376 miles to go to Brisbane, which will probably take about two and a half weeks. Our heads are spinning with all the things we will have to do once we arrive and have to pretend to be civilized once again, mobile phones, cars, jobs and maybe even a TV!! 1/7/10 The wind swung around to the south-east yesterday, then last night to the south. This allowed us to put the mizzen up, and it has been beutiful sailing, wind about 10 - 12 knots and us gliding along very smoothly at about 5.5 - 6 knots. At sunrise this morning I got to see the Manua Islands about 24 miles south of us (they are part of American Samoa) and we expect to see Pago Pago later on today. 2/7/10 We got to see glimpses of Pagp Pago before the sun went down yesterday. The beautiful weather continued until just before dawn, when I came on watch to winds of 35 - 40 knots.... We saw glimpses of the Western Samoan islands, but mostly clouds, it was bucketing down with rain on the islands all day. Next land that we will probably see will be some of the Fijian islands. The wind has now died down, but the seas are still up and fairly short and steep, although better here in the deeper water (4000+ metres) than the shallower water near the ilsands (1000 Metres). 7/7/10 I don't know what to write. More of the same, mostly beautiful weather, really enjoyable sailing with the occasional squall and calm thrown in for fun. The days have become very routine and flowed, one after the other very comfortably. I was very suprised when Shelley told me that we had been out more than three weeks now. We have just spotted our first Fijian island, Thikombia, on the North Eastern side of the group. We should have calm seas for a little bit as we run down in the lee of Vanua Levu, one of Fiji's two large islands. We are tentatively planning on stopping in Noumea, New Caledonia for as short a time as possible to organise some paperwork to ease our return into Australia. With any luck we'll be able to do it on the net and not even have to go ashore and check in with customs etc. We also need to clean any weed and barnacles off the waterline as we have heard that Australian customs are worried about biofouling.  11/7/10 We are relaxing this morning after a storm last night. It hit just before dark, we saw it coming and dropped down to the third reef in the main and no mizzen. I guess that it blew at about 45 knots off and on the whole night, changing direction as it went. It's gone now and we are just trying to dry out our clothes, wet weather gear and ourselves. We have light winds now, pretty much from directly where we want to go of couse, so for now we are heading a little north of west which will give us a better angle on the wind when the trade winds hopefully come back a little later in the day, 12/7/10 The wind is still coming from the South West, and the seas are now coming from that direction. We will make for Vila now instead, it's a little easier to head that way and only adds sixty miles to the trip overall. We had another breakage this morning, just as I came up on watch the bail holding the main sheet block to the boom broke. Fortunately we were going to windward, so no more damage was done. I fixed by lashing it with dyneema (very strong rope) and it is now probably stronger than the original!! 15/7/10 We made it!!! We anchored in Port Vila this morning at 12.02 am. Trips stats Total distance 3433 Nautical Miles Total time 692 hrs (28 days 20 hours) Average speed 5.0 knots    28/7/10 Sorry
that this has taken so long to update, it still needs a bit of work,
when Shelley comes back up to Brisbane I'll see if I can convince her
to help out.
We left Vila on the 18th of
July. The seas were quite big and lumpy, until we moved further
offshore to the deeper water. We had a beautiful day sailing, then the
next day the storms came and we had them for a couple of days, with
winds up to about 40 knots. After that, things settled down with the
occasional squall. We were very relieved to arrive off Moreton Island
in the early hours of the morning and followed the shipping channels
into the Brisbane River (we didn't want to run aground in the notorious
Moreton Bay). We pulled into the customs wharf, which is at a marina
just before you reach the Gateway Bridges. You can't miss the customs
dock, it has a fence with a locked gated on it to prevent access. We
waited awhile and customs and quarantine showed up. They were very
friendly and easy to get along with. While we talked to customs,
quarantine had a look around the boat, in the bilges and at our food.
We only lost a couple of items which suprised me, I was expecting to
lose most of what was left. We paid quarantine their $330 including GST
(they take credit card) but will have to spend more before we can
import the boat. Because we had been in countries in the tropics and
had wood in the boat (bulkheads, balsa core etc.) we are going to have
to have the boat checked for termites with either a sniffer dog or some
specialised equipment, which we are told is not cheap. This probably
means that everybody coming back to Oz is going to have to go through
the same process. We were given 30 days to have a valuer come to the
boat so we could work out the GST to pay, but we have been given a 30
extension because we weren't ready (they really are very helpful). We
are restricted to the Brisbane area under customs control until we pay
the GST.
We currently have the boat at Dockside Marina (about $610 a
month including a fee to live aboard), not sure if I like it yet or
not, it's very central though while I am looking for work. I'm
digging around trying to find someone who will give us third party
insurance without an out of water survey so that we can stay here (they
want to see a copy of your policy), but everyone I have tried so far
needs the survey.
|
|
|
Send mail to marno@yachtattitudes.com
with
questions or comments about this web site.
|
