Hi everybody.
We're underway again. We have left Alor for the Komodo Island group--yes, where they have the dragons--about 300 miles west--half way to Bali. It's been an interesting time in Indonesia. Prepare to be enlightened.
This is a predominantly Muslim country of about 240 million. They don't seem to take it too seriously, though, as most of our feasts have had pork dishes, at least beer and often harder stuff is readily available and they love to sing and dance--all things forbidden by the strict fundamentalists. Oh, and, of course, we're loving the muezzine, the call to prayer five times a day--especially the one at full volume at 4:30 AM. Speaking of volume, they love it loud here. In Kupang, they did karioke at 1,000 decibels until about 5 every morning; they take the mufflers off all the boats, and the muzak in the "mall" requires ear protection for us westerners. The people are super friendly and helpful in everything from directions to actually taking you somewhere. The language barrier isn't too bad, but can be frustrating as we get farther away from civilization. This is a country with a paperwork nightmare, but they love you to use your own official stamp as they require multiple copies of everything. Check ins included quarantine, customs, immigration and the harbor master each with their own requirements--none consistent with the other. Actually, we were all technically impounded and had these big stickers placed on the side of the boat by customs. Seems that Raymond, the Indonesian organizer, is hated by customs, because he went around them to get a security bond waived for the fleet. It took an extra $5 and until our last day in Kupang to get it squared away with, of course, a ton more paperwork and the grease!!!
In Kupang, a pretty big city, maybe 80,000, there were all sorts of activities for us cruisers arranged by the ministry of tourism which is a cosponsor of the rally. We had cheap tours, traditional dance shows and a bunch of meals all at no or minimal cost. Unfortunately some of the concessionaires running the dinghy service(no dock so they pulled it up on the beach and relaunched for you), laundry and fueling were a bit greedy. For instance, fuel at the pump is 6,000 rupiahs/liter--these "entrepreneurs" were asking about 15,000. For reference, US$1 is about 9,000 rupiahs. So, of course we cheap cruisers created some major drama about that. Marco, a true entepreneur, was offering it at 7,500/liter. To make a long story short, the "in" crowd finally beat the crap out of him for undercutting them, but they finally dropped the price to meet his. Unfortunately, Marco also loved to drink which led to some rather unamusing misunderstandings, but, in the end, everyone pretty much got the fuel they needed at a reasonable price.
We were actually the first rally boat over the line which doesn't mean much since everyone motored the whole way, but the local officials awarded that honor to a boat that was in Kupang before the rally even started and wasn't a participant.--such is Indonesia. The boat that won the "best dressed" at the start wasn't half as nicely done as Rendezvous, but we left an hour late and don't think they even saw us. Joey is totally pissed off and ranted for 2 days about it. Our arrival was the 29th, a day before my bday, and Joey had seen to it that everyone coming in for the next 2 days wished me a good one. There was a distinctive lack of gifts and drinks, though--these guys are really cheap!!! But, we did manage to party a bit at Teddy's bar on the day itself. Of course this was the "new" Teddy's because he had been evicted by the local authorities from his old "right on the beach" bar in favor of some politician's nephew or something. Our only real concern was the cheap giant 2,300 rupiah beers kept coming, and Alan, Teddy's partner, managed to dig up some bourbon for the occasion.
The next day was another real treat of boats dragging. By now, of course, there're 120 boats in the anchorage. In spite of our verbal pleas to leave their windlasses powered up and keys in the ignitions, some of the yahoos took off on all day tours and did, in fact, drag without these things done. Some of these people are just nuts in addition to being cheapskates, but most are really great guys. Lots of Aussies, a fair amount of Yanks, with a sprinkling of Kiwis, Dutch, South Africans, French, Swiss(they seem to be universally cheap and shitheads)(I'm not bigoted, just observant), Canadians and Scandinavians. Lots of little cliques, but we love everyone!!! Another day, the old Teddy's bar had a TV setup for a rugby game between the Wallabees (Oz) and All Blacks (world cup winners from NZ).that particular afternoon. Some of us who attended managed to forget about dinner and paid the price the next day.
The day after rugby, I took a $15 all day tour. Woke up a bit under the weather, but I thought it was from all the smoke in the air. Indonesians love to burn stuff and the air is like LA. Unfortunately, it turned out to be a full blown summer cold--more on that later. Anyway, the tour was amazing. The buses, while not air-conditioned were modern, and we even had a copilot, sort of. We started out at this musical instrument maker that is 40 plus strings on a bamboo core with a palm sort of echo chamber around half the outside. The guy did some traditional music, and we had the obligatory dancing with that, but, then, he did a bit of Clapton and Dylan and it sounded just like an electric guitar. Really amazing. They also had some goofy hats with like a swan neck sticking up and a sort of flat brim and crown. Too goofy to buy, but I was tempted. Next we hit an uninteresting WW II memorial dedicated to the OZ troops that liberated Timor, followed by a local market with the usual junk.
The last stop, though, was truly unbelievable.
Flash bulletin. While I've been writing this, we had to replace the water maker pump. The newer one developed a small leak at one of the valve caps. The yahoo who worked on it in Sydney used locktite or something and nothing we tried could get the cap off to check the valve or o ring or whatever was leaking. No problem. We have a spare pump and bronze head. After a few hours work, the engine room crew put the spare in and commissioned it. Everything looked good until about 5 minutes ago when we were congratulating our foresight sitting in the cockpit and the spare pump went nuts!!! If we can't fix it or the other one, we'll have to go directly to Bali and hope to get repairs or a new head there. I know I can a new one flown in, but they are super expensive AND I don't think the new pumps fit exactly the same way. In any case, this sucks.
Back to the tour. We had to drive way out into the hinterlands to a "sacred lake" for a ceremony and, as it turned out, lunch. This was miles off paved roads and the track was lined with flags every 2 feet to mark our route--1,000s of them which must have taken an army to put in. When we finally got to the lake, we disembarked and there were at least 1,000 people there to greet us with a "portable" musical thing and dancers to escort us to the festivities. Really felt like royalty. Just incredible. Then we had the obligatory speeches, traditional dancing in which were participants, and then lunch. That night was another free dinner with entertainment and speeches which I actually left early as the cold was coming on full strength. We had planned to leave for Alor, our next stop 130 miles NNE of Kupang the next day, but I was really feeling bad. We hung out the next day and Joe and olivia hit the Chemist for cold pills and cheap antibiotics as my supply was running low. Don't need a prescription for much here in Indonesia.
So--Tuesday the 5th, off we go. We left about 11 because there are strong tidal currents and flow between islands and you have to time your transits to take advantage of flow in the direction you want to go. The captain was still unwell and actually had a 101 degree temp so he was relieved of most watches, but, gallantly, still stood about 5 hours watch. Moving here near the equator is weird. This is the latitudes typically called the doldrums. We had great weather, and about 25 knots of wind when we left. We were worried about hitting one of these passes too early. Sadly, after only a few miles the wind shifted to 5 knots on the nose, and we, along with everyone else, motored the rest of the way. Oh and there was a 2 knot current against us all the way that they had neglected to mention to us. One positive note was the totally incompetent and unhelpful Aussie contingent of Sail Indonesia were now replaced with Indonesians who could actually do something. We did manage to hit the pass into Alor just right and arrived about 7AM on the 6th. Had another bunch of paperwork but nothing as bad as Kupang and sat around all afternoon at the Ad Hoc beach bar with Mike off Good News, who is singlehanding his Fontaine Pajot 56 foot cat. Beers were only 2,000 for a giant and 1,200 for a regular size at Alor and we felt we needed to show our appreciation for the price reduction.
That afternoon and next day about 50 boats pulled in and it's a really small anchorage. Yesterday, the wind kicked up just a little and we had more dragging anchors drama. Some people just won't learn, but fortunately we have held so far. There've been more tours--we didn't go, and more free dinners and entertainment--we are really being treated well. The fuel cost was even lower than the ultimate deal at Kupang, and we didn't even have to negotiate. So Alor is a bit small, and it was crowded so we decided to leave today for the Komodo group to check out the dragons. Several others left today but aren't going quite so far. With us needing to get to Bali around the 25th to temporarily get rid of the crew and get Rose back aboard, we just decided a straight shot to Komodo which is about halfway, would be better than day hopping like we did in Australia. Of course, now that plan may be in the tank if we can't get the watermaker repaired.
So, there you have it. Up to the minute reports on the fate of Rendezvous Cay. The trials and tribulations of world cruising. Equipment problems, boats dragging, fuel drama, boat impoundments, the entire exciting story to date
More later
Cheers
Tim, Joe & Olivia
Sunday, November 30, 2008
Darwin to Kupang July 30 2008
Hi everyone,
We've arrived in Kupang. Although it doesn't mean much, because everybody motored, we were the 1st boat across the line. The 500 mile crossing was very easy with light wind and clear skies. Feels like we are finally back in the true tropics--meaning you don't need a fleece when you get up in the morning. We did have one interesting thing happen on the way. What must have been a giant squid squirted our boat with ink. I say giant as the ink was voluminous and reached all the way across half the boat and up to the cabin top, an area about 15 feet by 20 feet. No fish caught, but we hooked a few big ones that got away. I did manage to reflect that it used to be a huge deal to cross Lake Michigan, a sail of about 100 miles and now 500 miles is like falling off a log.
Right now some huge drama is going on . Our friends on Oz just pulled in, and they seem to be a bit unlucky One of the other boats hit him while anchoring in Seisia, and, now, the customs boat has dragged and almost hit him. He moved but after that, the boat just in front and to the left of us started dragging and no one was on board. There's 120 boats in here so this is a big deal. On the radio, we called on the fleet to assist us so everyone's over there now and other calls are coming in about other boats dragging. It'll all get sorted without damages, but the drama adds a little spice to the day.
The other drama going on relates to checking in here. Seems the Indonesian guy in charge of this rally is feuding with customs. There's some reg about a customs bond, and Raymond supposedly got this waived for all of us. Not really!!! We are all technically impounded with a 18" square sticker in indonesian on one of the windows. No one knows anything, but it seems its just a local political dispute on island time. In the meantime, Kupang is a welcome relief after the last 3 year of high costs. Giant beers are about $2.50 and a huge meal about $3.00. Fuel is only about $.75/liter, but there's even drama about that one faction is officially offering it at double that so you have to do a deal under the table. Joey bought a new pump pellet rifle for $28!!!! The town itself is a bit dirty and run down, but that's what we expected. We haven't been out to the new shopping area yet, but have time to explore as we're scheduled here for another few days and still need to sort out the impoundment issue.
More later. Wanted to bring everyone up to date on the phone and our arrival.
Tim, Joe and Olivia.
We've arrived in Kupang. Although it doesn't mean much, because everybody motored, we were the 1st boat across the line. The 500 mile crossing was very easy with light wind and clear skies. Feels like we are finally back in the true tropics--meaning you don't need a fleece when you get up in the morning. We did have one interesting thing happen on the way. What must have been a giant squid squirted our boat with ink. I say giant as the ink was voluminous and reached all the way across half the boat and up to the cabin top, an area about 15 feet by 20 feet. No fish caught, but we hooked a few big ones that got away. I did manage to reflect that it used to be a huge deal to cross Lake Michigan, a sail of about 100 miles and now 500 miles is like falling off a log.
Right now some huge drama is going on . Our friends on Oz just pulled in, and they seem to be a bit unlucky One of the other boats hit him while anchoring in Seisia, and, now, the customs boat has dragged and almost hit him. He moved but after that, the boat just in front and to the left of us started dragging and no one was on board. There's 120 boats in here so this is a big deal. On the radio, we called on the fleet to assist us so everyone's over there now and other calls are coming in about other boats dragging. It'll all get sorted without damages, but the drama adds a little spice to the day.
The other drama going on relates to checking in here. Seems the Indonesian guy in charge of this rally is feuding with customs. There's some reg about a customs bond, and Raymond supposedly got this waived for all of us. Not really!!! We are all technically impounded with a 18" square sticker in indonesian on one of the windows. No one knows anything, but it seems its just a local political dispute on island time. In the meantime, Kupang is a welcome relief after the last 3 year of high costs. Giant beers are about $2.50 and a huge meal about $3.00. Fuel is only about $.75/liter, but there's even drama about that one faction is officially offering it at double that so you have to do a deal under the table. Joey bought a new pump pellet rifle for $28!!!! The town itself is a bit dirty and run down, but that's what we expected. We haven't been out to the new shopping area yet, but have time to explore as we're scheduled here for another few days and still need to sort out the impoundment issue.
More later. Wanted to bring everyone up to date on the phone and our arrival.
Tim, Joe and Olivia.
Darwin July 26 2008
Well, I'm writing this tale of Darwin at 5AM on watch as we make our 500 mile passage across the Timor Sea to Kupang, Indonesia. Our stay in Darwin was quite pleasant with pretty much perfect weather--80's days and high 60's nights with a nice breeze. Our arrival was noneventful and there was plenty of room in the anchorage which was nice as you have to use tons of chain, because the tides are as much as 25 feet. Some guys (Scorpedo from Seattle)we had celebrated St Patrick's day with on that Irish boat in Sydney dinghied by just as we got the hook down. Filled us in on the protocol and what was going on. So, ready for some civilization, we dropped the dinghy and headed to shore. The crew wanted to check out the city--nice size at about 80,000, and the captain wanted to check out happy hour at the Sailing club, unofficial HQ for the rally.
So I was having a beer and chatting with a guy whose wife was off in the states when a PA announcement was made that a dinghy was awash down on the beach--no dinghy docks here due to the height of the tides. As I prayed it wasn't mine they mentioned it was the tender to Rendezvous. SHIT!! To make a long story short,it was totally flooded, but a couple of guys helped me get it afloat and bailed out. Unbelievably, it started. Thank God I have a gel cell battery, and I got back to the boat and got the bilge pump working. Anyway,what happens is, with the large tides, if there's an on-shore breeze, some pretty good waves can build up and wash into the boat. We solved the problem later on with, at first, anchoring a ways out and using the kayak to get to the beach and then, after somebody clued us in, using the club's boat trolleys to put the dinghy on dry land.
The next day was Sunday, an action packed day. First, because the city proper is a $12 cab ride away, we knew we'd need a car and headed to town. Nothing available, even through the tourist office which books those kinds of things. Seems there was some car race going on. Okay, back to the boat and then, later in the day a long walk away towards town was a famous market with the usual tourist goodies, tons of food and entertainment. Actually, the walk wasn't too bad as Joey packed a few beers in his backpack. Unbelievably, you can't buy beer at the market. I managed to find a Chinese massage place and had the full treatment. Before we hit the market, I tried the same trick on cars I used in Sydney. A quick check of the internet (which we finally had back on board) got us a car first thing Monday. Unfortunately, rates here are about double those in Sydney, but a cab ride or three pretty much makes up most of the expense.
Monday was also action packed. We got the car first and then hit Aussie customs. It's necessary to "pre checkout" for the rally, then off to the Indonesian consulate to surrender our passports to get visas--that takes four days. Tons of boats came in over the weekend so we thought we'd be waiting around in lines, but we hit both offices just right and avoided a lot of wasted time. Then it was the grocery and generally checking out Darwin which is a really nice size--big enough to have all the amenities and small enough not to have traffic problems and other big city hassles. We also dropped off the tridata (speed, depth and odometer) at the Ray Marine dealer. It had crapped out on the way to Darwin.
Until Saturday, our time was spent generally checking things out and socializing at the Club. Thrown in there was learning the tridata was irreparable. Seems, the yahoos in NZ who charged me $350 to replace the screen had stripped the screws on the back allowing water to get in, cooking the electronics. A new one here would be over $800, but good old Port Supply came through again, delivering a new one to Darwin for $550. Complaints to Ray Marine Asia, HQ'ed here in Sydney fell on deaf ears, but I did get an apology. So Saturday AM is another, more traditional market with veggies, etc., just up the road from the club, and it was on the way to the camper van place where Joey and Olivia needed to go to get the vehicle they were using to visit Kakadu National park--yes, boat to myself. So we did that and they took off until Thursday. Of course, earlier in the week we went out to the airport to get our duty free booze--getting the paperwork for that is one of the reasons you see customs 2 weeks before you leave. We ordered massive quantities of booze and purchased wine at Woolworth's, because Indonesia in Muslim and it's hard to get anything but beer there.
