Wednesday morning, June 11

We made it to Australia. It still sounds kind of unbelievable in a way. This is a short posting as we need to go out and run some errands this morning, like getting some laundry detergent and some more oatmeal, (which the very friendly quarantine officer took yesterday).

Steen did see the night lights of Brisbane back on Monday evening, (I was asleep). Then we sailed all night, making our first waypoint off Moreton Island at five a.m. on Tuesday as planned. The outline of land became just visible shortly after. I manned the boat until we were north of the passage entrance. That's one of the passages through shoals into Moreton Bay, a huge huge bay, miles wide and long and beautiful. Probably very popular with the Brisbane sailing set.

From entering the northeast passage at eight or nine a.m. until getting to the Customs dock at the south end of the bay took five hours of motoring. Which was a great thing because that gave us a chance to clean up the cabin of the boat, and for me to chop, cook, bake, or boil just about every fresh food store we had left in the boat. We probably set a record for the most cooking aboard Radiance in a singe morning. We then showered with our camping solar shower (water heated with the teapot), and became generally presentable by the time we eased up to the Quarantine dock around three p.m.

We had heard from a few people that the Australian Customs agents were a bit hard-nosed, so we were ready for anything. The two Customs agents and the Agricultural Quarantine officer turned out to be some of the friendliest agents we have dealt with yet. That was a relief. We finished with our check in and got a slip in the same marina for the evening, (which is where we are now), and had tied up for the night by five p.m. Of course, with all the cooking that had taken place earlier, dinner was an easy affair which a full choice of entree's. We chose capsicum (bell pepper) pizza and a bottle of Australian wine, bought in NZ. What a lovely evening; we had a beautiful sunny day, got the boat cleaned up, met with nice Customs agents and were in a berth in a pretty marina.

By seven o'clock we were asleep and we didn't wake until the halyards clanked up against the mast at three a.m. ...we always forget those. After securing the halyards, we resumed our rest until Malou woke us up around 6:30 this morning, almost twelve hours of sleep. Great thing. That brings us up to date. I was mistaken in thinking that we had to go up the Brisbane River to check in with Customs. No, we only have to make the trip up the river when we want to tie up at the pile moorings near the city center, which we may do in a few days. Now you know as much as we do. Australia looks gorgeous so far and the weather today is sunny and mild. The crew is happy.

Thanks for coming along with us. We'll write more soon.