We tied up at the Q dock at 1520hr on 22/5/14. 1778nm done in 12 days.
Our first night in the very calm marina was made difficult by our residual inner ears telling us the boat was still rolling! Also we both got up to get dressed to go on watch. We treated ourselves to a nice meal at the Thai restaurant.
The approach to Mackay is a long run through at least 50 anchored coal ships from mainly Asian ports. Each ship is about 980 feet long. These ships may carry up to 300 000 tonnes of coal. Don't get in the way of them as they will have a lot of momentum.

Almost there! Diomedea has 39 miles to run to Mackay. We sighted land yesterday evening, High Peak Island, after some fast sailing with twin headsails. Of course, no sooner has night fallen than the wind gets up and then it is a sweaty drama getting under control. Gybing downwind was required in shifting wind directions. Diomedea was passed by the famous The World cruise liner. In fact she passed rather close in front of us, so we spoke with the officer of the watch to make sure they could see us! Diomedea has an AIS transponder so we show up on the screens of all the big ships and vice versa. I would never go to sea without this gadget. It is an incredible piece of safety kit. We have found the merchant mariners all very professional and courteous. We also feel that if we have actually spoken with the vessel, then our dialogue enters their ship's log and becomes a legal document. Just puts a little more onus on that vessel to not run us down!

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Our wake hisses behind us as Diomedea surfs down the very ragged 3-4m swells at more than 8 knots. We only have the triple reefed main up and wind is 20-25 from behind. It is pitch dark on this squally night amidst current-affected seas. Diomedea is bucking like a bronco and Andrea awakes from her off watch in mid-air over her bunk. The autopilot seems like it is coping, even though the sailplan is not balanced. In a flash it all changes. The pilot alarm goes off �" the poor thing has officially spat the dummy. I race to the helm to find that the wind is now 35 kts and everything is chaos. I wrestle the boat back from her broach. With a strong sense of urgency we bring the main down to her fourth reef and finally we feel like Diomedea has come under control. We have learnt and observed many things on this trip, as you might expect. Foremost in our minds is the fact that almost every single night the wind increases in strength by 5-10 knots, making for often quite wild sailing through the evening. When the forecast suggest 20 kts, we routinely experienced 30. The seaway ramped up accordingly. Another lesson learned is how little sail it takes to keep Diomedea rolling along. We have used the fourth reef in the main quite a lot now, not having used it at all in NZ. Also the staysail has been most useful. The problem most nights has been that we have a following strong breeze making sail plan choices limited. Diomedea often ended up running with just a deeply reefed mainsail alone. Yet another lesson learned is to check the bolts securing your hydraulic steering rams before departure. On a routine inspecton of the steering gear a few days ago, mid-ocean, I was shocked to see that the main ram had worked itself loose from its mounting bracket and was making a desperate bid for freedom. We were able to swap the steering to the backup hydraulic ram luckily and I could then reattach the main ram and put lock nuts on the bolts. Rather challenging in a small space, lying on your stomach, in the quite lively stern section of the boat as it leapt around the ocean. The night of the 19th was certainly the worst night of our trip thus far with a very turbulent seaway created by big tradewind swells hitting the EAC, to the east of Fraser island. Here the west-setting subtropical current turns southward and is channeled between the Australian mainland and a chain of seamounts to create the EAC. A big eddy or gyre lies to the east giving very unpredictable currents. We had to cross all this in strong squally conditions, at night, in the rain, and with lots of container vessels coming down the main shipping lane from Asia. Neither of us slept much, just an hour here and there. We slowly made our way toward the Capricorn Channel which is formed by the Great Barrier Reef to the east and the islands and shoals that lie off the Qld coast. By midday of the 20th we had escaped the clutches of the EAC and Diomedea was sailing well in settling seas. On board, our lives have been paired down somewhat, again as you might expect. We are showering every 2 days, to conserve water, and this is a much anticipated activity. Removal of salt/sweat/sunscreen leaves one feeling almost reborn. We sleep as much as possible during the day so that we are rested for the night watches. Reading fills in the spaces whilst the other person is asleep. We are still having Nespresso coffee as a little luxury. The machines for this are placed on the gimbaled stove top to prevent spillage during the brewing process. We usually eat our meals together. Up until today, we have spent most of the time below decks as the cockpit was too wet and salty to be a pleasant venue. We have covered 1605 nautical miles (3049 km) so far and have about 150nm remaining to Mackay. Hoping to be in port on Thursday. The final lesson learned this night was not to type up blog entries at 4am when you are dog tired. My head hit the keyboard as I fell asleep over my own stimulating prose.