I'm sure they thought I would pine away on the boat. No way. Another boat, the guys from Windbird, who are American, heard the casino had a good and cheap, breakfast buffet, so Sunday we, including their Canadian buddies off Scot Free II, headed over. It was pretty good but not as cheap as we'd heard. Undaunted, we decided to stop at the beach where they hold the Sunday markets as the famous "Beer Can Regatta" was being held. This is a real deal where they make boats out of empty beer cans and then race around. There was only one beer tent (better than the normal Sunday market with none) so Jerry (off Scot Free) and I found a couple if comfortable chairs in the shade and let the rest of them report on the festivities. there were thousands of people and this is an important annual event in Darwin. Okay, enough of that. People had stuff to do on their boats, so, about 1 or so, we headed back to the club. It was a hot day so we decided to have a beer before returning. Oops. Too late now to get anything done, so we decided, wisely, to walk down to the Darwin Ski Club, a bar on the beach about halfway to the market. Well, anyway, I think we got back to our boats about 8:30. No work was done. In fact I think not too much got done on Monday either.
The rest of the week, I carefully timed my trips ashore with the tides as the trolley was a multiperson job. Managed to inventory and clear out the foodstuffs on the boat in preparation for the trip to Indonesia which is 3rd world with limited availability of stuff. Also replaced, as my package arrived, the broken running light. Idiot that I am, though, I ordered a "starboard, that's the red one" LED bulb. Unfortunately, the starboard light is green. The proper bulb never did arrive, so the club, at no expense, is going to sent it to Lizzie for forwarding to me. Seems one can only safely receive mail via FedEx in Indonesia and I think the club's largesse doesn't go that far.
So the kids returned Thursday and there was an unofficial BBQ for the rally. They were too tired--wimps--and opted out, but it was a nice affair. Somewhere in here we got a mechanic out to, once again, repair the alternator bracket and a few other things. Seemed to know what they were doing, and the dinghy is running the best it has in years. Unfortunately--- Nah, you'll have to read on for that..
That Saturday was the official Rally BBQ, and we actually got free beer, too. I ate with the adults, and the crew was off at a children's table somewhere. Was able to pick up a bunch of software and a new small USB GPS for a good price that one of the boats was selling. As usual, installing it was a 2 hour mission which I finally resolved, not with a right click but a system restore and just plugging the damn thing in--a one minute install. Seems I already had the necessary drivers and trying to install over them messed up everything.
Almost done!! Our last week was spent provisioning, a pre rally all day meeting and last minute cleaning storing and repairs. We loaded up with about $700 or $800 of food. primarily meat, especially pork and chicken breasts as it's a 3d world Muslim country. I have no idea what these cultures do with white meat, but it ain't easy to find. The spare freezer was cranked up for the first time in a year or two--and works!!!! We even found some room for ice cream. The pre rally meeting, like just about everything else about this rally, was disorganized and generally uninformative. The main Indonesian guy didn't make it (which made for interesting rumors about him stealing the business and up to Oz immigration problems). The daily nets and the meeting were run by two Aussies who don't seem to have a clue. There was some good info there, however, as the Sail Malaysia people were interesting and well informed. They represent a follow on rally from Singapore up the Malacca straits to Langkawi, about 100 miles south of Phuket, Thailand, the traditional jumping off point for crossing the Indian Ocean. Also very good was a guy from Brunei, who talked about off season cruising on that side of SE Asia. We may have to rethink things about leaving in January for the Med and cruise a full year here in the land of good food and cheap marinas. It'll be a welcome relief after the last three years of expensive countries and a weakening US$. Thank you, George. (Joey managed to find an interesting T shirt. On the front is a picture of a chick in a bikini and another of George. The caption is "good bush, bad bush". We are amused!!) i also got my spare head pumps and manged to change one out which hadn't been flushing properly. Yes, cruising is so romantic.
Thursday we fueled up, and the duty free price wasn't too bad, relatively speaking, that is. We paid $1.33 a liter. Friday, we did last minute provisioning and had to check out. Oh, and customs called me on Thursday to return my "firearms" These, you'll recall, were my BB guns and a slingshot. Anyway, they were returned promptly Fri AM and in excellent condition, They put a seal over the locker where I stored them!!!. Check out was for 130 boats at the sailing club, but when we returned the line was gone, and we breezed right through. The customs chick mentioned I was the guy with firearms which I had to correct with a laugh and pointed to the guy next to me. He also protested as he got his spear gun confiscated because it used compressed air!!! Did a last night happy hour with our friends off Windbird and Scot Free as well as a couple other boats, and made it an early night for the big start at 11 Sat on the ebbing tide. Because there is a prize for the "best dressed" boat, Joey, once again, pulled out all our flags and the blow up sheep in an effort to win. Apparently, although it was again poorly communicated, they'll judge at the start line. I insisted it not interfere with raising the sails.
Sat AM, We cranked up the engines to charge up the batteries and it sounded like a belt was loose. Nope. More drama. The guys had stripped the bolt that holds the alternator to the engine when they fixed the wobbling. Well, these guys, I learned on Friday, charged me $100/hour to work on the boat, which is the most expensive rate in the world, so I immediately got on their emergency numbers(it was Sat), got the women who called about my bill, and informed her I would bounce the entire bill on my credit card if she didn't get someone out to tap and thread a new bolt hole. So our mechanic--not the one who fouled it up--called, and I explained what the problem was and to bring the right stuff. While waiting for him, I needed to attend to some mail issues at the club and search for a hose fitting for our propane system which failed earlier that week. So Nafa, the Egyptian shows up about 9, works on the problem, insists it's everything but the bolt until finally, at 10, he informs me he needs to go to the shop to get the right tools and drill something out there. Now we're pissed because the start is in an hour, and it's already ten, and he says he'll be gone an hour. We finally got off at about 11:30 at the very back of the pack, so we don't know if all of Joey's work has gone to waste.
Bringing you right up to date, it's now the morning of the 27th, one day out and we have had light winds and been motor sailing. For some reason, the port engine decided not to start in the middle of the night, but, this AM, after jiggling some wires, we've got it running.
We don't hear much from most of you and would like to hear what is going on in the real world, so an email or two once in a while would be nice!!!
More on the rest of the trip and Kupang in our next missive. In the meantime
Cheers
Tim, Joe & Olivia
So I was having a beer and chatting with a guy whose wife was off in the states when a PA announcement was made that a dinghy was awash down on the beach--no dinghy docks here due to the height of the tides. As I prayed it wasn't mine they mentioned it was the tender to Rendezvous. SHIT!! To make a long story short,it was totally flooded, but a couple of guys helped me get it afloat and bailed out. Unbelievably, it started. Thank God I have a gel cell battery, and I got back to the boat and got the bilge pump working. Anyway,what happens is, with the large tides, if there's an on-shore breeze, some pretty good waves can build up and wash into the boat. We solved the problem later on with, at first, anchoring a ways out and using the kayak to get to the beach and then, after somebody clued us in, using the club's boat trolleys to put the dinghy on dry land.
The next day was Sunday, an action packed day. First, because the city proper is a $12 cab ride away, we knew we'd need a car and headed to town. Nothing available, even through the tourist office which books those kinds of things. Seems there was some car race going on. Okay, back to the boat and then, later in the day a long walk away towards town was a famous market with the usual tourist goodies, tons of food and entertainment. Actually, the walk wasn't too bad as Joey packed a few beers in his backpack. Unbelievably, you can't buy beer at the market. I managed to find a Chinese massage place and had the full treatment. Before we hit the market, I tried the same trick on cars I used in Sydney. A quick check of the internet (which we finally had back on board) got us a car first thing Monday. Unfortunately, rates here are about double those in Sydney, but a cab ride or three pretty much makes up most of the expense.
Monday was also action packed. We got the car first and then hit Aussie customs. It's necessary to "pre checkout" for the rally, then off to the Indonesian consulate to surrender our passports to get visas--that takes four days. Tons of boats came in over the weekend so we thought we'd be waiting around in lines, but we hit both offices just right and avoided a lot of wasted time. Then it was the grocery and generally checking out Darwin which is a really nice size--big enough to have all the amenities and small enough not to have traffic problems and other big city hassles. We also dropped off the tridata (speed, depth and odometer) at the Ray Marine dealer. It had crapped out on the way to Darwin.
Until Saturday, our time was spent generally checking things out and socializing at the Club. Thrown in there was learning the tridata was irreparable. Seems, the yahoos in NZ who charged me $350 to replace the screen had stripped the screws on the back allowing water to get in, cooking the electronics. A new one here would be over $800, but good old Port Supply came through again, delivering a new one to Darwin for $550. Complaints to Ray Marine Asia, HQ'ed here in Sydney fell on deaf ears, but I did get an apology. So Saturday AM is another, more traditional market with veggies, etc., just up the road from the club, and it was on the way to the camper van place where Joey and Olivia needed to go to get the vehicle they were using to visit Kakadu National park--yes, boat to myself. So we did that and they took off until Thursday. Of course, earlier in the week we went out to the airport to get our duty free booze--getting the paperwork for that is one of the reasons you see customs 2 weeks before you leave. We ordered massive quantities of booze and purchased wine at Woolworth's, because Indonesia in Muslim and it's hard to get anything but beer there.
I'm sure they thought I would pine away on the boat. No way. Another boat, the guys from Windbird, who are American, heard the casino had a good and cheap, breakfast buffet, so Sunday we, including their Canadian buddies off Scot Free II, headed over. It was pretty good but not as cheap as we'd heard. Undaunted, we decided to stop at the beach where they hold the Sunday markets as the famous "Beer Can Regatta" was being held. This is a real deal where they make boats out of empty beer cans and then race around. There was only one beer tent (better than the normal Sunday market with none) so Jerry (off Scot Free) and I found a couple if comfortable chairs in the shade and let the rest of them report on the festivities. there were thousands of people and this is an important annual event in Darwin. Okay, enough of that. People had stuff to do on their boats, so, about 1 or so, we headed back to the club. It was a hot day so we decided to have a beer before returning. Oops. Too late now to get anything done, so we decided, wisely, to walk down to the Darwin Ski Club, a bar on the beach about halfway to the market. Well, anyway, I think we got back to our boats about 8:30. No work was done. In fact I think not too much got done on Monday either.
The rest of the week, I carefully timed my trips ashore with the tides as the trolley was a multiperson job. Managed to inventory and clear out the foodstuffs on the boat in preparation for the trip to Indonesia which is 3rd world with limited availability of stuff. Also replaced, as my package arrived, the broken running light. Idiot that I am, though, I ordered a "starboard, that's the red one" LED bulb. Unfortunately, the starboard light is green. The proper bulb never did arrive, so the club, at no expense, is going to sent it to Lizzie for forwarding to me. Seems one can only safely receive mail via FedEx in Indonesia and I think the club's largesse doesn't go that far.
So the kids returned Thursday and there was an unofficial BBQ for the rally. They were too tired--wimps--and opted out, but it was a nice affair. Somewhere in here we got a mechanic out to, once again, repair the alternator bracket and a few other things. Seemed to know what they were doing, and the dinghy is running the best it has in years. Unfortunately--- Nah, you'll have to read on for that..
That Saturday was the official Rally BBQ, and we actually got free beer, too. I ate with the adults, and the crew was off at a children's table somewhere. Was able to pick up a bunch of software and a new small USB GPS for a good price that one of the boats was selling. As usual, installing it was a 2 hour mission which I finally resolved, not with a right click but a system restore and just plugging the damn thing in--a one minute install. Seems I already had the necessary drivers and trying to install over them messed up everything.
Almost done!! Our last week was spent provisioning, a pre rally all day meeting and last minute cleaning storing and repairs. We loaded up with about $700 or $800 of food. primarily meat, especially pork and chicken breasts as it's a 3d world Muslim country. I have no idea what these cultures do with white meat, but it ain't easy to find. The spare freezer was cranked up for the first time in a year or two--and works!!!! We even found some room for ice cream. The pre rally meeting, like just about everything else about this rally, was disorganized and generally uninformative. The main Indonesian guy didn't make it (which made for interesting rumors about him stealing the business and up to Oz immigration problems). The daily nets and the meeting were run by two Aussies who don't seem to have a clue. There was some good info there, however, as the Sail Malaysia people were interesting and well informed. They represent a follow on rally from Singapore up the Malacca straits to Langkawi, about 100 miles south of Phuket, Thailand, the traditional jumping off point for crossing the Indian Ocean. Also very good was a guy from Brunei, who talked about off season cruising on that side of SE Asia. We may have to rethink things about leaving in January for the Med and cruise a full year here in the land of good food and cheap marinas. It'll be a welcome relief after the last three years of expensive countries and a weakening US$. Thank you, George. (Joey managed to find an interesting T shirt. On the front is a picture of a chick in a bikini and another of George. The caption is "good bush, bad bush". We are amused!!) i also got my spare head pumps and manged to change one out which hadn't been flushing properly. Yes, cruising is so romantic.
Thursday we fueled up, and the duty free price wasn't too bad, relatively speaking, that is. We paid $1.33 a liter. Friday, we did last minute provisioning and had to check out. Oh, and customs called me on Thursday to return my "firearms" These, you'll recall, were my BB guns and a slingshot. Anyway, they were returned promptly Fri AM and in excellent condition, They put a seal over the locker where I stored them!!!. Check out was for 130 boats at the sailing club, but when we returned the line was gone, and we breezed right through. The customs chick mentioned I was the guy with firearms which I had to correct with a laugh and pointed to the guy next to me. He also protested as he got his spear gun confiscated because it used compressed air!!! Did a last night happy hour with our friends off Windbird and Scot Free as well as a couple other boats, and made it an early night for the big start at 11 Sat on the ebbing tide. Because there is a prize for the "best dressed" boat, Joey, once again, pulled out all our flags and the blow up sheep in an effort to win. Apparently, although it was again poorly communicated, they'll judge at the start line. I insisted it not interfere with raising the sails.
Sat AM, We cranked up the engines to charge up the batteries and it sounded like a belt was loose. Nope. More drama. The guys had stripped the bolt that holds the alternator to the engine when they fixed the wobbling. Well, these guys, I learned on Friday, charged me $100/hour to work on the boat, which is the most expensive rate in the world, so I immediately got on their emergency numbers(it was Sat), got the women who called about my bill, and informed her I would bounce the entire bill on my credit card if she didn't get someone out to tap and thread a new bolt hole. So our mechanic--not the one who fouled it up--called, and I explained what the problem was and to bring the right stuff. While waiting for him, I needed to attend to some mail issues at the club and search for a hose fitting for our propane system which failed earlier that week. So Nafa, the Egyptian shows up about 9, works on the problem, insists it's everything but the bolt until finally, at 10, he informs me he needs to go to the shop to get the right tools and drill something out there. Now we're pissed because the start is in an hour, and it's already ten, and he says he'll be gone an hour. We finally got off at about 11:30 at the very back of the pack, so we don't know if all of Joey's work has gone to waste.
Bringing you right up to date, it's now the morning of the 27th, one day out and we have had light winds and been motor sailing. For some reason, the port engine decided not to start in the middle of the night, but, this AM, after jiggling some wires, we've got it running.
We don't hear much from most of you and would like to hear what is going on in the real world, so an email or two once in a while would be nice!!!
More on the rest of the trip and Kupang in our next missive. In the meantime
Cheers
Tim, Joe & Olivia
Through the Gulf & onto Darwin July 14 2008
Hi Everyone.
