11th June 2008
Fliss ........
We woke up to wall to wall grey and heavy rain, great we thought! We waited for an hour to see if it cleared & at 9am decided that we would just have to go.
We left Noumea in pouring rain & strong squally conditions. We both silently prayed that the whole trip to Australia wasn't going to be like this. As the sun set the squalls disappeared and we had a beautiful starlit night, a little brisk but we certainly on our way!
Pete.....
We were hoping that we had left the gremlins behind and I was relieved to be out of New Caledonia territorial waters. Unfortunately, one stowed away with us and chewed through the Aries steering line at 20:30 last night. I quickly grabbed the cheeky gremlin and threw him well astern as I believe that they can swim no faster than 5 knots. Luckily, the line parted whilst Fliss and I were changing watch, unluckily, it failed right at the bottom turning block and the end of the line got lost inside the tubular arm. We rigged up two strong bungy-cords to pull the tiller in the direction opposite to the remaining steering line (which worked wonderfully to keep us steering in the right direction.) Then I leaned over the stern threading new lines with Fliss holding my feet down. Luckily, we have some cord about the same diameter as the original but I think some more spare of that size would not go amiss.
After the grey and rain of yesterday, the night watch was moon and starlit and quite pleasant and today looks fine. 20-25 knots all the way to Friday when a trough should pass over giving light and variables. Late Saturday is hopefully 15 knot Southerlies for the broad reach to the start of the Reef and a run up to Mackay.
Hopefully the weather will listen to the forecast.
12th June 2008
Pete ...........
Nice and sunny today and the temperature has warmed up after a nippy night last night which had me rummaging around for my fleece deerstalker. We are still moving along quite happily at around 6-7 knots although it is a lot more comfortable now the seas have eased a lot.
The wind is a little further to the rear than planned and so we are easing South a bit but not by too much. The Southerlies should reach us Sat/Sun and we then will ride them up the inside of the reef. A funny scenario shows the GPS recording a lower speed than our log. I would have expected the GPS to show favourable current. When we cross-check the log with progress on the chart, it concurs, and so the log appears correct. Therefore, we are not sure if we have favourable current - I think we have none at all since the trades are not yet fully established for the winter.
No more gremlins to report but they are sneaky devils and we will keep a close watch for missing food, droppings and other signs.
13th June 2008
Well the wind grew light last night and died away late this morning (after we had set the clocks back one hour). Fliss put the engine on whilst I was asleep and we have been motoring ever since. The forecast is for winds returning from the South later tomorrow with up to 25 knots so we should get a fast run towards the Southern end of the Great Barrier Reef. Then, the winds should ease for a gentle run all the way to Mackay. It looks as though we may very well be entering Mackay around midnight Monday and so I have been studying the approach lights which are quite well organised with red leading lines and a couple of East cardinals.
14th June 2008
Pete ............
We had to motor for a while until the wind picked up yesterday lunchtime. It was a hard slog to windward in 15 knots with the seas becoming quite choppy but we were managing 6-7 knots and were happy bout the progress. As the afternoon wore on, the wind turned more on the beam and we looked forward to a nice evening with the wind forecast to come round in our favour even more.
Not so. Although the wind was on the beam, it increased in a most unusual squally manner of long sustained gusts followed by relative quiet. We already had 2 reefs in the main and wound a large proportion of the headsail away as we experienced 15-35kts of wind. Going at 4 knots in the periods of lull and 7.5 knots in the gusts. Very frustrating. Unreefing was a tedious affair as the average windspeed decreased since I could not be certain that it wasn't simply a false lull. Eventually we had all the headsail out again and I went to bed. Fliss then had to contend with a deepwater shipping route that was almost as busy as the English Channel and got me up to check the course of one boat bearing down on us. There were 3 large boats all in close proximity to us and one that was on a collision course so I turned on the radar, got his position (3.5 miles and coming fast) and called him up on the radio. Even before answering (which took about 20 seconds), he had started an avoiding action. I think the words "Sailing Vessel Nadezhda" struck some COLREGS memories. The chap was a very polite man of Indian descent who said "don't worry, we will be taking care of you".
The wind has continued its fitful decline and the seas have taken little notice of the quieter airs. All very uncomfortable and tiring.
15th June 2008
Fliss .........
Still squally conditions with 2 reefs in the main & a heavily reefed job but we are still romping along at 7 knots. The waves are on the side so were getting wet sitting in the cockpit.
As the sun set the wind eased and the sea calmed down. It's getting very exciting as we pass Australian fishing boats just off the Barrier Reef! We can't help but shout (they couldn't hear us) “G'day Bruce” and “Stick another shrimp on the Barbi” Pete & I decided that we would have a nearly landfall party. We pulled out our British National Anthem and played it at full volume. Our British flag flying proudly and the sun setting made it quite a poignant moment!
We also have a new custom. As we have our sun-downers we also pour one for Neptune. We ask him for the conditions we would like and it has been interesting we ask if he wouldn't mind toning it down a bit, too long a sea maybe? We're not taking any chances!
Fliss.......
At 09:30am land is spotted! Amazing to think that we are running up inside a reef. We have the reef 14 miles to the right of us and the Australian coastline 20 (approx) miles to the left. The wind has completely died so we are motoring.
We're surprised as it's not that warm!
The cruisers gossip is that the Customs & Immigration are very difficult and will fine you at every opportunity, lets hope that's not the case as we have only just submitted our “Notice of arrival”.
Technically it should be sent a minimum of 72 hours before you arrive but there's bean a bit of a cock up on board. Pete copied the email address from the Customs & Immigration website and there was an erogenous character as the end of the email address which Pete didn't notice till today and the email wasn't bounced back as failed.
Once he got the email address right we received acknowledgement from Customs & Immigration. So we have only just given them 12 hours.
We spent the whole day trying to hail Customs & the Coastguard on the VHF but no one responded. We did get buzzed by a Customs plane but they just took a look at us and flew off.
Very different to New Zealand as the Kiwis are on to you as soon as you get anywhere near the coastline.
Given the lack of response on the VHF we decided that we wouldn't attempt to go into Mackay at night so we had a lovely easy sail/motor overnight.
17th June 2008
Fliss...
The amount of tankers anchored off Mackay is unbelievable! It's nearly as busy as Gibraltar!
Finally at 08:00am I managed to contact Customs and they told us where to go to in the marina at 08:15am we are tied up waiting for the officials. We love landfall!!!!!
The Customs/Immigration guy looked at our notice of arrival form and said “I understand that you have been having problems trying to contact us, don't worry I won't imprison you on this occasion” thank god for that!
Whilst Customs & Immigration did their thing I noticed 2 guys from Quarantine looking at Nadezhda
I went outside and the 1st thing he said was that she looked lovely & clean with a nice newly antifouled bottom.
Quarantine spent a good hour going through the boat with a fine toothed comb, even Simon the ships cat got checked over. The Customs guy warned us that we ran a risk that we may loose him.
They picked up our rattan place mats that we bought in Tonga and tapped them on the table to see if any bugs fell out. Nadezhda's interior woodwork was also scrutinised. I suppose they have to earn the $160 they charge!
We got a full bill of health and are now free to explore Australia!
The rest of the day we just lazed around!
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