11/16/2009
Nov 7-10
Cheers to Airlie Beach, which totally surpassed our expectations. Thought of as mostly a backpacker's paradise, Lady Luck was on our side with Abel Point Marina giving us free berthage and leading us to Urs Waldmeier of the catamaran Better Than Shares. We dubbed him new member of the week, as he was super excited to help with marketing, took this slightly awkward picture of the crew, took me out on his dinghy to visit anchored boats and grabbed a load of brochures to hand out in the places we're not visiting (and to his friends in Switzerland). Thanks to Magnums hostel bar for leading us to some...unsuspecting interested parties.
A highlight: Protein! Tofu for me, steaks for everyone else. Yum!
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11/06/2009
November 5-7
The second leg of our trip served up some much nicer weather, we even got an "I love sailing!" out of Anna, who was pretty seasick a few days ago as well. We sailed through some coral spawning, which as you can see above, was vast and sort of out of this world.
Chris was busy busy busy though...while the sail went smoothly, the toilet got clogged and he (unwillingly) had to unblock it. Let's just say Anna owes him a 6-pack. A few hours later, the engine just completely shut off. Chris worked his magic, put some more diesel in the tanks and fiddled around down below to get it working again so we could cruise into Airlie with no problem.
The most exciting thing that happened to me was getting hit directly in the face with a huge wave in the middle of the night...of course some of it made its way down to Chris's bed too. Sorry!
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11/06/2009
November 2-5
Many thanks to Andrew Wallace and the Townsville Motorboat and Yacht Club for the free berthage, where Chris made a presentation and local greenie Luis Sanches found us. We talked about different ways OceansWatch can think about climate change over sausages Luis cooked up, after offering to offset our carbon footprint for the trip with his company, My Clean Sky
Chris and Irene were busy meeting with Reef Check Education and Outreach Officer Jo Roberts, Sea Turtle Foundation project manager David Roe, and other important academics and students from James Cook University, trying to form synergies and bounce ideas off each other. Anna and I cruised the marinas chatting to yachties and handing out brochures like it was going out of style. People were either generally more receptive to hearing about OceansWatch, or we are getting more and more charming as the days go by. On to Airlie Beach!
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11/06/2009
September 30-November 1
With 20-25 knot breeze and 3-5 foot swells, I hardly call the trip to Townsville cruising. On a night watch, Anna and I had to wake Chris up..we were on a collision course with the above boat. We tacked safely out of the way, gawking at the cruise ship as it rolled on by...it must be a really cheap cruise...then caught a whiff and realized it was no cruise ship but a sheep freighter. Not a pleasant smell...especially to my nose which was sensitive due to a few days of seasickness.
The trip was not miserable though! When I wasn't leaning over the side of the boat, we did see a turtle and fed some baby sharks Irene's leftover kebab...yum. Chris, being the ethically responsible skipper he is, had to whip out the kayak and VHF when he noticed a small motorboat that was dragging it's anchor while stopped at Fitzroy Island for the night. He found the owner on shore, scratching his head, wondering where his boat had gone.
We did miss Halloween though (an American favorite)...unless dressing up in our foul weather gear counted.
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11/06/2009
September 28-30
This is me, Katherine, a new American volunteer. I joined up with Chris, Irene and her cousin, Anna, on Magic Roundabout in Cairns to start the first ever OceansWatch promotional tour down the Queensland coast of Australia!
The most important part of my job on this trip is to distribute our brochure--hot off the press from New Zealand (many thanks to our writer/volunteer Sam)--to yachties in every port we get ourselves to, trying to gain a base of supporters in Australia and worldwide. While I feel super enthusiastic and and supportive of OceansWatch and the work we do, being a new volunteer and relatively new at talking up a new cause within the yachting community, I started off getting frustrated easily when people didn't want to learn about our approach to "cruising with a cause." Our last night in Cairns was spent chatting with a fellow American, Bill Hanlon, who happened to be refitting a schooner native to Long Island where I grew up (www.seawanhaka.com) and Charlie and Graeme from Loggerhead. It was then I realized the support is out there, it's just going to take some digging to find it. Here's to more luck in Townsville!
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11/01/2009, Cairns
The picture is of us with about the only yacht we met in PNG, Loggerhead with friends Charlie and Graeme from the UK. They are sailing around the world the wrong way...........it takes all sorts;)
So we made it to Cairns with no problems other than sailing too close to the wind for too long. It was pretty exciting to get back to civilisation so the first day was spent catching up on good coffee, good wine and good food.
After the big clean-up Cleo headed off on a road trip to Sydney, Alison headed to Bali to meet a guy she met in Madang and Gardner went back to the USA for the first time for years. 3 days later he had a real job too.......working for Adobe!
I caught up with OceansWatch emails then finally had a very much needed 9 day holiday with my lovely wife, Julia. We chilled, drove around doing the tourist thing and had a few days on the boat at Fitzroy Island.
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10/07/2009
Hello all!
This is Katherine, a new volunteer for OceansWatch (from New York), writing from Mamaki (NZ), as the Magic Roundabout team does not have internet access.
Chris and the team are about ready to leave Samarai, the very southern tip of New Guinea, making their way to Cairns, Australia. From there, most of the original crew will be departing and going their separate ways, and I will be joining Chris along with Irene (our science adviser) and two other volunteers who have yet to be chosen to do a promotional tour down the coast of Queensland. If any members will be in the area from Cairns to Brisbane during the month of November, contact us at info@oceanswatch.org, I'm sure we could really use your help!
Last but not least, if any members have a video projector that they wouldn't mind loaning us for the month so we can make presentations/show videos at yacht clubs, marinas, and schools on our promo tour, please contact us!
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