Well, we left you a week ago across the Gulf of Carpentaria in Seisia waiting for good weather to cross over to Gove, our first real taste of civilization since Cooktown. So the social scene picked up as the weather improved, and the nightly happy hour/BBQ started up again with the prime subject being when to leave and cross the Gulf. There were high (30 knot) winds and big (4 meter) seas over on the other side, and it was none too pleasant where we were. We were able to connect periodically to our wifi provider, and the weather was expected to moderate Tuesday and Wednesday for sure, Finally, everybody decided to wait for Wed. to be sure of calmer weather on the other side, 350 miles away. Some were even considering waiting until Thursday, but we shoved off first thing Wed to very light wind and calm seas, but we still needed to get through a patch of sandbanks called the Endeavour Strait and get out there. We didn't have much fuel, and we were worried about the light air as we really couldn't motor all the way. As it turned out, all the boats, 16 in all, took off that morning, some for Cape Wessel, north of Gove and the rest to Gove. After swearing that we should have left Tuesday and gotten good wind, it kicked up, and we had a riotous ride for the next day and a half with 25-30 knot wind and 4 meter seas which did diminish on Thursday. All of it was coming from behind us, so it wasn't too bad. Some of the smaller boats actually set record times and came in shortly after we did on Friday morning. We caught a big Spanish Mackerel on the way among some smaller throw back tunas. The Aussies patrol the Gulf heavily and we heard radio traffic on a warship checking yachts, and we had not one, but two, flybys by Australian Coast Watch planes asking our destination, and other info.
So we hit Gove, a major bauxite exporting port with a small town, at 8:30 Friday morning. Over the next couple of days, the remaining Seisia fleet arrived as well as a bunch of boats that had gone a bit south from Seisia to supposedly get a better angle on the wind--probably 25 boats in all. There's a nice yacht club in Gove Harbor that welcomes yachties, has free BBQs and cheap drinks, so happy hour was reconstituted with the big subject of discussion, once again, when everyone was leaving to go through the dreaded Hole In The Wall(HW). HW is a 45 meter wide pass between the Wessel Islands on the way to Darwin. It cuts about 100 miles off the trip, but had a tidal flow of 10 knots so you have to hit it just right to avoid getting killed by the current. Many boats have left today and will anchor close to HW and go through tomorrow. The tides are only right at late afternoon. We had planned on staying here for a few more days as there is a big party at the yacht club Monday--which is also Joey's birthday, and Tuesday is Territory day and you can buy and set of fireworks. Unfortunately, the tides are not going to cooperate, so we'll leave Tuesday AM for the 45 mile run north to the pass. We will go through about 5PM and there is a nice anchorage just the other side. We think we can squeak by on the fuel we have until Darwin, so they'll be no motoring, After that, it's an overnight sail to get closer to Darwin and then a few day hops.
The little town of Nunguuliguy, or something like that, is very small and about a 20 minute cab ride away, but we are glad to have a modicum of civilization with a strong cell and wifi signal and a Woolworth's grocery store, one of the big chains here. I wanted to get some beer here for what seems to be becoming a regular happy hour event on the beach, but you actually need to get a permit to buy takeaway alcohol. We're in indigenous people (the politically correct expression for aborigines) country, and I guess they're like American Indians and have a tendency to abuse booze. Of course, however, to be politically correct, they can't just discriminate against the Abos with this permit nonsense so everyone has to do it. It is a big deal with your picture taken and an official document which can be revoked for any number of reasons like buying booze for someone without a permit. It's free, just took a while as we had to tack someone down on a Saturday and go to the courthouse to get it
Most everyone left by the 30th, Joey's, and, by coincidence, one of the big chiefs, birthdays. There was supposed to be a huge party at the yacht club with free food and booze so off we went about 4. No free drinks but, about 7, we finally got some food. We got firsthand experience as to why they limit abo alcohol. Many drunks--they actually had a paddy wagon and cops on hand, and one drooled all over my leg. We're not talking just a little--reminded me of that early Saturday Night Live routine with drool cups. Eeeeeeeeeeewwwwwwwwww.
We decide to leave the next day and also to get some fuel "just in case" as we found out it really wasn't too expensive. However, it turned out that way as we had a hell of a time geting off the dock and managed to destroy a running light and wreck one of the life rings and holders. The freighter behind us even tried to help by taking a line and trying to pull us off (that's when we broke stuff), but finally, we had to take down the dinghy and drag the anchor out at a 45 degree angle and then use the windlass to pull out the bow. That being done we had a nice sail up to the pass where, if you don't time it right, the current can run 8-10 knots against you. Conventional wisdom (I won't bore you with the details) said to go through about 5:30 pm that day and, at the beginning, while a bit rough, the current was modest. Remember, this pass saves about 100 miles, but has the crrent problem because it's really narrow!!! But it's only about 1/2 mile long. So anyway, we got into the middle, and the calculations were off or something, because our speed kept dropping and dropping and dropping. Pretty soon, we're making about 2 knots with both engines full on, and I'm thinking we'll be going backward soon, which is not a good thing!! Okay, well that was the worst of it, and we survived, but it was a bit nervewracking.
We had the anchorage just beyond the pass to ourselves, and the plan was to get an early start, sail about 150 miles overnight, and end up at a place called Malay Bay which the guide said was a good spot. Following that, we had another "strait" to go through before hitting Cape Don, the embarkation point for Darwin. We had a great sail, but Malay Bay was very windy and we could see we'd be bucking around all night. Okay, go to plan B. On the morning radio net (everyone involved gets on the radio to share information at a fixed time each day) a couple of people had mentioned the SW corner of the island forming the strait (Point David) had a decent anchorage just past the pearl farms on that end. We confirmed that with some other boats headed that way, and, since it was only 2 pm and only 15 miles, we decided to go for it. Now, pretend you're hearing the sound of the wrong answer buzzer on a game show. We cruised up and down, in and out, etc. for about an hour and couldn't find the place. We ended up going through the straight to a really nice anchorage at the north end. On the way, we managed to spy a sea gull standing on a turtle out in the middle of the water which was cool. Finally got the hook down about 7.
The next leg to Cape Don--the anchorage is Alcara Bay was a short one, and we were a bit worried about space as there were boats coming from everywhere to wait for the right conditions to head the 85 miles to Darwin. Fortunately, the bay is large as there were ultimately 20 boats in there. The deal is, because there are huge 20+ foot tides in Darwin, you want to have favorable flow. Remember the old movies about sailing "on the tide" Well that's not BS when they are that large, and the current can be a big help or a big hindrance. Once again, one relies on conventional wisdom for the departure. In our case, it was to leave about 5 hours before high tide in Darwin. Too bad for us this meant leaving a 3AM!!! This allegedly gives you good current leaving Alcara and good current arriving Darwin. Well, for once they were right!!! It's about 1/2 hour to get out of the anchorage and make a left to Darwin. We were motoring along with the main up doing about 7.5 knots when we hit the tidal flow and went up to about 14 knots for quite a while until the tide turned. We ended up in Darwin by 2 inspite of slowing down to about 6 knots when the tide went against us. We were happy to have that extra fuel as we, along with everyone else (15 boats left that night) all wanted to get there while it was still light and really were ready for some civilization.
I'll tell the tale of our very pleasant--so far--3 week stay in Darwin in my next letter.
In the meantime, I'm happy to report that miracles do happen. Rose is cured!!!! Many of the docs had told us it might just be something that the body will take care of on it's own and so, it seems, it was. I keep getting emails about drinking, long walks, and knot tying classes that were all out of the question 3 months ago. So the logistics are a bit difficult, and she can't return quite yet, but Rose is booked on a flight to Bali (how romantic!!!) coinciding her arrival with me having to be there to drop the crew off for a side trip to Singapore for a wedding. That's in about 6 weeks at the end of August. Yahoo!!!
Cheers 'til next time.
Tim, Joe & Olivia
Well, we left you a week ago across the Gulf of Carpentaria in Seisia waiting for good weather to cross over to Gove, our first real taste of civilization since Cooktown. So the social scene picked up as the weather improved, and the nightly happy hour/BBQ started up again with the prime subject being when to leave and cross the Gulf. There were high (30 knot) winds and big (4 meter) seas over on the other side, and it was none too pleasant where we were. We were able to connect periodically to our wifi provider, and the weather was expected to moderate Tuesday and Wednesday for sure, Finally, everybody decided to wait for Wed. to be sure of calmer weather on the other side, 350 miles away. Some were even considering waiting until Thursday, but we shoved off first thing Wed to very light wind and calm seas, but we still needed to get through a patch of sandbanks called the Endeavour Strait and get out there. We didn't have much fuel, and we were worried about the light air as we really couldn't motor all the way. As it turned out, all the boats, 16 in all, took off that morning, some for Cape Wessel, north of Gove and the rest to Gove. After swearing that we should have left Tuesday and gotten good wind, it kicked up, and we had a riotous ride for the next day and a half with 25-30 knot wind and 4 meter seas which did diminish on Thursday. All of it was coming from behind us, so it wasn't too bad. Some of the smaller boats actually set record times and came in shortly after we did on Friday morning. We caught a big Spanish Mackerel on the way among some smaller throw back tunas. The Aussies patrol the Gulf heavily and we heard radio traffic on a warship checking yachts, and we had not one, but two, flybys by Australian Coast Watch planes asking our destination, and other info.
So we hit Gove, a major bauxite exporting port with a small town, at 8:30 Friday morning. Over the next couple of days, the remaining Seisia fleet arrived as well as a bunch of boats that had gone a bit south from Seisia to supposedly get a better angle on the wind--probably 25 boats in all. There's a nice yacht club in Gove Harbor that welcomes yachties, has free BBQs and cheap drinks, so happy hour was reconstituted with the big subject of discussion, once again, when everyone was leaving to go through the dreaded Hole In The Wall(HW). HW is a 45 meter wide pass between the Wessel Islands on the way to Darwin. It cuts about 100 miles off the trip, but had a tidal flow of 10 knots so you have to hit it just right to avoid getting killed by the current. Many boats have left today and will anchor close to HW and go through tomorrow. The tides are only right at late afternoon. We had planned on staying here for a few more days as there is a big party at the yacht club Monday--which is also Joey's birthday, and Tuesday is Territory day and you can buy and set of fireworks. Unfortunately, the tides are not going to cooperate, so we'll leave Tuesday AM for the 45 mile run north to the pass. We will go through about 5PM and there is a nice anchorage just the other side. We think we can squeak by on the fuel we have until Darwin, so they'll be no motoring, After that, it's an overnight sail to get closer to Darwin and then a few day hops.
The little town of Nunguuliguy, or something like that, is very small and about a 20 minute cab ride away, but we are glad to have a modicum of civilization with a strong cell and wifi signal and a Woolworth's grocery store, one of the big chains here. I wanted to get some beer here for what seems to be becoming a regular happy hour event on the beach, but you actually need to get a permit to buy takeaway alcohol. We're in indigenous people (the politically correct expression for aborigines) country, and I guess they're like American Indians and have a tendency to abuse booze. Of course, however, to be politically correct, they can't just discriminate against the Abos with this permit nonsense so everyone has to do it. It is a big deal with your picture taken and an official document which can be revoked for any number of reasons like buying booze for someone without a permit. It's free, just took a while as we had to tack someone down on a Saturday and go to the courthouse to get it
Most everyone left by the 30th, Joey's, and, by coincidence, one of the big chiefs, birthdays. There was supposed to be a huge party at the yacht club with free food and booze so off we went about 4. No free drinks but, about 7, we finally got some food. We got firsthand experience as to why they limit abo alcohol. Many drunks--they actually had a paddy wagon and cops on hand, and one drooled all over my leg. We're not talking just a little--reminded me of that early Saturday Night Live routine with drool cups. Eeeeeeeeeeewwwwwwwwww.
We decide to leave the next day and also to get some fuel "just in case" as we found out it really wasn't too expensive. However, it turned out that way as we had a hell of a time geting off the dock and managed to destroy a running light and wreck one of the life rings and holders. The freighter behind us even tried to help by taking a line and trying to pull us off (that's when we broke stuff), but finally, we had to take down the dinghy and drag the anchor out at a 45 degree angle and then use the windlass to pull out the bow. That being done we had a nice sail up to the pass where, if you don't time it right, the current can run 8-10 knots against you. Conventional wisdom (I won't bore you with the details) said to go through about 5:30 pm that day and, at the beginning, while a bit rough, the current was modest. Remember, this pass saves about 100 miles, but has the crrent problem because it's really narrow!!! But it's only about 1/2 mile long. So anyway, we got into the middle, and the calculations were off or something, because our speed kept dropping and dropping and dropping. Pretty soon, we're making about 2 knots with both engines full on, and I'm thinking we'll be going backward soon, which is not a good thing!! Okay, well that was the worst of it, and we survived, but it was a bit nervewracking.
We had the anchorage just beyond the pass to ourselves, and the plan was to get an early start, sail about 150 miles overnight, and end up at a place called Malay Bay which the guide said was a good spot. Following that, we had another "strait" to go through before hitting Cape Don, the embarkation point for Darwin. We had a great sail, but Malay Bay was very windy and we could see we'd be bucking around all night. Okay, go to plan B. On the morning radio net (everyone involved gets on the radio to share information at a fixed time each day) a couple of people had mentioned the SW corner of the island forming the strait (Point David) had a decent anchorage just past the pearl farms on that end. We confirmed that with some other boats headed that way, and, since it was only 2 pm and only 15 miles, we decided to go for it. Now, pretend you're hearing the sound of the wrong answer buzzer on a game show. We cruised up and down, in and out, etc. for about an hour and couldn't find the place. We ended up going through the straight to a really nice anchorage at the north end. On the way, we managed to spy a sea gull standing on a turtle out in the middle of the water which was cool. Finally got the hook down about 7.
The next leg to Cape Don--the anchorage is Alcara Bay was a short one, and we were a bit worried about space as there were boats coming from everywhere to wait for the right conditions to head the 85 miles to Darwin. Fortunately, the bay is large as there were ultimately 20 boats in there. The deal is, because there are huge 20+ foot tides in Darwin, you want to have favorable flow. Remember the old movies about sailing "on the tide" Well that's not BS when they are that large, and the current can be a big help or a big hindrance. Once again, one relies on conventional wisdom for the departure. In our case, it was to leave about 5 hours before high tide in Darwin. Too bad for us this meant leaving a 3AM!!! This allegedly gives you good current leaving Alcara and good current arriving Darwin. Well, for once they were right!!! It's about 1/2 hour to get out of the anchorage and make a left to Darwin. We were motoring along with the main up doing about 7.5 knots when we hit the tidal flow and went up to about 14 knots for quite a while until the tide turned. We ended up in Darwin by 2 inspite of slowing down to about 6 knots when the tide went against us. We were happy to have that extra fuel as we, along with everyone else (15 boats left that night) all wanted to get there while it was still light and really were ready for some civilization.
I'll tell the tale of our very pleasant--so far--3 week stay in Darwin in my next letter.
In the meantime, I'm happy to report that miracles do happen. Rose is cured!!!! Many of the docs had told us it might just be something that the body will take care of on it's own and so, it seems, it was. I keep getting emails about drinking, long walks, and knot tying classes that were all out of the question 3 months ago. So the logistics are a bit difficult, and she can't return quite yet, but Rose is booked on a flight to Bali (how romantic!!!) coinciding her arrival with me having to be there to drop the crew off for a side trip to Singapore for a wedding. That's in about 6 weeks at the end of August. Yahoo!!!
Cheers 'til next time.
