11/18/2009
Nov 15-16
We made an impromptu stop at Keppel Bay Marina at Yeppoon on Sunday instead of heading straight to Gladstone...thanks again for the free berthage! We visited a ton of different yachties from all over the world, and Irene and I chatted with a local male model working at the marina. We had to stay longer than we planned due to an unexpected low tide that kept us from leaving our berth...so I made use of the extra time to market OceansWatch on the local beach.
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11/17/2009
Nov 14
While we were only here for a few hours, this place deserves it's own blog entry. Motoring into the anchorage past small islands of dark rock scattered with pine trees and coming to a crystal clear bay with a stunning white beach was just the start of it. On shore was an A-frame "beach house" built almost 40 years ago, and now yachties who come ashore leave the name of their yacht, crews, date, and anything else that inspires them. We left an OceansWatch sticker in the main room to the right, on a bit of white wall space. If you ever make it there, see if you can find it!
We also noticed a T-shirt of OceansWatch member James Wharram from the Spirit of Gaia trip hanging in the upstairs rafters....very cool.
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11/17/2009
Nov 13-14
We didn't have much time here in Mackay, so we got in, did our business, and got out (the above picture is us 'getting out' through a field of nearly 50 bulk coal carriers) For only 24 hours here, we seemed to do quite a bit of damage. We mass brochured the marina, ran into Urs, got a little bit older, and posed for a picture. Kerry (now a new member of OceansWatch) of catamaran 'Aussie 01' framed us beneath the logo on our boom. She will be writing a small piece on OceansWatch the work we do in The Coastal Passage, a bi-monthly free newspaper that prides itself in being the 'Voice of the Boating Community.' Free advertising..sweet! Steaks, wine, cake and balloons were in order...Happy Birthday Irene!!!
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11/17/2009
Nov 10-12
Yes, we did spend a few days in the Whitsunday Islands, but no, we did not get off at the famed Whitehaven Beach. We sailed right past it since the weather was pretty miserable...at least we can say we were there in some form or another, who cares if we were soaking wet and getting blown over. Finally some good weather came through and we found ourselves on Thomas Island, letting the Australian Navy (boys!) on board to use our VHF and having a ridiculous photo shoot. This shot just may have to be on the cover of the imminent OceansWatch promotional packet.
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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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