Bound for Australia

Vessel Name: Sirius
30 November 2013
30 November 2013 | Coffs Harbour
30 November 2013 | On route New Cal to Oz
30 November 2013 | Noumea
23 November 2013
19 November 2013 | Vanuatu
28 October 2013 | Erromango, Vanuatu
28 October 2013 | Port Resolution, Tanna, Vanuatu
17 October 2013 | Mt Yasur, Tanna, Vanuatu
16 October 2013 | Port Resolution, Tanna, Vanuatu
16 October 2013 | Vanuatu Group
16 October 2013 | Fiji
01 October 2013
23 September 2013 | Tonga
23 September 2013 | Tonga
23 September 2013 | Tonga
18 September 2013 | Tonga
09 September 2013 | Nuie a very small country
09 September 2013 | Suwarrow
09 September 2013 | Suwarrow Atoll Cook Is
Recent Blog Posts
30 November 2013

The Last Leg to Bundabah

Anchored off our land in Bundabah November 21 - to be concluded

30 November 2013 | Coffs Harbour

Arrived Australia Sunday 10th November 2013

It's good to be home at last

30 November 2013 | On route New Cal to Oz

The Last Passage

With winds coming from the south southeast it made heading south quite difficult and not particularly pleasant but we continued staying as close to our desired course as possible. Once again it took a couple of days for most of us to find our sea legs, though Andrew never seems to loose his. Having Scott [...]

30 November 2013 | Noumea

New Caledonia

After spending the Friday night at anchor in the main Noumea bay we were lucky enough to secure a pontoon in the marina and were nicely tied up just in time for Scott, Mark and Jayden's arrival. Scott is my brother, Jayden is his son and Mark is my sister Patricia's youngest son. They joined us to do [...]

23 November 2013

On the way to New Caledonia

On to New Caledonia – the last stop before Australian waters: We waited about 5 days for a weather opportunity to move on to New Caledonia, along with a dozen or so boats heading South, almost all to New Zealand, but a few going our way. By late November, the Summer cyclone/typhoon season comes to the tropics including Vanuatu and New Caledonia, so by late October, all the cruising boats get ready to move on, most South to New Zealand, or some Australia, but a few also head North back across the Equator to Indonesia or the Philippines. We left on Tuesday 22nd October, which would get us into Noumea, Capital of New Caledonia, and the only port of entry by Friday with any luck, in time to meet 3 more family guests there on Saturday 26th. We had been more or less heading West since Panama with the prevailing winds, but now had to make 340 miles to the South West. For a while it looked like we would not be able to sail this way at all, and would have to make the long journey around the top of New Caledonia adding 200 miles to the trip and lots of motoring, but finally the wind had just enough East in it to let us sail to Noumea direct, although this was our first passage sailing into the wind since Belize back in March. We made good enough time to come through the outer islands of New Caledonia on Friday morning and get into Noumea Harbour by sunset. The Harbour was to our surprise packed with hundreds of sailing boats, most at anchor as the two small marinas were overflowing. Who they all were and where they were all going we never really found out. We worried that arriving after hours on a Friday would cause all the usual problems with officials, but not here – this is part of France and the EU, so everything is helpful, easy going and free. The photo is our Halloween party onboard - explanation in the next blog from Noumea.

19 November 2013 | Vanuatu

Port Vila

Just 20 minutes out of Port Vila we had drawn a complete blank on the fishing. This was a big disappointment to Margaret, who was very keen to catch just something ahead of brother Mark and uncle Scott coming onboard in Noumea. Then fish on and the reel buzzed. Margaret hauled it in, Warren gaffed [...]

Tonga Haa Pai Island Group

23 September 2013 | Tonga
Carolyn
There was no wind and the seas were very smooth on the way to Ha'Apai. We saw lots of whales some within a few 100 metres of the boat. Our first island stop was at Nomuka-Iki in the Haa Pai island group, this was a small uninhibited island, though Harriet, Woody and Amy were staying there along with about 6 other people, all paying volunteers working with a boat called Ice that is searching for sunken ships from the past. They had a great camp site with all the mod cons, including a generator, gas BBQ, compressor for the dive tanks and even a water maker. They were camping there for 10 weeks so needed some home comforts. They invited us for a BBQ, we took a third of the giant Mahi Mahi we had caught it was delicious. We got this fish on route from Nukualofa it weighed an enormous 10.2 kg definitely our biggest yet, we also got a tuna and a king fish that day, I think Warren and Trish brought the fishing luck with them.
We enjoyed the island that had a cow and apparently two goats (must have been the same gender) we saw some lovely coral when we snorkelled on a nearby reef.
Next stop was Haafeva still in the Haa Pai group, we anchored on the west side of the island off a concrete wharf that had been funded by the Australian government, unfortunately part of it had collapsed so it was no longer in use. The village was powered by an Australian funded generator, we noticed that many of the islands in the South Pacific had a lot of financial support from not only Australia and New Zealand but also Europe.
We walked to the village through a beautiful tropical forest, once arriving in the village we were greeted by a few friendly children and invited to lunch the following day by one of the residents. Sophia and Cameron really enjoyed running the length of the village with the children and seeing all of the little piglets in the gardens, seemed like every second household owned a pig or two. When we got back to the boat we heard a loud blowing noise and looked out to see a mother and baby humpback whale in the bay about 200 metres from the boat. I quickly put on my snorkelling gear and jumped in the water and started to swim towards the whales though a little too slowly to catch them as once I was in the water with them I was beginning to feel a bit apprehensive anyway they moved on and went within metres of another anchored boat.
The next day we enjoyed a typical Tongan lunch with our lovely host Anna, whilst we were eating her grandmother was in the next room weaving a traditional mat out of coconut or pandanus leaves. After lunch we visited the school, they had 37 students split into 3 classrooms with 3 teachers, they welcomed us into the school. Sophia read an Australian story to the children in year 3 and 4 and they all sang us a couple of songs before leaving. Trish filmed the children on the iPad and they were all very eager to see themselves on the screen. It was a particularly rainy windy day so the children were being let off school early. Later that afternoon when we were back on the boat we heard voices calling out to Sophia and Cameron, three of the boys from the village had ridden their bikes over and wanted to play, so we jumped in the dinghy and motored ashore and they all played happily for an hour or so.
The next day the boys returned but we couldn't go ashore as we had already packed up the dinghy in readiness for our overnight trip further north.
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