Tim, Joe & Olivia
North to Cairns & Cape York June 22 2008
Hello everyone. Well, it's been an event filled 3 or 4 weeks since I've last written. I believe I left you about 150 miles south of Cairns, which, as it turns out is sort of the last outpost of civilization in this part of Oz!!! Our next stop was in the Hinchinbrook channel between the mainland and an island of the same name. Here the mountains come right down to the sea and the scenery is spectacular. It's also very well sheltered and some of our friends who went outside regretted their decision when the wind kicked up. The channel, itself, is about 25 miles long, so we anchored 1/3 of the way in and had a pleasant night. Our next stop was Mourylian Harbour which just had some big factory, but it breaks up the trip up to Cairns. So up early, hoist anchor and off we go. We were about 5 miles out of the channel and I was below, charting our position when, BANG, we hit something. Turns out there was an uncharted and, small enough not to show on radar, buoy out there. You cannot believe the shit the captain took from the crew, but, fortunately, Rendezvous is built like a tank, and, other than a chunk out of the gelcoat on the port bow, there was no damage. We saw a convoy of a couple of Oz warships on the way. This is where they start heavy duty patrolling and there is even a TV show, Sea Patrol, about their exploits. We resisted the urge to call them and ask if we were all being filmed. On arrival at Mourylian, we found one of our mates had run aground, and Joey helped to get him off. We're still waiting for the obligatory bottle of something for our efforts, but the guy is Canadian and they're almost as cheap as the Swiss. (these are facts, folks, they are not idle prejudicial comments). In the middle of the harbor was a fairly large ship we were all trying to avoid and that kept just going back and forth. We finally called them and it was "scraping the bottom" of the harbor, dredging, I guess. That PM, as we were the only ones with a phone, we did the fleet another favor and called the Cairns Marina to make reservations for everyone. They had space, but said they could only guarantee us 2 nights which was okay with the others, but we needed more as we were waiting on the lovely Olivia. In any event, one can anchor out if need be.
So, it was Friday, and we arrived Cairns mid afternoon with the Marina chick, Sandy, that I spoke with on the phone coming down to help us with our lines. After we tied up, she says she knows our boat. One thing led to another, and it turns out she was crew on Lone Star, a large charter cat in the Caribbean and was there the same time as us. Not only that, she used to date my friend Mick (who I'm sure you'll all remember dinghied up in Port Vila and was skipper on Douce France, a 130 foot sailing cat). She also had and we just missed, as a house guest, Mike the cook from the Willie T when I was there. Small world, but the connection helped us get the days we needed and moved to a better slip in the marina!!!! The marina, itself is right downtown and the prices were really good--nice to get out of the Whitsunday area!!!! Joey took off exploring and captain had a nap. About four, the phone rings. Seems the crew had found a fairly sleazy happy hour bar to which I rushed. Beers and drinks were back down to reasonable levels and they were raffling off stuff as an attraction to customers. The real attraction, however, was the topless totally hot chick selling the tickets. Oh yeah, we're going to like Cairns!!!!
We had to stay about 5 days as Olivia was arriving late Tuesday, and we were waiting for new top battens for the main as the ones the sailmaker provided were not strong enough and broke. These guys changed the sail shape without asking me as they were told by South Africa, it was the new spec. Makes the sail flop more and that's how we broke the battens. As it turns out, one of the new ones they sent was too short. How they did that was a mystery to us, but there wasn't time to get one to Cairns by the time we found out we had a problem. Somehow or other, they got someone else to ship up a new one to Cooktown, but it's been blowing too hard for us to measure and trim it to fit as they sent an extra long piece just to be sure. We spent an enjoyable few days in Cairns. There's a place called "Night Markets" that doesn't open until 5 PM, and they had 40 minute Chinese massage, including an elaborate foot treatment for $15. Yep, definitely like Cairns. Oh, and there's a casino a 5 minute walk from our slip. No craps, but I took them for a few hundred at blackjack. Great place, this Cairns!!!!! Olivia arrived tuesday making the crew happy, and we hung out another day so she could check the city out.
Thursday, bright and early, we took off for the Low Isles, an atoll sort of place about halfway to Cooktown. Several boats in the lagoon and lots of people swimming, but we saw a 6 or 8 foot black tip reef shark swim by the boat and deferred water sports. Also had a really cool and large angel fish come up under the dinghy. Another early start and off we went to Cooktown which Aussies refer to as an open air lunatic asylum. (Joey actually took that literally and I had to explain they just meant the people up there are different-really different.) By this time, we'd lost both internet and cell signal and are yet to regain cell. Just now around the Penninsula have I gotten really mediocre wifi-still no cell. Anyway, we arrived at Cooktown just in time for the big Captain Cook and Queen's Birthday festival.. It was a bit of a mission getting into what they call the lagoon to anchor but after asking a half dozen times, we were finally pointed in the right direction. Cooktown used to be a gold minig boom town with 92 brothels which are legal in Oz. Don't know if any of the brothels remain, but there are about a dozen pubs for the 400 people that still live here, and the authorities gave special dispensation for drinking in the street during the festivities. Certainly free spirits and rugged indivualism here. We stayed over the weekend and left on Monday for Lizard Island--another day hop.
Lizard had a $1,200/day all-inclusive resort and a nice large protected anchorage. Good hiking, etc. and the yachties ginned up a "yacht club" with a bench under a tree where we all convened for happy hour. While yachties are not welcome at the main resort, there is a "staff bar" which a bunch of us decide to try out. Turns out we hit it just right.as that night was a "State of Origins' rugby match (sort of a state vs. state all star game) and happy hour which was very reasonable and was extended for the entire game, and they had a $2 sausage sizzle going as well. One of the couples even had a son on the NSW team. So instead of just happy hour and back to the boats for dinner we all stayed for the game. Olivia and Joe managed to kill several bottles of wine and spent the next day in bed, partly recovering, partly hiding from the rest of the people in the anchorage. When we got back we were charging the batteries when about midnight, boom, alternator goes. Turned out another bolt sheared off, but there was no damage other than to Joe's hangover the next morning when we had to fix it. Of course, we didn't have the right threaded bolt and it took 3 times as long as it should have, but we did get it working before he disappeared for the remainder of the day. We (well, not we, just me!!) did one more night of happy hour on the beach, but then the weather got iffy. A rolly night was followed by what looked to be stormy weather early. It did clear, and we decided to go for what someone said was a good intermediate (intermediate to Cape Melville, our original destination) stop (since we got a late start) at Ingram Island, a little dot of land behind a reef. Well, we had a rough night of it. We were rocking around so much, I slept in the main cabin lest the anchor break out. It was awful!!
Around Cape Melville is a group of islands called the Flinders. Our out of date cruising guide said there would be lots of trawlers sheltering there during the day and even a fuel barge to service them. NOT. Pulled in between two islands to the main anchorage, and there was only one other boat until all the other guys from Ingram came in. I should mention that we haven't been doing much in the way of shore excursions because this part of Oz is full of viscious, huge, man eating salt water crocodiles. They get up to about 2,000 pounds and 20 feet long.
Our next stop was Morris Island, about 1/3 of the way to Cape York. Huge drama!!!!!. The anchorage was reasonably crowded, but about 4 PM the excitement started. On the radio comes Aqua Magic which had taken an outside route to Morris as opposed to all of us that followed the ship channel. Keep in mind we're still inside the reef and in major shipping lanes north and south. Anyway, after their turn west towards Morris, they managed to hit and go aground on the one tiny bit of reef between them and us. It was marked on our chart, but they must have had an older version. Anyway, after all sorts of radio traffic, sat phone calls and a local trawler's refusal to go to their aid(really bad form!!), the tide rose and they floated off. By the time they got to Morris, only about 5 miles away, it was dark, and we directed them to anchor between us and their friends on WindBird. Well, bad things happen in threes. First, we learned they had lost two nice fish on the way up, then they ran aground, and, finally, when anchoring, the male aboard Aqua Magic severely tore up the fingers on his left hand. (originally, we assumed he'd caught it in the windlass letting out the chain, but found out today his wind generator is mounted rather low and he managed to get his hand caught in that--basically a big propeller.) So, more traffic, more calls, and finally a guy off a smaller trawler dinghied over and patched the guy up. We then heard 2 fingers were pretty much severed. So--those guys all went to one place on the way that had a clinic and we went on ahead. Turns out the fingers were pretty chewed up but they were saved. I now hear the guy is sort of a bad luck guy and stuff like this happens all the time. Apparently, yesterday, when they pulled in here at Seisia, he had problems anchoring and ran into another boat. Shheee, I almost forgot to mention we caught a rather large billfish on the way to Morris. We're not sure what it is, but it tastes good!!!
My God, this is getting long, but I'm getting there. So we went on to Portland Roads, characterized in our guide as an "outpost" of civilization bertween Cooktown and Cape York. nope, no way. A couple of B & Bs, sort of. The plan was to go from there to Margaret Bay, then Escape River, then, Seisia, where we are now. So who's there, but one of the guys, Paddy Mitchell, involved in the Morris Island drama, so we dinghied by and offered him a ride in to check the place out. He had a plan to just stop at Margaret for a few hours and then sail overnight to the cape, saving 2 or 3 boring nights. So we changed our plan and went along with him. Former RA Navy man so we figured he knew what he was doing in the shipping lanes at night. Meanwhile, ashore, we met one of the B & B owners, a recently retired school teacher. Alan, as well as wife, Liz, and daughter, Nina. He invited us for happy hour, lavishing home brewed beer and home distilled Rum on us 'til 7 or so--after dark. Turns out he built the 37 cat we anchored next to and pretty much set up the place from a shack when they bought it, to what is now a pretty nice pensionne. Right, remember the croc stuff--yeah, and we were a little nervous walking down to the beach and into the water to get the dinghy, but he escorted us and nary a croc was seen. Yes, we are wimps.
Almost done. So our sail to Margaret Bay and on up to Albany passage and around the Cape York was pretty uneventful except we caught something like 6 or 7 fish--nice ones. A few tuna and mackerel and a really nice Wahoo. Albany Passage is a bit tricky, because it's narrow and the tides create a big current so you have to gauge when it will be with you, but none of the books agree on which tide table to use. Luckily, we hit it right and passed over the northernmost tip of Australia and down and around another 15 miles to Seisia. Lots of cruisers here and weather permitting, every night there has been a BBQ and happy hour at a nice little beach gazebo. Friday night--this is a dry town but gets an exemption for this event--was a big party at the fishing club with burgers, beer and a band. The crowd that was here when we arrived departed and a new one has arrived--it's Sunday the 22nd, all of us now waiting to cross the Gulf of Carpenteria on the way to Darwin. The weather has turned a bit sour and it's quite rough out there so we're all waiting until Monday or Tuesday when the forecast looks good.
Overall, this leg of our journey has been a real eye openner. In may ways it was more remote than some of the out islands of Vanuatu, and we're definitely not used to dealing with a huge reef system and 10 foot tides and their associated flows. We're in Aborigine country, hence the dry town, and while it is unspoken, the Aussies don't exactly hold them in high regard. Finally, we've been spoiled for the last couple of years with pretty good wifi and cell service. Fortunately, we have a load of carryover satphone minutes that must be used or lost by mid-December, but my crew, especially the new one, has My Space and all that other stuff to deal with which isn't practical on Iridium. Oh well, back to civilization in a week or so, but then 3 months of primitive living in Indonesia. We all have to make adjustments.
One final note, the cptain is pretty lonely without Rose, and, while we haven't been able to speak, through email it seems she is making a pretty good recovery. That'd be nice!!
Cheers
Tim, Joe, & Olivia
So, it was Friday, and we arrived Cairns mid afternoon with the Marina chick, Sandy, that I spoke with on the phone coming down to help us with our lines. After we tied up, she says she knows our boat. One thing led to another, and it turns out she was crew on Lone Star, a large charter cat in the Caribbean and was there the same time as us. Not only that, she used to date my friend Mick (who I'm sure you'll all remember dinghied up in Port Vila and was skipper on Douce France, a 130 foot sailing cat). She also had and we just missed, as a house guest, Mike the cook from the Willie T when I was there. Small world, but the connection helped us get the days we needed and moved to a better slip in the marina!!!! The marina, itself is right downtown and the prices were really good--nice to get out of the Whitsunday area!!!! Joey took off exploring and captain had a nap. About four, the phone rings. Seems the crew had found a fairly sleazy happy hour bar to which I rushed. Beers and drinks were back down to reasonable levels and they were raffling off stuff as an attraction to customers. The real attraction, however, was the topless totally hot chick selling the tickets. Oh yeah, we're going to like Cairns!!!!
We had to stay about 5 days as Olivia was arriving late Tuesday, and we were waiting for new top battens for the main as the ones the sailmaker provided were not strong enough and broke. These guys changed the sail shape without asking me as they were told by South Africa, it was the new spec. Makes the sail flop more and that's how we broke the battens. As it turns out, one of the new ones they sent was too short. How they did that was a mystery to us, but there wasn't time to get one to Cairns by the time we found out we had a problem. Somehow or other, they got someone else to ship up a new one to Cooktown, but it's been blowing too hard for us to measure and trim it to fit as they sent an extra long piece just to be sure. We spent an enjoyable few days in Cairns. There's a place called "Night Markets" that doesn't open until 5 PM, and they had 40 minute Chinese massage, including an elaborate foot treatment for $15. Yep, definitely like Cairns. Oh, and there's a casino a 5 minute walk from our slip. No craps, but I took them for a few hundred at blackjack. Great place, this Cairns!!!!! Olivia arrived tuesday making the crew happy, and we hung out another day so she could check the city out.
Thursday, bright and early, we took off for the Low Isles, an atoll sort of place about halfway to Cooktown. Several boats in the lagoon and lots of people swimming, but we saw a 6 or 8 foot black tip reef shark swim by the boat and deferred water sports. Also had a really cool and large angel fish come up under the dinghy. Another early start and off we went to Cooktown which Aussies refer to as an open air lunatic asylum. (Joey actually took that literally and I had to explain they just meant the people up there are different-really different.) By this time, we'd lost both internet and cell signal and are yet to regain cell. Just now around the Penninsula have I gotten really mediocre wifi-still no cell. Anyway, we arrived at Cooktown just in time for the big Captain Cook and Queen's Birthday festival.. It was a bit of a mission getting into what they call the lagoon to anchor but after asking a half dozen times, we were finally pointed in the right direction. Cooktown used to be a gold minig boom town with 92 brothels which are legal in Oz. Don't know if any of the brothels remain, but there are about a dozen pubs for the 400 people that still live here, and the authorities gave special dispensation for drinking in the street during the festivities. Certainly free spirits and rugged indivualism here. We stayed over the weekend and left on Monday for Lizard Island--another day hop.
Lizard had a $1,200/day all-inclusive resort and a nice large protected anchorage. Good hiking, etc. and the yachties ginned up a "yacht club" with a bench under a tree where we all convened for happy hour. While yachties are not welcome at the main resort, there is a "staff bar" which a bunch of us decide to try out. Turns out we hit it just right.as that night was a "State of Origins' rugby match (sort of a state vs. state all star game) and happy hour which was very reasonable and was extended for the entire game, and they had a $2 sausage sizzle going as well. One of the couples even had a son on the NSW team. So instead of just happy hour and back to the boats for dinner we all stayed for the game. Olivia and Joe managed to kill several bottles of wine and spent the next day in bed, partly recovering, partly hiding from the rest of the people in the anchorage. When we got back we were charging the batteries when about midnight, boom, alternator goes. Turned out another bolt sheared off, but there was no damage other than to Joe's hangover the next morning when we had to fix it. Of course, we didn't have the right threaded bolt and it took 3 times as long as it should have, but we did get it working before he disappeared for the remainder of the day. We (well, not we, just me!!) did one more night of happy hour on the beach, but then the weather got iffy. A rolly night was followed by what looked to be stormy weather early. It did clear, and we decided to go for what someone said was a good intermediate (intermediate to Cape Melville, our original destination) stop (since we got a late start) at Ingram Island, a little dot of land behind a reef. Well, we had a rough night of it. We were rocking around so much, I slept in the main cabin lest the anchor break out. It was awful!!
