When we left New Cal, it looked like we had a fantastic weather window....enough breeze (12-18knots) to last 36 hours, then lighter weather (5-8) for 4-5 days and then finish up with about 15 knots from the NE. We started off nicely. The breeze lightened up quicker than I would have preferred. But we were able to cook anything at anytime, clean out cupboards and organize. (We had been told over and over the Aussies could be really strict and tear the boat apart if they had the slightest hint that there were bugs on board, or things weren't pretty spotless). The wind was indeed light in the middle. But the end didn't work out quite so smoothly as we hoped. The day before things got rough I even got in a swim in the ocean, trying to get close to some Short Finned Pilot Whales....the winds were so light I was able to snorkel over near one which allowed me to identify what it was. We had bought a plastic coated guide of the whales and dolphins of the pacific while in Tonga.

The day things got snotty, Dave caught a 4' Mahi Mahi (Dorado) and had managed to get everything cleaned up and put away, when the wind started increasing. At first it wasn't terrible, but we could see ominous clouds in the distance, covering the whole skyline to the west, signalling that land was not far away and the weather there was very active! Oh boy! Here we go. We had both been up for most of the day, so we tried to catch an hour of sleep each, over the next few hours and only just managed a bit...then things got more lively....I will add more soon but the gist of it is below and what Dave posted on Facebook so our fellow sailors and family and friends would know we got in, but it was a bit of a white knuckle experience!

We have arrived in Bundaberg. After a mostly calm and uneventful passage, we came closer to the Australian mainland a weather system called a Surface Low hit us around 4pm. The winds were 30-35 knots with gusts to over 40knots from the SW with 3 meter square waves at 4 seconds apart. What that did to the boat was that it wanted to launch off the back of the waves and drop into the void between them. The result is a boat motion that made us feel like the ball in a pin ball machine. For the next 10 hrs we battled wind, waves and current. We could not make any headway and at times the conditions started to push us close to the shallows and islands and sometimes back out to sea. Some of the waves raked the boat from stem to stern. The tide changed at 2am, now flooding, which gave much reprieve, but in the dark, the waves continued to come at us, with white water crests breaking as they hit. We took turns hand steering as neither our wind vane nor auto helm could respond quick enough to the sea state. At that point we felt that fatigue was going to be the next biggest danger and we took turns trying to sleep, which is amazingly possible when totally soaked and freezing. Except for a short nap we had been awake for about 24 hrs. It was comforting to have our buddy boat, "Kookaburra" with Mac and Wendy close brand with their boat being longer, higher and heavier, it was handling the conditions allot better. For the next 6 hours we made our way towards Bundaberg and at 8am we entered the channel and protection. All in all the boat did very well with no damage except for a wet interior and a very tired crew.