OOROO1 - New Caledonia to Bundaberg Australia
29th October 2017 BLOG 5

Well we are here in Australia after 45 countries consisting of many landfalls and islands, I will summarise the miles another time.

The last twelve hours was a mixture of super enjoyable sailing with nice wind and no swell, a bit of motor sailing and finished off with a 9 knots blitz under gennaker to the lead markers into Bundaberg.

We had the rods out with light breaking strain leaders and sacrificial lures hoping to hook an edible fish but to no avail. Not to worry, the fun with the marlin previously was fantastic and made up for it.

After finishing my novel I even grabbed another one and bowled it over in 24 hours. That's unbelievable for me as I only thought I could read tender forms and contracts that quick.

We had only 28nm to go at 1200 hrs and we were taking our time to come in to anchor for the night when we got a satellite email saying we could enter early and tie up at the quarantine pen. We immediately put the fishing rods away and cranked up OOROO and gennakered in. It was funny listening to everyone on the VHF radio, Floss said to me,"Oh my god, everyone sounds so Aussie"

The entry into Bundaberg river is a good Safe one and we were feeling very excited to be finally in Australia. The Border security guys came to clear us in and were both friendly great guys, what a pleasure it was having a laugh with them. They even overlooked the fact that we were substantially over the limit with the alcohol on board, we promised we would start lowering the amount immediately and bring it into acceptable levels. After they left that's exactly what we did.

Now it's Monday morning, we both had an awesome sleep and now we are waiting on OOROO for bio security to arrive and check over the boat. Once that's complete we can move into our pen, have a look around Bundaberg and join in on the Down Under Rally arrival celebrations.

After hanging around Bundy for a couple of weeks we will sail to the Gold Coast and prepare OOROO for cyclone season, so we should be back on land in WA for December.

Our previous 24 hours prior to arriving in the Port of Bundaberg.
Time/Date: 12.00pm 29-10- 2017
Current Position: 24 58.250S 152 48.500E
Current Water Depth & Temp: 41m & 24.6 degrees
Safety: All Safe, past a tug boat called Australia on its way to Singapore. Then 50 mile out, plenty of AIS and radio traffic.

Wind / Sails:
• Wind - 15 NW TWS (AVG), MAX TWS 19.1kts, MIN TWS 1.3kts
• AVG SOG 5.25kts
• Gennaker - 3hrs
• Genoa - 21hrs
• Main sail - 18hrs
Distance Travelled: 126 nm
Distance Remaining : 28 nm (to Bundaberg Marina)
Engine Hrs: 6
Where to now: Only 28nm to Bundaberg Australia
Fishing and Wildlife: very small lures on hoping to catch a small tuna or something.
Meals: living like a king eating everything we can't bring into Australia.
Fruit, eggs, ham, salad.