Around Cape Melville is a group of islands called the Flinders. Our out of date cruising guide said there would be lots of trawlers sheltering there during the day and even a fuel barge to service them. NOT. Pulled in between two islands to the main anchorage, and there was only one other boat until all the other guys from Ingram came in. I should mention that we haven't been doing much in the way of shore excursions because this part of Oz is full of viscious, huge, man eating salt water crocodiles. They get up to about 2,000 pounds and 20 feet long.
Our next stop was Morris Island, about 1/3 of the way to Cape York. Huge drama!!!!!. The anchorage was reasonably crowded, but about 4 PM the excitement started. On the radio comes Aqua Magic which had taken an outside route to Morris as opposed to all of us that followed the ship channel. Keep in mind we're still inside the reef and in major shipping lanes north and south. Anyway, after their turn west towards Morris, they managed to hit and go aground on the one tiny bit of reef between them and us. It was marked on our chart, but they must have had an older version. Anyway, after all sorts of radio traffic, sat phone calls and a local trawler's refusal to go to their aid(really bad form!!), the tide rose and they floated off. By the time they got to Morris, only about 5 miles away, it was dark, and we directed them to anchor between us and their friends on WindBird. Well, bad things happen in threes. First, we learned they had lost two nice fish on the way up, then they ran aground, and, finally, when anchoring, the male aboard Aqua Magic severely tore up the fingers on his left hand. (originally, we assumed he'd caught it in the windlass letting out the chain, but found out today his wind generator is mounted rather low and he managed to get his hand caught in that--basically a big propeller.) So, more traffic, more calls, and finally a guy off a smaller trawler dinghied over and patched the guy up. We then heard 2 fingers were pretty much severed. So--those guys all went to one place on the way that had a clinic and we went on ahead. Turns out the fingers were pretty chewed up but they were saved. I now hear the guy is sort of a bad luck guy and stuff like this happens all the time. Apparently, yesterday, when they pulled in here at Seisia, he had problems anchoring and ran into another boat. Shheee, I almost forgot to mention we caught a rather large billfish on the way to Morris. We're not sure what it is, but it tastes good!!!
My God, this is getting long, but I'm getting there. So we went on to Portland Roads, characterized in our guide as an "outpost" of civilization bertween Cooktown and Cape York. nope, no way. A couple of B & Bs, sort of. The plan was to go from there to Margaret Bay, then Escape River, then, Seisia, where we are now. So who's there, but one of the guys, Paddy Mitchell, involved in the Morris Island drama, so we dinghied by and offered him a ride in to check the place out. He had a plan to just stop at Margaret for a few hours and then sail overnight to the cape, saving 2 or 3 boring nights. So we changed our plan and went along with him. Former RA Navy man so we figured he knew what he was doing in the shipping lanes at night. Meanwhile, ashore, we met one of the B & B owners, a recently retired school teacher. Alan, as well as wife, Liz, and daughter, Nina. He invited us for happy hour, lavishing home brewed beer and home distilled Rum on us 'til 7 or so--after dark. Turns out he built the 37 cat we anchored next to and pretty much set up the place from a shack when they bought it, to what is now a pretty nice pensionne. Right, remember the croc stuff--yeah, and we were a little nervous walking down to the beach and into the water to get the dinghy, but he escorted us and nary a croc was seen. Yes, we are wimps.
Almost done. So our sail to Margaret Bay and on up to Albany passage and around the Cape York was pretty uneventful except we caught something like 6 or 7 fish--nice ones. A few tuna and mackerel and a really nice Wahoo. Albany Passage is a bit tricky, because it's narrow and the tides create a big current so you have to gauge when it will be with you, but none of the books agree on which tide table to use. Luckily, we hit it right and passed over the northernmost tip of Australia and down and around another 15 miles to Seisia. Lots of cruisers here and weather permitting, every night there has been a BBQ and happy hour at a nice little beach gazebo. Friday night--this is a dry town but gets an exemption for this event--was a big party at the fishing club with burgers, beer and a band. The crowd that was here when we arrived departed and a new one has arrived--it's Sunday the 22nd, all of us now waiting to cross the Gulf of Carpenteria on the way to Darwin. The weather has turned a bit sour and it's quite rough out there so we're all waiting until Monday or Tuesday when the forecast looks good.
Overall, this leg of our journey has been a real eye openner. In may ways it was more remote than some of the out islands of Vanuatu, and we're definitely not used to dealing with a huge reef system and 10 foot tides and their associated flows. We're in Aborigine country, hence the dry town, and while it is unspoken, the Aussies don't exactly hold them in high regard. Finally, we've been spoiled for the last couple of years with pretty good wifi and cell service. Fortunately, we have a load of carryover satphone minutes that must be used or lost by mid-December, but my crew, especially the new one, has My Space and all that other stuff to deal with which isn't practical on Iridium. Oh well, back to civilization in a week or so, but then 3 months of primitive living in Indonesia. We all have to make adjustments.
One final note, the cptain is pretty lonely without Rose, and, while we haven't been able to speak, through email it seems she is making a pretty good recovery. That'd be nice!!
Cheers
Tim, Joe, & Olivia
Leaving Sydney May 27 2008
Hi Everyone.
Well. life goes on on Rendezvous Cay. It's Friday, May 2, and we're at sea again. Actually, we're just cruising up the east coast on our way to the Great Barrier Reef. It was a pretty sad day on Monday as Rose boarded her plane for the UK. So the captain is a bachelor again. Hoping the UK docs can succeed where NZ and Oz have failed, so maybe Rose's hiatus is temporary.
We spent Tuesday with last minute predeparture jobs, not the least of which was getting a ship's cat. We got a ginger and white 8 month old male, and he seems to have settled in quite nicely. Another additon to the crew will be joining us in early June--Joe's new girl friend, Olivia.
Our trip is good in some respects and not so hot others. We have a high dominating the area and winds are light so we're doing alot of motoring. The upside is calm seas and a smooth trip. Unfortunately, there is the East Australian Current to deal with, and it is wreaking havoc with our fuel comsumption. Our speed through the water has been a consistent 8 knots, but the current is nailing us for negative 3. We're only going about 600 miles so we didn't fill the extra fuel jugs, but with the current against us, it looks like we're going to have to pull in somewhere for diesel. In fact, we're about 100 miles away from the best spot for that and worried about making it. Well, of course the current intensified, so we're pulling into the Gold Coast for the night and to get fuel in the AM. Well, no trip is ever easy. Love those nightime arrivals!! We got some diesel right away Sat AM and off we went--actually making good time as we finally had some wind to offset the current. Hit Wide Bay bar--an inside route to Hervey Bay where Bundaberg is--at about daybreak, and it was a piece of cake. Of course, there was about a 100 smallish boat regatta going up Sandy Straight. We dodged them, in and out, in and out, and now actually had the current with us. So as we approached the north end of the straight I went below to plot our course to Bundy. Noticed we were a little left of a buoy we needed to leave to port and, by the time I got to the helm, we were aground. Flagged some guys in a runabout down to help, and they couldn't get us off; the tide was still going out, and we thought we'd be stuck for a few hours waiting fot the tide to come in. BUT, with a lot of manoeuvering, engine work etc, we did get off after about an hour delay. So off we go again with an ETA in Bundy about 4 PM, looking forward to dinner out, a few cocktails and a good night's sleep. Nope, Joey noticed no water in the starboard exhaust, and we shut it down figuring we must have done something trying to unground ourselves. After another hour, at least, of running slowly on one engine, we discovered a plastic bag was blocking the intake to the water pump. This is pretty amazing as the engine water intake is in the sail drive and consists of several 1/4 inch high by 3 inch wide slots. Got to the dock at about 5:30. Called our friend, Paddy, on the radio and he's there. Came over after we had dinner at the cafe and stayed for a while. Allison, his girlfriend, lives a bit further south and is looking after her daughter's store. Paddy had her car, though, which was nice for getting in and out of Bundy for parts and provisions. Also met some other friends from last season. Seems like everyone is doing the Indonesia thing.
So we took off last Friday, the 9th, for the Barrier Reef. The plan was to do 60-80 mile day hops, but we got sick of that routine and are currently--Sunday night--sailing overnight to get up to the Whitsundays, the premier cruising grounds in Eastern Oz. Turns out our friends from Mariner IV will be hitting one of the same islands, so we can hook up with them before they leave. Their owner is shipping the boat back to the states. In any event, it's great to be back in the tropics and somewhat warm again. Coincidentally, we anchored last night at Cape Capricorn, so named as it sits almost exactly on the Tropic of similar name. Yesterday, we caught a really nice 20 lb yellowfin tuna whose filets now rest in our freezer. So we just dropped anchor at Scawfell island and Mariner IV is here. It's just 7 AM and doesn't look like anyone's up yet. The anchorage is quite scenic and there are only 5 boats here, but I fear the lad will be disapointed as it does not appear there is an adult beverage establishment here. That will have to wait another 35 miles or so when we get into the resort area of the Whitsundays. Tom and Katie dinghied by later and invited us to dinner on their boat. They had some friends on board. Had a nice dinner and caught up on their plans which include Tom supervising construction of a 90 foot 'Gunboat", a South African cat for their owner, Dennis Tito, the rich American who paid the Russians to send him into space.
Today is Wednesday and we arrived at Hamilton Island about noon after spending a rain soaked night at Brampton Island, about 30 miles SW of here. Nothing to write home about there. Ah, it's nice to be back in civilization. Expensive but all the amenities including a pretty reasonable happy hour and strong signal phone and internet. This is a major tourist destination in the Whitsundays with its own jet airport and an entire townlike environment. Reminds me of Mackinaw Island. You can rent golf carts to drive around so we did and toured around the entire Island. Nice beaches and resorts as well as multimillion dollar homes. They even set up a happy hour at a scenic lookout for sundowners!!!
Okay, enough of civiliztion. We decided to head off to Whitehaven Beach on Whitsunday Island. Billed as a must see and world class beach. And it is. Seven kilometers of fine white sand that squeaks when you walk on it. Tons of tourist boats as well as bare boaters. The revelry reminds me of first nighters on Rendezvous Cay in the BVI. It was so nice, calm and pretty we spent 2 nights before heading off to Long Island that has a supposedly nice resort. I say supposedly because we never stopped. On approach, we radioed the island for mooring instructions and were informed a ball for the night would be $100--the same as we paid for a slip in Hamilton with power and water!!!. So we changed course to the next island up which was S.Molle which allegedly welcomes boaters and had a nice anchorage. Well, our guides are a bit out of date. Only moorings and $49 a night. $30 buffet dinner. So, we had a $6 beer after we paid for the mooring and spent the night on the boat listening to the backpackers party very loudly on the beach until 1 or 2!! Made Joey very crabby the next day, but I slept through it.
Okay, enough of these ridiculous prices. We decided to head to the mainland staging area for all the Whitsundays, Airlie Beach. Open and free anchorage. Yahoo!! It's the mainland so it's got to be cheaper. Wrong! Loads of backpacker places, bars and restaurants, but a really crummy and expensive grocery and no dinghy dock in town. So we got a few good walks in during our 3 day stay as the dock near the anchorage was about 2 km away from town. The old man was home early each night, but the lad managed to party a little. One night some 20 yo backpacker chick accused me of staring at her boobs. But I'm completely innocent. Really. She wasn't even that good and there were plenty of others. Gave Joey a good laugh and everyone else he could tell about it!!! I figure she was just breaking the ice and wanted me, but I was mortified and went home.
I should interject here that it's not really that warm here and we're at the same latitude of the BVI. 50's or low 60's at night and 70's daytime, but we like to sweat!!! So much for global warming. Anyway we headed off north which is like south in the northern hemisphere to get warmer--made a noneventful stop on the way with a fairly long sail up to Townsville and Magnetic Island. Had the usual harrowing experience getting into Horseshoe Bay on Magnetic Island at night. The next day we decided to move around to the almost new marina there as we were going to take the ferry from there to Townsville. What a change!!! $58 night and free resort amenities including free laundry. Great spot and we stayed for 3 nights, rented a pink island car/cart and drove all over the place. Ferried the 20 minutes over to Townsville which was no great shakes, but we needed a few things. Not the least of which was some kind of high sided box we could use as a litter box for the cat. I'm new to this cat thing, you know, and they scratch litter over their business when they're done. Anyway, even though the "real" litter box we bought had a lip. litter was getting everywhere, so we got a big plastic bin with much higher sides and that's done the trick. Charlie doesn't seem to mind. I also need to remember to put my water glass in the sink at night as he invariably knocks it over if I don't!! He's really taken to us and the boat. Cute little bugger. Tonight we've moved back over to Horseshoe Bay planning to head north again tomorrow. There were a few boats we knew in there earlier last week, but they didn't answer their radios and have now moved on, themselves, but we'll see them later as it seems we're all doing the Indonesian thing, now dubbed the "Bali Rally"
We're about 150 miles south of Cairns, and our next stop is the Hitchinbrook channel, a scenic wonder, so I think I'll stop this here as it's getting a bit long.
Cheers to everyone
Tim, Joe & Charlie
Well. life goes on on Rendezvous Cay. It's Friday, May 2, and we're at sea again. Actually, we're just cruising up the east coast on our way to the Great Barrier Reef. It was a pretty sad day on Monday as Rose boarded her plane for the UK. So the captain is a bachelor again. Hoping the UK docs can succeed where NZ and Oz have failed, so maybe Rose's hiatus is temporary.
We spent Tuesday with last minute predeparture jobs, not the least of which was getting a ship's cat. We got a ginger and white 8 month old male, and he seems to have settled in quite nicely. Another additon to the crew will be joining us in early June--Joe's new girl friend, Olivia.
Our trip is good in some respects and not so hot others. We have a high dominating the area and winds are light so we're doing alot of motoring. The upside is calm seas and a smooth trip. Unfortunately, there is the East Australian Current to deal with, and it is wreaking havoc with our fuel comsumption. Our speed through the water has been a consistent 8 knots, but the current is nailing us for negative 3. We're only going about 600 miles so we didn't fill the extra fuel jugs, but with the current against us, it looks like we're going to have to pull in somewhere for diesel. In fact, we're about 100 miles away from the best spot for that and worried about making it. Well, of course the current intensified, so we're pulling into the Gold Coast for the night and to get fuel in the AM. Well, no trip is ever easy. Love those nightime arrivals!! We got some diesel right away Sat AM and off we went--actually making good time as we finally had some wind to offset the current. Hit Wide Bay bar--an inside route to Hervey Bay where Bundaberg is--at about daybreak, and it was a piece of cake. Of course, there was about a 100 smallish boat regatta going up Sandy Straight. We dodged them, in and out, in and out, and now actually had the current with us. So as we approached the north end of the straight I went below to plot our course to Bundy. Noticed we were a little left of a buoy we needed to leave to port and, by the time I got to the helm, we were aground. Flagged some guys in a runabout down to help, and they couldn't get us off; the tide was still going out, and we thought we'd be stuck for a few hours waiting fot the tide to come in. BUT, with a lot of manoeuvering, engine work etc, we did get off after about an hour delay. So off we go again with an ETA in Bundy about 4 PM, looking forward to dinner out, a few cocktails and a good night's sleep. Nope, Joey noticed no water in the starboard exhaust, and we shut it down figuring we must have done something trying to unground ourselves. After another hour, at least, of running slowly on one engine, we discovered a plastic bag was blocking the intake to the water pump. This is pretty amazing as the engine water intake is in the sail drive and consists of several 1/4 inch high by 3 inch wide slots. Got to the dock at about 5:30. Called our friend, Paddy, on the radio and he's there. Came over after we had dinner at the cafe and stayed for a while. Allison, his girlfriend, lives a bit further south and is looking after her daughter's store. Paddy had her car, though, which was nice for getting in and out of Bundy for parts and provisions. Also met some other friends from last season. Seems like everyone is doing the Indonesia thing.
