How big is Australia?!
06 December 2012
Catherine
Look, I know Jersey is small. 9 miles by 5 and I admit, I'd complain if the kids had a birthday party in the east of the island. I mean, it would take the best part of an hour if you took into consideration the 40 mph speed limit, the windy roads and rush hour.
And I knew that Cairns to Brisbane wasn't just a little jaunt. I think in total, the whole journey was going to be about 800nms, which would easily push us into our grand total of 20,000nms since Greece. BUT IT'S TAKING SO FREAKIN' LONG. Australia is SOOOO big! Even when we think about stopping over to break up the journey, we've come so far out (because the NE winds lasted 12 hours, then it was SE again) that it will take us 48 hours to get to any half decent anchorage.
Maybe my head wasn't into this particular trip. 800nms is nothing compared to some of our passages but I thought we'd just be island hopping our way south. For the past two days, our ETA in Brisbane has been showing 90 hours. Which was great two days ago, but just shows how slow we are going now that it hasn't changed!!
There have been some definite highlights of the trip....amazing sunrises and sunsets. A huge manta ray jumped out of the water chasing fish. A fleeting visit from dolphins. But due to the regular change in wind direction, we must have changed our course and plans about 5 times in the past 12 hours. So the latest, but don't quote me on this, is that we are heading to Bundaberg and going to then go inland of Fraser Island. And if anyone has any suggestions please feel free to fire away. All the information about passage planning I had researched and put on my ipad is not available without internet access. So if anyone knows any reason for us to go outside Fraser Island instead of inside, speak now or forever hold thy peace. All comments will be passed on to me via SSB.