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Well it did. Build to uncomfortable levels. Bands of cirrus screamed across the sky and this is never a good sign. It usually signifies either a cold front, or, in this case supercharged tradewinds from an intensifying high pressure system. Our grib files suggested that winds of 20 knots ESE would be experienced if we stayed south of 26S latitude, a ploy that we were able to achieve. Sadly the grib files lied so we had 20-25, then 20-30, then lots of 30+ particularly on Friday night. Of course it is not the winds that are the problem, it is the ocean, which took it upon itself to go into washing machine mode. No nice regular swells, just big ugly waves, breaking, and all over the place. Amongst all of this Diomedea started developing a strange noise near the heads. It sounded like someone or something was banging on the hull. We explored internally as much as was feasible and found no cause for the noise. Eventually it was decided that there may indeed be something banging on the hull, such as a fishing float on rope around the keel. (Would not be the first time for us). Fortunately we could investigate under the boat with ease by heaving to (Diomedea heaves to very nicely) and then putting the GoPro video camera onto the end of the boathook. Push the camera down below the water and sweep along the hull. Excellent footage of the hull, keel, prop and rudder were obtained and all was normal. The noise continued. Of course, Friday was a special day on board. It was Andrea’s birthday. So after we got the fourth reef in the main, and set the staysail, we cracked a bottle of bubbly. Outstanding. The evening was devoid of other celebrations as the seaway became very wild. Moving about down below required concentration. Rain squalls came and went, the moon was in and out of the clouds, big rollers broke near and over us, coating the boat in a protective layer of salt. I did the 4-7am watch and found myself waking up whilst standing in the cockpit. Microsleeps and strange dream fragments came upon us. Great birthday, huh. I was very glad to see the sunrise. The next challenge lay only 50 miles ahead, in the form of the Gilford Tablemount, an underwater plateau with sharp peaks, rising from the abyssal plains of 3000 metres depth to around 250 metres depth in the space of only a few miles. These peaks are a problem insofar as they generate unpredictable currents and seaways, and yes, our course was directly over them. It was decided to pass to the south of these undersea mountains so we hardened up the course giving us big beam seas for about 6 hours. Wonderful. At last we had this feature behind us, so it was time to gybe and head north. We are more than a 1000 miles down the course, leaving 600 miles or so to Mackay.

Diomedea had a good start to her trip to Australia but problems soon arose. With the nice southerly breeze dying away the diesel was put into play. During my routine midnight check of the engine I noted that coolant had overflowed into the bilge from the sub-header tank, which was now quite full. Suddenly feeling rather panicky, the very recently serviced diesel was turned off. Our more mechanically-oriented readers will have a number of scenarios running through their minds. For a now-sweaty David my first thought was that the heat exchanger had begun leaking. You will recall that this occurred in the genset on our passage around East Cape, presenting in more or less the same way. Going against this diagnosis was the fact that the heat exchanger had been checked over last week! However, there were other possibilities including a malfunctioning header tank pressure cap, a leak in the hot water boiler that runs off the coolant line,a leak in the oil cooler, and a blown head gasket. The real issue for us was that we had about 3 days of motoring through flat calms ahead of us to get north to the wind. Hmmm. I tasted the coolant and found that it tasted disgustingly of ethylene glycol but not salt. We bypassed the hot water service but this made no difference to the problem. Eventually it was noted that there was black debris and oil in the coolant, indicating a probable head gasket leak. After a discussion with a mechanic via satphone, the following remedies were employed. The pressure cap on the header tank was sealed with a 2mm sheet of rubber cut to fill the hole, thereby preventing any loss of coolant. This was successful. Secondly, running the engine at no more than 1500rpm. Thirdly, checking the oil for any signs of foaming or black carbon debris (none found). In this way the diesel propelled us forward at the blistering pace of 4.6kts over the next few days, whilst we kept a close watch on oil and temp gauges. Those days were of necessity quite languid. The wind did not often rise above 8 kts from directly astern but we were occasionally able to run the gennaker to boost our speed to 5.5 kts. All the boats in the area had similar experiences with the wind. During that time we also found ourselves in a popular shipping lane from Japan and Asia, so vigilance at night was particularly crucial. Diomedea also passed through a pod of blue whales. We enjoyed gorgeous sunsets and brilliantly moonlit nights as we glided over glassy seas. Slowly the crew settled into a watch routine and our lives were enriched by participation in various SSB nets. Today, Wednesday the 14th, the wind has filled in with about 15 kts ESE. Engine off, main and gennaker flying nicely. Yippee! We have executed a course change from 310m to 270M, leaving Norfolk island to our south. The forecast is for favourable SE wind direction to continue but it may build to uncomfortable levels if the high intensifies. We will see.

Diomedea cleared out of Opua on Sat 10th May and had very fast sailing in strong SW flow. Seas were a bit lumpy but nothing like Fiordland. The day finished with a golden sunset but squally conditions persisted through to the morning. The moon was up for most of the night as a bonus. Today we are motor sailing in light winds. I have been reading the Good Weekend from the SMH (downloaded just before departure). Looks like a good night coming up.