So we took off last Friday, the 9th, for the Barrier Reef. The plan was to do 60-80 mile day hops, but we got sick of that routine and are currently--Sunday night--sailing overnight to get up to the Whitsundays, the premier cruising grounds in Eastern Oz. Turns out our friends from Mariner IV will be hitting one of the same islands, so we can hook up with them before they leave. Their owner is shipping the boat back to the states. In any event, it's great to be back in the tropics and somewhat warm again. Coincidentally, we anchored last night at Cape Capricorn, so named as it sits almost exactly on the Tropic of similar name. Yesterday, we caught a really nice 20 lb yellowfin tuna whose filets now rest in our freezer. So we just dropped anchor at Scawfell island and Mariner IV is here. It's just 7 AM and doesn't look like anyone's up yet. The anchorage is quite scenic and there are only 5 boats here, but I fear the lad will be disapointed as it does not appear there is an adult beverage establishment here. That will have to wait another 35 miles or so when we get into the resort area of the Whitsundays. Tom and Katie dinghied by later and invited us to dinner on their boat. They had some friends on board. Had a nice dinner and caught up on their plans which include Tom supervising construction of a 90 foot 'Gunboat", a South African cat for their owner, Dennis Tito, the rich American who paid the Russians to send him into space.
Today is Wednesday and we arrived at Hamilton Island about noon after spending a rain soaked night at Brampton Island, about 30 miles SW of here. Nothing to write home about there. Ah, it's nice to be back in civilization. Expensive but all the amenities including a pretty reasonable happy hour and strong signal phone and internet. This is a major tourist destination in the Whitsundays with its own jet airport and an entire townlike environment. Reminds me of Mackinaw Island. You can rent golf carts to drive around so we did and toured around the entire Island. Nice beaches and resorts as well as multimillion dollar homes. They even set up a happy hour at a scenic lookout for sundowners!!!
Okay, enough of civiliztion. We decided to head off to Whitehaven Beach on Whitsunday Island. Billed as a must see and world class beach. And it is. Seven kilometers of fine white sand that squeaks when you walk on it. Tons of tourist boats as well as bare boaters. The revelry reminds me of first nighters on Rendezvous Cay in the BVI. It was so nice, calm and pretty we spent 2 nights before heading off to Long Island that has a supposedly nice resort. I say supposedly because we never stopped. On approach, we radioed the island for mooring instructions and were informed a ball for the night would be $100--the same as we paid for a slip in Hamilton with power and water!!!. So we changed course to the next island up which was S.Molle which allegedly welcomes boaters and had a nice anchorage. Well, our guides are a bit out of date. Only moorings and $49 a night. $30 buffet dinner. So, we had a $6 beer after we paid for the mooring and spent the night on the boat listening to the backpackers party very loudly on the beach until 1 or 2!! Made Joey very crabby the next day, but I slept through it.
Okay, enough of these ridiculous prices. We decided to head to the mainland staging area for all the Whitsundays, Airlie Beach. Open and free anchorage. Yahoo!! It's the mainland so it's got to be cheaper. Wrong! Loads of backpacker places, bars and restaurants, but a really crummy and expensive grocery and no dinghy dock in town. So we got a few good walks in during our 3 day stay as the dock near the anchorage was about 2 km away from town. The old man was home early each night, but the lad managed to party a little. One night some 20 yo backpacker chick accused me of staring at her boobs. But I'm completely innocent. Really. She wasn't even that good and there were plenty of others. Gave Joey a good laugh and everyone else he could tell about it!!! I figure she was just breaking the ice and wanted me, but I was mortified and went home.
I should interject here that it's not really that warm here and we're at the same latitude of the BVI. 50's or low 60's at night and 70's daytime, but we like to sweat!!! So much for global warming. Anyway we headed off north which is like south in the northern hemisphere to get warmer--made a noneventful stop on the way with a fairly long sail up to Townsville and Magnetic Island. Had the usual harrowing experience getting into Horseshoe Bay on Magnetic Island at night. The next day we decided to move around to the almost new marina there as we were going to take the ferry from there to Townsville. What a change!!! $58 night and free resort amenities including free laundry. Great spot and we stayed for 3 nights, rented a pink island car/cart and drove all over the place. Ferried the 20 minutes over to Townsville which was no great shakes, but we needed a few things. Not the least of which was some kind of high sided box we could use as a litter box for the cat. I'm new to this cat thing, you know, and they scratch litter over their business when they're done. Anyway, even though the "real" litter box we bought had a lip. litter was getting everywhere, so we got a big plastic bin with much higher sides and that's done the trick. Charlie doesn't seem to mind. I also need to remember to put my water glass in the sink at night as he invariably knocks it over if I don't!! He's really taken to us and the boat. Cute little bugger. Tonight we've moved back over to Horseshoe Bay planning to head north again tomorrow. There were a few boats we knew in there earlier last week, but they didn't answer their radios and have now moved on, themselves, but we'll see them later as it seems we're all doing the Indonesian thing, now dubbed the "Bali Rally"
We're about 150 miles south of Cairns, and our next stop is the Hitchinbrook channel, a scenic wonder, so I think I'll stop this here as it's getting a bit long.
Cheers to everyone
Tim, Joe & Charlie
Last Gap in Sydney April 16 2008
Hi All.
Wel, it's nice to know that at least a few of you are interested in what is going on on rendezvous Cay. It's been quite a while since we've sent out one of our witty reports, and some of you have actually inquired as to the goings on down under.
Well I guess the big news, which some of you already know, is we've given up on trying to find a cure for Rose and she is going back to England shortly. We've spent thousands here and in NZ trying to get a diagnosis for her malaise so we can begin a treatment and cure. At least Australia recognizes UK national health so the expense is getting subsidized. Here, they've done heart scans and complete upper and lower GI along with all the other stuff. Still no positives for anything, so the GI guy thinks Rose has irritable bowel syndrome AND chronic fatique syndrome (We have learned that "syndrome" is a medical euphemism for a condition for which they can find no cause and for which they have no cure!!!). The rhumatologist doesn't think it's fatique. In any event, Rose is just too weak and depleted to continue on. We're hoping the British medical profession and some UK R & R with her family will produce some answers and a cure. It's a pretty sad day around here, but there's really no alternative.
So, Joey will continue on. (I should explain the Aussies are very strict with their immigration and customs stuff, so I have to get the boat out of Australia. I'm also told they will not extend my visa, so all this went into the pot when deciding whether Rose should stay here or go back to the UK.) Happily for Joey, his latest squeeze, who, thank God, is pretty normal, is negotiating a severance package and plans to come along for a while. Makes him a happy camper. He's on a crash course for his Ocean Yachtmaster and will qualify for his ticket before we leave Australia.
As for the rest of the time we've had here, it's been pretty mundane. Liz and Ben spent a month here spanning Feb and March, and we did all the tourist things. We've finally just about got the boat sorted out with various tradsmen and repairs to be done. Been negotiating insurance--both health and boat--and getting seriously jacked around. Sorted out now, but not without some inevitable changes--long story, but it becomes more important when you take what happened to Rose into account. It's Autumn here now and cooling off, so we're looking to head north in about 2 weeks, as soon as Rose leaves, and start to make our way to Darwin in mid-July. We'll be hitting the Barrier Reef, Cairns, and Cape York on the way.
More later when we get underway again
Tim, last one from Rose, and Joe
Wel, it's nice to know that at least a few of you are interested in what is going on on rendezvous Cay. It's been quite a while since we've sent out one of our witty reports, and some of you have actually inquired as to the goings on down under.
Well I guess the big news, which some of you already know, is we've given up on trying to find a cure for Rose and she is going back to England shortly. We've spent thousands here and in NZ trying to get a diagnosis for her malaise so we can begin a treatment and cure. At least Australia recognizes UK national health so the expense is getting subsidized. Here, they've done heart scans and complete upper and lower GI along with all the other stuff. Still no positives for anything, so the GI guy thinks Rose has irritable bowel syndrome AND chronic fatique syndrome (We have learned that "syndrome" is a medical euphemism for a condition for which they can find no cause and for which they have no cure!!!). The rhumatologist doesn't think it's fatique. In any event, Rose is just too weak and depleted to continue on. We're hoping the British medical profession and some UK R & R with her family will produce some answers and a cure. It's a pretty sad day around here, but there's really no alternative.
So, Joey will continue on. (I should explain the Aussies are very strict with their immigration and customs stuff, so I have to get the boat out of Australia. I'm also told they will not extend my visa, so all this went into the pot when deciding whether Rose should stay here or go back to the UK.) Happily for Joey, his latest squeeze, who, thank God, is pretty normal, is negotiating a severance package and plans to come along for a while. Makes him a happy camper. He's on a crash course for his Ocean Yachtmaster and will qualify for his ticket before we leave Australia.
As for the rest of the time we've had here, it's been pretty mundane. Liz and Ben spent a month here spanning Feb and March, and we did all the tourist things. We've finally just about got the boat sorted out with various tradsmen and repairs to be done. Been negotiating insurance--both health and boat--and getting seriously jacked around. Sorted out now, but not without some inevitable changes--long story, but it becomes more important when you take what happened to Rose into account. It's Autumn here now and cooling off, so we're looking to head north in about 2 weeks, as soon as Rose leaves, and start to make our way to Darwin in mid-July. We'll be hitting the Barrier Reef, Cairns, and Cape York on the way.
More later when we get underway again
Tim, last one from Rose, and Joe
Sydney Holidays Febuary 3 2008
Hello again everyone.Okay, the week before Christmas everyone came back ending my exile. Rosefrom her friend Philli's and Joey from Nz with working visa in hand. Rosewent to see Philli's GP in Bondi as she has been on a bit of a downer sincewe got here. He feels she's got Lyme's, but ordered a bunch more bloodtest, X-rays, etc. Of course, once again, everything came up clear, but heset her up with a rheumatism specialist who seems very good. He's actuallygetting info all the way back to Samoa before suggesting further tests and acourse of action. We'll see him in another week to see what's what. Roseain't that bad, though, as she's agreed to help Philli out a couple of days aweek at the B & B, deserting the ship again. Easy money, though, and femalebonding stuff!!!Anyway, back to the holidays. Malcolm and Tina invited us up to Mona Valefor Christmas eve through Boxing day. Had a bit of an early Christmaspresent as both my crew bugged me from afar about reserving a car forChristmas week. I figured that would be a dead time for the rentalagencies, but, of course, it was the opposite. However, sometimes things actuallywork out for the best. I called a couple of the cheap car places, and theywere all booked. Avis said they had cars, but wanted $600 for a compact.No thanks. Went on the internet, checked out several places and then wentto a sort of consolidator site that checks all the companies' rates based onwhat you want. So what pops up as the best deal--Avis at half what theyquoted me. It gets better. Went to get the car Christmas eve, they wereout of little cars and gave me the equivalent of a Cadillac at an even betterrate than I found on the internet. They've gotten that back now as theregistration was expiring, but we've decided to get a car for our remainingtime here (we scoped out a place where we could park it for free next to the marina. Otherwise parking was going to be more than the cost of the car!!)and they retroactively reduced the rate even further for the long term rental. Sweet!!!So off Rose and I go to Mona Vale, about an hour north. We only got lostonce! Joey was staying on the boat and taking public transport up onChristmas. On Tina's street, they do a whole decoration thing, closing offthe street for the night with tea candles in bags at the curb, food, a bitof entertainment and, of course, well decorated and lit houses. Rememberit's summer here so it was like a big block party. Christmas was nice, butthe captain had to insist on opening presents as they were waiting untilthe big family do on Boxing day, which was also very nice. All three days,lots of friends, family and kids, and all we did was eat and then eat somemore with a sprinkling of champagne, wine or Jack Daniels thrown in. Joeywent back to Sydney to check out the start of the race to Hobart and, I laterfound out, take an unauthorized sail with some female companionship.For New Year's, Rose had worked out with Philli and her daughter and a fewof her friends to party on the boat and watch the fireworks; Joey, as well,with his friend. They had a 9PM show for the kids and a little previewfollowed at midnight with the big show. To be honest, for all the hype, Idon't think it was half as good as 4th of July in Chicago, but it is prettyspectacular when they light them off the bridge. Anyway, I almost missedthem as I got pulled over for driving the dinghy under the influence. This,of course, was not my fault. Joey and his girlfriend wanted to leave theboat after the 9PM fireworks and get across the harbor to see the laterones with friends. They figured the easiest way was for me to take them in the dinghy. Havinghad a few cocktails, I refused for about 2 hours and then the goodness instilled fromJack Daniels got the better of me and I agreed. To make a long storyshort, the cops wouldn't let us cross the bay, I turned around, and anotherpolice boat pulled us over because Rebecca was sitting in front of one ofthe running lights and they couldn't see it. Well, it was all over.Obviously, they were going to breathalize anyone they stopped, and I was busted. Thatpretty much ended the party as they wouldn't let me drive anyone back toshore and took everyone back AND damned if they didn't give Joey and his friend a ride over to theother side. Rose was not pleased; Joe and company will be paying the fine which is substantial!!Right after New Year's, Will from the Caribbean pulled in on Big Arin. Willand Kim used to crew for Voyage and he always looked about 16. Now he's 31,looks about 21, but is making a six figure salary as captain on this 153foot monster with a crew of eleven. It's nice to know important people.Tracey and Gordon, also old Voyage crew are also here, so we had Will overfor drinks one night, and then he threw a dock party, and we saw them as well.They're out of boating and Gordon is working for a marine electronics outfithere. Will has now departed for Newcastle, a bit north of here, for a haulout, paint job, etc. We think he'll be pretty much on the same route as usto the Med, so we expect to run into him again. We've also made somebeer--a kit was one of Joey's presents and it is just now ready. Kitbeer is about 25% of the cost of bottled beer and it's pretty good. We madeabout 23 quarts for $20 compared to $40 a case for regular stuff.Our time recently has been spent chasing down repairmen, watering up theboat (and moving a few times when the bow anchor broke out again) andworking on the boat. We discovered the wind generator had some corrosionand, of course, have now had to replace the whole thing. The yahoos herewon't sell me the generator only, so I've had to have one shipped in fromthe UK to Lizzie to bring with her in February. I've got a doctor'sappointment this week as my medical insurance is a racket. It's a grouppolicy, but they let you reapply every year if you want. In my case the oldgroup rate--must be a lot of sickies--is $1,600 more than the new policyrate, but they won't accept me without all sorts of more tests as I had thateye problem a few years ago. After that, we've been invited up to Mona Valefor Rose's birthday--the 25th--and Australia day which is this Saturday.Rose's birthday was great as it coincided with Australia Day. Party, eat,sleep and hit a few of the activities like "thong tossing"--no, notunderwear, sandals unfortunately. We've tried Joey's homemade beer and it'spretty good. Apparently, the longer one lets it rest, the better, so we'vebeen testing as it ages.Not much else going on here and we're still chasing down tradesmen. We'veinstalled the new cockpit table which makes the cockpit look about 10 timesbigger, but need to work out some bugs on how to hold the leaves up. We've finally gotten the right stuff to redo the hatches and have been succesful there. Lizziearrives Friday for a month while Rose is off again at her friend Philli's B& B; this time she's running it for an entire week so Philli can take offfor Adelaide. Super Bowl here today (Monday 2/4) at 10 AM which is a littleweird both day and time. Oh, did all my doctor's stuff and you'll all behappy to know the captain is in the peak of health with bp 110 over 80 andlow cholesterol, how I don't know.More later. Until then Cheers.Tim, Rose and Joe
Ballina to Sydney December 17 2007
Hi everyone,Well, we've been in Sydney for just under a week. Our trip down wasuneventful except for dodging a million freighters at night. We decided to do astraight shot from Ballina as most of the harbors along the way are inrivers with sand bars in front and you have to cross when the tide is justright. Our choice was to waste a lot of time port hopping waiting for tidesor do a two overnight the 400 miles to Sydney. Fishing here is illegalwithout a license, which we didn't have, so we caught nothing in spite of itbeing great fishing grounds, but we actually had dolphin swimming alongwith us and jumping completely out of the water in front of the boat on our sail. Well, motorreally as the wind was light.So we reached Sydney early in the morning and stopped at one of the rip-offmarinas for fuel as we were getting low. They had an autopay thing, but itwouldn't take my credit card as it was foreign so we had to wait for the guyto get there at 8:30. Got about half a tank in when another guy comes roaringdown the dock and they shut off the fuel. Seems their main tank was leakingall over the place. Okay, no problem; as long as we're out here drivingaround looking for a place to stay, we'll just go to another marina and getfuel. Guess what? There are hardly any places, so we figured half a tankis enough until we get the lay of the land. Had a nice tour of SydneyHarbor in the meantime.The guides really aren't very good, but we had a bit of info on where to go,so we cruised around, and around, and around--you get the idea. Finally, wedecided to try Black Wattle Bay (BWB), which isn't on our charts, unless, wefound out later, you zoom way in. It's inside the modern Anzac Bridge whichisn't called that on any of the charts, but we finally found it. Cruisedaround there awhile to see where we could drop the hook as there are signslimiting where you can go. Fortunately it isn't very big, and, finally, wegot the anchor down around 11. It's the site of the Sydney Fish Marketwhich, while touristy with loads of restaurants and shops, is quite nice.Had a $14 lobster lunch--yes!!!!So BWB is unbelievably cool. An Aussie friend had recommended it inBundaberg. On one side is the fish market, the other a sort of promenadefull of joggers and people just hanging out. As we explored further afield,we found the "light rail", which goes just about everywhere we want to go, isjust outside the fish market. In short walking distance is the casino andDarling Harbor which is the Viaduct type, touristy area for Sydney. Justacross the street here are restaurants, shops, groceries and the allimportant laundry. So, so far we've walked down to Paddy's Market, this huge200 stall flea market kind on place and down to Darling Harbor which has theMaritime museum, aquarium and all sorts of other stuff.Tuesday (today is Thursday, the 6th. Happy b-day Tammy) Joey flew out to NZas he can't get a working visa in country. He'll be there about 10 daysdepending on how long it takes to process the paperwork. Just before heleft we tied up at the free dock at the market and loaded up with water asyou can't make it in here and the watermaker is still acting up althoughwe've got a guy working on repairs. Of course, the moment the little slaveleft, Rose's head packed it up. Took several hours to clear one of thedischarge hoses only to find another clogged. That will wait for hisreturn. Ah, the glory of 4 cabins and heads. So Tuesday night Rose and Ihad a blissfully solitudinous time and sleep, waking about 6:30. A casuallook outside had us in the middle of the bay adrift. Thank God the wind wasright and light or we could have banged into the rocks. Guess we didn't setthe hook properly after getting water. Probably the crews' fault! Anyway,we reanchored and are on really good now, but we'll probably need to hoistand get more water again next week.It's been a bit stormy recently, but earlier this week we took a walk downto Darling Harbor on a mission to find some Sika Primer which, technically,you're supposed to use with the stuff for the hatches we have to redo. Noluck, but someone told us one of the marinas we had been past might have itso off we went in the dinghy. The chandlery was miles away, and we had noluck, but we did discover this giant mall right at the marina with all sortsof outlet stores, etc. Probably could walk there. We'd like to get a car,however, for a few days to go farther afield and find this gunk, and thecars are cheap at about $200/week which is looking better as the US$ hasstrengthened to about $.87. So far, though, the problem is finding parkingfor the car. It looks like parking would be more than the rental, so we'reon another mission to find cheap or free places.Well, it's now the week before Christmas, so I thought I ought to wrap this up. We met up with Rose's cousin who, graciously, is our mail drop here. They were in a rush to meet up with friends but called later and asked us over for Christmas for a few days. That will be a nice break from the boat. They also dropped some mail which included our new stereo, a welcome relief as the old one was really acting up. Also got the last of our LED running lights which save a ton of power which is nice with diesel at $2/liter. Later in the week, Rose's friend Philli dropped by for a visit and invited Rose to spend a few days at her B & B in Bondi. She's returning today or tomorrow after a week of R & R(mainly shopping and sleeping over there). Joey is still hung up in NZ awaiting his working visa, so the poor captain is all alone!!In the meantime, before she left, the harbor police came over and informed us we were 10 feet outside the proper anchoring area(which only happens on a west wind), so we had to move the boat, but the area is very tight. After a few tries, uncertain if the wind blowing the other way would put us on the breakwater, we put out a stern anchor. The cop was a really nice guy and ferried us to shore and then gave us his number for when we were ready to head back to the boat. Also tipped us off to a free parking lot close by. Think we'll get a car for the week of Christmas to go to Tina's and get to a decent boat store for some much needed supplies. Part of my idle time has been spent ferrying jerry jugs of water as it would be a hassle to move and reanchor. And, apparently, this place is jammed for Christmas and New Years so a proper fill up will have to wait as we don't want to lose our spot. I have managed to hit the casino a couple of times, winning big the first night and giving some back--but I'm still ahead--the next time. After several successful forays in Noumea, I'm starting to think I should do a bit more of this. Thank God they have a crap table here, but the rules are a bit off. Still okay though, and they have something called Pontoon which is a modified blackjack. Without boring you with the details, it must be more in favor of the house, but my limited knowledge tells me it's better for the players. Anyway, that saved me from a disastrous 2nd visit, but they do use those damn shuffling machines which pretty much eliminates streaks.Well, that's about it. Christmas shopping, expanding the list of jobs for the crew on his return and even doing a few things myself. Still no word from the mechanic or the watermaker guy so that stuff probably won't get done before the new year.Merry Christmas and Happy New Year to you all fromTim, Rose & Joe
Mooloolaba to the Gold Coast Nov 26 2007
Hello everybody.Here we are, back again like bad pennies!!! We left you heading into alarge fleet of fishing boats. Well, no drama there; we just navigated arounda bit and missed them. Had a beautiful sail. Yes, we actually sail, downtoMooloolaba. Right now we've just left for Manly, a suburb of Brisbane.Skipping Brissy, because it's 25 miles up a river. I figure we'll be therea few days as we'll be on the dock, boat services are good, and it lookslike we might need some work on the watermaker. Real easy up here insteadof Sydney, and we're in no hurry. Next stop is a short hop down to the GoldCoast which is the South Beach, Miami of Australia, then we don't knowwhere, butwith Sydney the ultimate destination--about 380 miles from the GC.We had a nice three night stay in Mooloolaba. Took that long just to getcomfortable pronouncing it!!!! Friday night we hit the boardwalk and wentto a nice place on the water for dinner. Saturday was a bit crappy withclouds and early rain, so we did the aquarium. While they claim the largestin the southern hemisphere, I think the one in Capetown is bigger, but itwas really nice anyway. They have all sorts of shows with seals and feedingthe rays, but the coolest thing is a large Lexan tunnel you walk through inthe lower level. Loaded with all sorts of large sea life and several large(8-10 foot) sharks. Looked like snaggle toothed bull sharks to me, but thelist indicated some kind of whaler. They do a swim with the shark thing,but we weren't interested!!!! There were a few terrified divers in thetank!!! Next day was a bit overcast, but we aretrying to get south and didn't want to stay 'til Tuesday, so we went to theAustralian Zoo anyway. They had a free shuttle a few blocks from the marinaso offwe went for the entire day. They shamelessly promote the Steve Irwin thing,but it is a really good zoo, as you get to interact with the animals.Keepers were even walking cheetah around the place, but we fed theelephants, checked out the huge salt water crocs and took loads of pics.Really worthwhile, and they claim they are plowing all the income back intoanimal conservation and the zoo itself, so it just keeps getting larger andlarger. They have 4 rhinos on the way next month. No lions, but they dohave tigers and weird stuff like wombats and Tasmanian devils, so it wasreally a must see place.Left this AM early for Manly. Originally, we were going to go outside anddirect to the GC, but the wind still isn't right so a little research led usto an inland route through the bottom of Moreton Bay. While we couldprobably make it the whole 80 miles today, Manly is conveniently right onthe way, we can get work done, and the inland waterway is a complicated setof canals and streams we didn't want to be in at dark.Well, we've arrived at Manly well ahead of schedule after dodging about amillion freighters as well as other boats. About 45 miles as the crowflies, but 60 by virtue of all the shallows and channels we needed to take.Brisbane is a busy place. Unfortunately, none of the 4 marinas in Manlyhave space for us, but there was a spot at the end of a Brisbane PortAuthority dock that says no mooring. The marina guys winked and said goahead and take it. Our other choice was to try to tie up to pilings andwith only 3 of us on board and winds blowing the wrong way (of course) weopted to sneak on the government dock for a night. Guess we'll try for thewatermaker repair on the Gold Coast or just wait 'til Sydney as it's notcritical. Called the marina at our next destination and they can't take useither, but, at least, it's in an inland waterway and there are loads ofplaces to anchor. Tomorrow we'll be weaving through a complicatedchannel--27 waypoints to go 35 miles--and have to time our trip to hit onespot at low tide as there is a cable across the channel just higher than ourmast.Its been an action packed few days, everyone!!! We left manly at aleisurely AM or so, as planned. Traversing the narrow and shallow channelson the inland route to the GC was nerve-wracking at best, especially goingunder the power cable with about a foot to spare, but all went well until,about 5 hours into the trip, the captain turned the helm over to the crew.Yep, you guessed it--ran aground. Fortunately, it was sand and, after ahalf hour of backing, spinning and all appropriate measures, we floated free.The boat we were traveling down with somehow steamed by and held on to makesure we could get free, but, then, no matter what we tried, we couldn't seemto find that little snippet of channel they passed through. So, after softgrounding and backing off about ten times, we just anchored and waited forthe tide to come up. Cost us about an hour and a half. We got to ouranchorage at about 3PM. Had to make a few calls, though. We know we hadbeen lucky for some time with no major breakdowns. No more. On the waydown, we thought it best to run the freezer which runs off the engine. Onthe dock, when we're plugged in, we have electric back up for that, and wehadn't really run the freezer off the engine since our arrival as we've beenin marinas. It didn't seem to be cooling, so we checked the lines in theengine room as they frost up when the thing is working. Okay, they're twohoses attached to aluminum elbows coming out of the compressor for coolant.One of the elbows simply broke in half so we had no coolant. The brightside is after a few tries, we got someone out the next day and it will befully repaired today. We've also been looking to have someone check out thewatermaker which has been acting up again, checking the membranes and, ifpossible, to put stainless fittings on the end of the pressure hoses asregular steel gets knarly with the salt water. Fortunately, the freezer guyknows someone and he's supposed to come out today. Seems easier to getthis stuff done here than in Sydney, as we're closer to everything.The GC is fairly spread out, and there are a couple of boats we know here inthe anchorage who suggested we rent a car. They're several $25-30/dayplaces, so the freezer guy gave us a lift yesterday to get a car. When wegot there I remembered I forgot to bring the Vodaphone modem that needed anew SIM card for our wireless internet on the boat. No problem, the boatwas on the way back to a huge shopping center near the anchorage. As weslowed to check out the nearby parking. WHAM, rear-ended. Car undrivable.Of course, the guy claimed it was my fault for stopping in the middle of theroad, but fortunately, the law here is like the states. The rear-endor isalways at fault--never the rear-endee. But we wasted about 2 hoursdickering, calling the cops who said it was an accident, let insurance dealwith it, and going back to get another car!! No damage to Rose and me,thankfully, but the rent-a-wreck is totaled. We got a nicer car this time,though.As the crew is spoiled, and we like to have Skype, getting the modem to workwas a high priority. We specifically purchased, for big bucks, the "Vodem"in Fiji, because it is compatible with the entire Vodaphone world widesystem. BUT, only if Vodaphone will give you an account!! At the mall, wego to the Voda kiosk to get the new SIM card. "Can't do prepay on data,only on cell service. Okay, no problem, put us on a month to monthcontract. No, sorry, you need a permanent Australian address. No problem,we've got Rose's cousin for a mailing address. Oops, no, you need proof,like a utility bill, that you live there. But, but, but we didn't havethese problems with Vodaphone Fiji. Tough, call the home office in Sydney;maybe they can do something." Okay, so we checked the Telstra office whichowns Telecom, NZ, and we had our old wifi modem from them--also a veryexpensive modem. "Sorry, we used to offer service through that modem, butwe've changed and can't accept your account as we're phasing it out." A newcompatible Telstra modem would be $450!!! Okay, so now I'm pulling my hairout. I'll just go back to the boat and call Vodaphone and sort it out.This is a serious problem as it is now my nap time, and I have to make phonecalls!Now cell service here is almost $1/minute. Hard to believe with what onepays in the rest of the civilized world. We'd already blown through about$30 at the accident; now another $40 went trying to work something out withVodaphone. After about a hour of working on it (I finally got them to callme back as I was running out of money on the cell) and talking to about 10people, they just held firm--no prepay on data and no account without apermanent address. Absolutely ridiculous when anyone in their right mindjust takes your credit card, like the localized wifi service we've beenusing in the marinas. Okay, so it dawns on me that, if Telstra is phasingout the old Telecom system, they must be offering their existing customers adeal on the new modems. Fortunately, the call there was free as they're mycell phone provider. This is already too long, so, suffice it to say, theyhad no problem with setting up an account, and we negotiated a special dealwith some credits to offset over half the cost of the new modem. So, I amnow on a new mission to get everyone to quit using Vodaphone. They arereally crap and haven't a clue about customer service. I've been using themfor over a year and will never again!!! It's Thursday as I write this, butyou'll have to suffer through a few more days in this letter until we leavethe GC sometime this weekend, weather permitting.Well, the weather was just fine, so we took off on Sunday for Ballina, about 60 miles south. Oh, I forgot to mention one of our friends was in the anchorage and is working on a big super yacht (Big Erin) up in Brisbane, commuting up there from the Gold Coast. One thing led to another with his skipper and it turns out it's Will, of Will & Kim from Voyage charters. Kim is back in Spain doing something, but they're still together. Unfortunately, we didn't hook up, but it was quite a coincidence. As we pulled into Ballina, the tide wasn't quite right for the river bar and we had made excellent time with a 2 knot favorable current, so we just circled around for about 1 1/2 hours waiting for the tide to change. Then our friends on Zafarse called on the radio and we made a plan to meet up. When we finally entered the river, the tide still wasn't quite right and a big breaker came up behind us. We were sure the cockpit would be flooded and Rosehightailed it into the cabin, but good old Rendezvous just rode it up and surfed in the channel at 14 knots. Paddy and Allison-Zafarse-dinghied out and piloted into the anchorage. We had a small, we hope clutch problem that worked itself out, but these drives are known to be troublesome, so we'll have to get it checked in Sydney. Had a bit of a party Sunday night and made arrangements with Paddy and Allison, who have a house nearby, to take us on a grand tour of the area, including Byron Bay, sort of a hippie place frequented by the rich and famous. Really beautiful with a huge surfing area, and we checked out the lighthouse, etc. The point is the easternmost part of Australia. We've left now, and we'll fill you in in our next tome as this is getting a bit long.Cheers.Tim, Rose & Joe
OZ-Bundaberg & Fraser Nov 16 2007
Hi all,Well, it's the day after the final event of the rally--Tuesday, 11/6. Itwas Melbourne Cup day which is like the Derby, Preakness and Belmont Stakesall rolled into one. The festivities started at 11:30 with champagne and anice buffet lunch followed by speeches and a few more awards from the raceat 2. There were the obligatory betting pools raffles, etc. Massiveamounts of champagne were consumed, reminiscent, Pete and Phil, of thatinfamous Sunday Brunch at the Hyatt. Anyway, the captain was fine, but thefirst mate was overserved--wedidn't leave until 7PM. The upside isthat, in spite of consuming mass quantities of champagne and quite a bit ofwheat products, Rose didn't feel too bad the next day. So much for hertheory that detoxing that stuff will help her improve. Of course, in herimpaired state, she did manage to invite the entire marina to dinner on ourboat tonight. That should be interesting. We had planned on leaving forSydney in a day or two, but the forecast is for continuing rain andsoutherly winds (the direction of our travels) so it looks like we might behere over the weekend.Trying a new "time line" format for this thing as it seems easier to writeas we go, rather than try to remember later. It's now Wed., 11/14, and wehave finally left Bundaburg. Last week, the weather was okay, but therewerehigh wind warnings all week. The party on the boat last Wed, was a greatsuccess with Rose providing a couple of curries and others bringing salads,etc. Everyone but one couple left around 10:30, but the captain and Joeystayed up drinking and partying until about 2. It, needless to say, was aslowday Thursday. Fortunately, we were at the end of the dock, and the loudmusic didn't bother anyone, although Rose thought we must have kept thewhole marina up--as we did her! By Friday, it looked like we wouldn't getout of there until the following week, so, rather than just sit around, wedecided to rent a car again and check out the environs. one boat did leaveFriday in spite of the wind warnings, as it was almost dead calm first thingand only about 30 miles to the shelter of Great Sandy Straight. Turned outto be a good decision, and we wished we had left as well. Anyway, ourtouring took us to the large shopping area at Sugarland for a few odds andends, including special adhesive to redo our leaking hatches and a 240V bugzapper with a 240V inverter to run it. This was our 3rd try at getting one,and we had to replace that one too, but now, finally, have a working one.This is a great success (remember, we're easily amused out here), as we havebeen trying to get one for 2 years. I figure we have about $400 invested bynow for what would cost about $50 in the states!!!! Then we went down toBargara on the coast, a cutesy tourist place, for lunch.Saturday, again the wind was very light at the crack of dawn. but we stuckaround to tour some more. This time we headed south to Wood Gate beachwhere there are kangaroos in the wild. After driving around a bit, we wenta street or two back from the beach, a beautiful stretch of 16 k, and therethey were, just lounging around in peoples' yards. On the way we wentthrough Childers, another tourist town and actually found a great place forlunch that had Mexican food. Found out there, that there was a shortcutback fromWood Gate and we'd gone 50 k out of our way on the way down. Nice drivethough.Sunday dawned again with light air and the talk of the entire marina waswhen to leave. We decided to fuel up and be ready at the crack of dawnMonday. Ran a few final errands Sunday morning including a promised stop atSubway for the lad, and left the dock to get fuel around 1:30.Unfortunately, a large boat, unbeknownst to us, had been directed to thefuel dock for clearance and was going to be there an hour or so. Okay, backto the dock but the wind was blowing 25 knots off the dock. Fortunately,yachties are a helpful sort and, we had 4 guys help us get back on. Finallyfueled up at about 3 and cleared our marina tab, which was very reasonable,planning to depart on the light air Monday morning. Of course, by now thewind had kicked up to about 30 knots, and it was really a fiasco gettingback on the dock. fortunately, the boys helped out again, but, ultimately,we had to use the electric winch to haul us in. Good thing we were on theend as navigating into a slip would have been impossible.Of course, Monday AM didn't have light air, so we didn't leave, but spentthe day relaxing and putting the boat into a bit better shape for the trip.According to the weather forecast, the wind was going to be continuingstrong and out of the southeast, exactly where we needed to go. We don'tmind motoring, but not into high winds and seas!!. Anyway, we decided,barring really bad weather, we'd leave Tuesday AM at the crack of dawn. Theconsensus with the fleet was to wait for Wed or even Thursday when the windwas supposed to clock around and die down some. Up we got with light airand left with another boat about 5:30. It was still pretty blowy and a bitwavy, but nothing as bad as some of the stuff we'd encountered. For thoseof you sailors out there, it was sort of like the conditions from Tortola toSt Martin. We just motored on the slow side and, once we hit theStraights--between Fraser Island and the mainland, conditions eased.Nonetheless, it took us 10 hours to do about 50 miles. that was better thanthe poor guy who left with us. He doesn't motor very well, sailed the wholeway, and arrived at the anchorage around 9PM!!! I think he said he tacked11 times or something. Ah, the joys of a cat with twin engines.A bit about Fraser island and the Great Sandy Straight. Fraser is thelargest sand island in the world, 40 or 50 miles long, and is one ofAustralia's best attractions. There are wild dingoes here and only 4WDvehicles are permitted. You can rent one and go dune buggying on your own,or take a guided tour, which is what we are doing today, hopefully, as it'searly and, we need to call to make arrangements. We're anchored off one ofthe major resorts and the tour operator is right here, so, hopefully, itwon't be a problem. The plan is to do that and leave for Tin Can Bay at thesouth end tomorrow. They are forecasting much lighter winds clocking aroundto more northerly which will be perfect for our trip south. Next stop afterthat is Mooloolaba where Steve Irwin's Australia zoo is which is supposed tobe a "don't miss" stop. So to keep this reasonable length, we'll justreport on Fraser and start a new one for the next leg.Okay, last part of this letter. We did our tour of Fraser Island a coupleof days ago. Awesome place. We really felt like tourists as they pileabout 40 people into a 4WD bus and drive around. There's a huge amount offresh water trapped in the sands with hundreds of creeks running millions ofgallons of fresh water into to the sea, so there are several beautifulinland lakes. There used to be aborigines there, but the white guys threwthem off and started logging until only about 15 years ago when the placebecame a world heritage nature reserve. The eastern shore, about 100kilometers long is all white sandy beaches and a few of our group did a flyover deal from a couple of planes the land on the beach. Sort of likeDaytona Beach. We also visited the rain forest, unfortunately not beerguzzling pigs like St Croix, but our guide was quite good and reported allsorts of uses the abos had for the fauna. The highest spot is about 800feet and all sand. The tour took from 8AM to 4:30 and we had a nice buffetlunch at an eastside resort as well as morning and afternoon tea. Reallynice and we're glad we didn't do the self tour with a rented car as wewouldn't have seen half as much. Pays to be a tourista on occasion!!! Abunch of the boats from Bundaburg were in the anchorage on our return, andwe're sailing with another cat south right now.So the next morning, bright and early--the sun rises here about 5--we headedoff down the channel 40 miles to a quick overnight stop at Tin Can Bay. Wereally stopped there to meet up with one of the rally guys who lives there,but when we called he told us he'd be out of town the next day or two. Wepulled in anyway to a really good marina--they even lent us the car to dosome shopping and lunch. Nothing there really, so we were off again at dawnto Mooloolaba, about 60 miles south to see the zoo and the largest aquariumin the southern hemisphere, so we'll probably be there a few days untilmoving on. We're sailing right now after beating into it for a couple ofhours getting over the bar into the ocean. Making about 9 knots and shouldarrive much earlier than planned as a result. Right now we're heading intoa fleet of fishing boats and will probably need to do something to avoid acollision, but that's another story for the next letter.CheersTim, Rose & Joey
New Cal (pt 2) on to OZ Nov 5 2007
Hi everybody.Well, we've been a bit remiss in our communiqués and find ourselves inBundaberg, Australia-about 100 miles north of Brisbane, but first:We do have a phone number: country code 61 0447379695. Also on Skypesporadically when we're in a marina, like now.We left you in Noumea on the way to the casino. Well, le captaine made 4trips there, overall, and won 3, lost 1 for a total win of close to$1,000--just about paid our dock fees in Noumea. Not much more to writeaboutNoumea so this will be short. We left on the 24th but spent the previousmonth theretouring museums, the aquarium, rented a car and the odd daysail to one ofthe close by outer islands. Nice people and lots of good French food aswell as a really great market. Joey met a "normal" chick fromSydney--reallynice after the psychos or dogs he's managed to bring aboard. There may behope for the lad yet. All in all, a very pleasant interlude waiting todepart for Oz. We are in unanimous agreement that we should have spent moretime there and less in Vanuatu which would have given us more time toexplore the out islands.The sail to Bundaberg was part of a 54 boat rally, so there were daily radiocheck-ins and various competitions, the results of which we're waiting onfor the wrap-up dinner. It was the most pleasant sail we've had since theGalapagos-Marqueses run with following winds, calm seas and sunny days. Wecaught 2 more mahis, and around the middle of the trip, a pod of about 30dolphin swam with us and a couple even got in front of us and totally leaptout of the water between the hulls.We're in Port Bundaberg, about 20 k down the river from the town proper.Verynice here, and the price would be excellent if the dollar wasn't in thetank.Heard this week that the Can$ is actually worth more than the US$. What hasthisworld come to? Anyway, plenty of activities here associated with the rally.A theme dinner every night, bocce ball competition, tours to the rumfactory. We won the best dressed boat competition as well as a "brainteaser" competition--see, we're not completely gone!! All very well donewith the finale on today, Tuesday, which is MelbourneCup day and a champagne brunch and TVs to watch the races. After that we'reoff to Sydney, but will take our time cruising down the "Gold Coast".Overall about 500 miles to go. Planned to leave tomorrow, but the weatherhas turned ugly, so we'll hang out at the marina for a few more days.Unfortunately, the hard rain has proven our lexan hatch replacement was notdone quite as well as it appeared so there'll be some extra work to rebedthe lenses when it stops raining. They look "marvelous", though!More on Australia later as we'll be here 'til the end of July next yearbefore we depart for a 3 month 150 boat rally through Indonesia.CheersTim, Rose & Joe
New Caledonia October 2 2007
Hi everybody.Well, it's only been 3 weeks, but we are ready with another fact filled,action packed, interesting and witty report on our travels.First things first. Regarding my diatribe last time, some of you haveapplauded my change in thinking--long overdue--however, for you youngliberal puppies, just remember this stuff 10 or 15 years from now when youare ranting about taxes and the rest. Anyway, here in New Caledonia it justgets worse. The Pacific franc used to be 100 to the dollar. It hasplummeted to 84 causing an almost 20% increase in an already ridiculouslyhigh cost of living. That being said, which ain't their fault, New Cal isreally nice with very friendly people and lots to do.We left Port Vila on Sunday, 9/16 at about 7:30 AM with great weather. Foronce, we were able to sail most of the way, which is very nice consideringthe increase in diesel prices!!! We got duty free before we left and it wasstill about $4/gallon--$1.15/liter for you damn foreigners. We saw a coupleof freighters on the way, but the big news happened about 40 or 50 milesout. "Fish on!!!" went the call as the reel whirred out. Joey went over toreel it in, and we saw the hand line on the other side of the boat was alsoengaged. Your fearless captain started pulling in the 300 lb. test handline while Joey worked the reel. Unfortunately we lost the one on the rod,but Joey came over to clean up the other fish which didn't seem to befighting too hard. But wait, there's more. As we got the fish up to theboat, we saw it was huge. Weren't sure what it was, but we knew we had togaff it. Once landed, we still had to look it up in the book. A shortbilled spearfish--sort of a marlin without the long nose. It measured about6 feet long and weighed about 25 or 30 kilos--55-65 pounds for you yanks.We actually broke my lifetime guaranteed Ginsu knife cutting through thebackbone. We weren't sure if it was any good to eat so we gave it away tolocals in New Cal. Next day we nailed a big mahi which we did filet andkeep.So the trip is about 200 miles and we arrived mid morning at We in Lifouwhich is one of the Loyalty islands, part of New Cal and about 50 miles eastof the main island, Grand Terre. We were going there because you weresupposed to be able to fly immigration officers in so you didn't have torace off to Noumea. The iea is to get a bunch of boats together to share the cost. Just not practical to cruise the Loyalties from Noumea as it's all upwind.Anyway, much to our surprise there was a fairly new marina there that wasn'tin any of the books. We called in on the radio, and a couple of NZ cruiserscoordinated getting us in there with the harbor master, Lulu. Turns out wewere the biggest boat they'd ever had in We, and they had to remove one ofthe floating docks to make room for us. Lulu checked us in for customs andquarantine, but the bad news was that immigration no longer flew in, and weeither had to get the boat to Noumea in three days or fly there ourselves.Okay, I'll bite the bullet and spend the $200, EXCEPT, it was a holiday weekand all the flights were booked. I even went out to the airport tryingstandby, but no luck. Luckily, we worked out with Lulu and immigration thatwe could fly in From Iles Des Pins--more later. So we took a few dayschecking out Lifou and resigned ourselves to missing Ouvea, a beautifulatoll about 50 miles north. On checking out, we got a bit of a bonus--maybeit was the fish we gave out--our rate was less than we thought, and Luluthrew in a free day. As an aside, until we figured out the value of thefranc, we were thinking that prices weren't too bad in New Cal. Stillcheaper by far than French Poly, so we're not complaining--too much.It's about 150 miles down to Iles Des Pins (IDP), so we did it in two days.First to Mare, just for the night in a nice little anchorage, then down toIDP where you actually get into the giant barrier reef system around thewhole island. A fairly long leg, so we left at 6 AM with the accompanimentof a pod of dolphin. Got there over the weekend. the anchorage wassupposed to be all sand, but it took us about 8 tries to get the anchor tohold. The track on the GPS looks like a bowl of spaghetti!!! We took apicture of the screen for posterity. We just sort of hung out until I wasable to book a flight to Noumea on Tuesday. The hotel there was veryfriendly and had great reasonably priced food, plus they gave yachties 15%off--we're really liking New Cal!!! They even gave me a free ride to theairport and back. Sweet! On Monday, an Aussie couple we've mentioned before, and whowere supposed to be staying in Fiji, unexpectedly pulled in and we managed tocelebrate our reunion. Tuesday, Captain Tim flew into Noumea--20 min.flight and, of course, got a Parisian style cab driver who didn't speak aword of English and couldn't understand "wharf" or gendarmerie du frontiere,but after a few fits and starts I got there. Of course, Lulu hadn't clearedthings as well as we were lead to believe, so I got the back room treatmentwith a senior officer. "Why was I checking in 10 days after arrival in We,etc., etc." Once I explained, they were pretty cool with it, and we werefinally "legal". Walked over to the waterfront to check on dock space andcall some other friends who we knew were there. In the marina office, I raninto one of the guys we had met in Vanuatu, and he had arrived in We a dayafter we left with several other boats. He couldn't check in there becausehe had guns, BUT he said the other guys had it all squared with immigrationto fly in there with all of them sharing the cost. Go figure. Must haveworked for them as we haven't seen them here in Noumea. Pisses us off thatwe had to head south and miss Ouvea. Also ran into a few others we had metin Vanuatu. Cool.So, back to IDP. Joe and Rose hung out while I was gone and, after a bit ofcleaning, took 3 hour naps. Next day, we got a car to tour the island. It'sfamous for its beauty, but it was also sort of a Pacific Devil's Island, andthere are all sorts of prison ruins and stuff like that. Our plan was toleave real early the next day as it's about 75 miles up to Noumea throughall sorts of reefs and islands and stuff, so we weren't sure if we'd havetime to make it in daylight. As it turned out we arrived about 3 as we hadfavorable winds. Early that AM, we actually drove through a feeding frenzyof tuna. Caught and kept a yellow fin--10 lbs and tossed a big tunny. Ithink we caught another mahi as well. Amazing to think of the WWII fleetnavigating these waters.So here we are in Noumea, arriving on 9/27. The marina squeezed us in onthe visitors dock. There are just tons of people we know in the marina oranchored just outside. Everyone's hanging out waiting to head off to NZ orto Australia for hurricane season. Noumea is sort of a smaller and nicerPapeete, and we've already scoped out the best grocery store and been to amuseum or two. It's cooler here at night and the weather seems to behelping out Rose. Oh, and we got our first senior citizen discount at theMuseum of New Caledonia, which is very cool with displays for all ofOceania. I think we learned more about Vanuatu here than we did when wewere there. Over the weekend, there was a big music festival out at theCultural Center, and we attended. $15 to get in and the music was free andthe eats were cheap. the only downside was no beer--how uncivilized.Tonight we're off to the casino.LaterTim, Rose & Joe
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