A final note to our story. We have sold our lovely Periclees to a delightful family from Nelson, New Zealand. Dave and Isabelle and their two young children plan to cruise the Pacific ocean over the next five years. Hopefully we will see Periclees anchored off Comox one more time.
She was an incredibly good part of our lives and we will miss her as will many of our friends who we had the pleasure to welcome onboard Periclees. Thank you, all, for reading our blog and sending us your words of friendship and encouragement.
For us it is time to move on to the next adventure.......

It always amazes me how affordable cruising is. We spent two days in the heart of Sydney with a cost of maybe one hundred dollars. Our accommodation was to die for, anchored beside the Sydney Bridge and the Opera House in Farm Bay. Captain Cook spent a month anchored right were we were. We were surrounded by a beautiful park and found a lovely dingy dock to tie our dingy to at the public pool. Beside the public pool a sleek new public bus waited to take us down town. We visited Circular Key, the Rocks, explored wonderful old pubs and explored the Opera House. We could have splurged and paid one hundred and sixty dollars each for a ticket to see a performance in the nose bleed section of the Opera House but didn't know anything about the performances that were on.
Sydney is very busy. We had a constant stream of sightseeing boats come by to see the Opera house from the water and on several occasions I heard their PA say something about the international yachts anchored in the bay. I thing we were the only one, easily identified by our large Canadian flag. On the evening before we left a large barge anchored right in front of us. It was a floating restaurant with a sixty passenger tender tied up along side. They were there to watch the fire works which happened as the cruise ships depart just after sun set. We had ring side seats.
After a leisurely morning we departed, sailing out of Sydney harbor at noon. The wind was light from the south east and because the coast slopes in to the west we were able to close hall it down the coast to Port Hacking bypassing Botany Bay. I didn't expect anything at Port Hacking but again was pleasantly surprised by the clear water, the golden sand beach, a courtesy mooring ball and a pleasant town of Bundeena. I could have spent a week there wandering the sand dunes, swimming in the clear water and exploring the surrounding villages. Unfortunately we were on a time line. We needed to get Periclees settled before we went home and so the next day we left early for Greenwell Point. The sun shone and the wind came up from the north giving us a good run down the coast past towns with interesting names like Woolongoong and Tom Thumb point. As planned we passed through the narrow entrance to Gteenwell Point at the beginning of a flood tide. When the tide runs in with the swell it smoothes and prevents the seas from breaking on the shallow water over the bar before the entrance.
Greenwell Point was once an island surrounded by a lagoon. Today most of the lagoon is now low land covered with mangroves and farm land. The river has maintained a deep channel behind the berm of Seven Mile Beech. We tied to one of the courtesy mooring balls provided by the VMR. It is a very quiet place occupied by mostly retirees. On the afternoon of the day we arrived we managed to rent a car, Noal and Jackie bought a car and we managed to arranged our bank accounts at the Westpac Bank. The next day we moved some of our stuff to be stored at Noel's daughter's Melanie, did some shopping, and bought the most amazing internet device from Telstra. After two days of mad activity I tried to remember when we arrived thinking we had been there for at least a week but the calendar said only two days.
I borrowed Noel's hookah, dove the boat, replaced some zincs, did some bottom cleaning and then took the rest of the day off. It is spring time in South Australia. Greenwell point is alive with the sound of parrots. There are thousands of Pink and Gray Galahs, sulphur crested cockatoos and lots of other exotic birds. One morning a flock of fledgling baby parrots flew over the water and landed in the rigging. They sat on the spreaders and clung to the halyards while squawking loudly. They got bored quickly and flew off to find some new adventures.
We did the same thing, we flew off back to Canada, to deal with aging loved ones, do some child minding and then hopefully to find new adventures, leaving Periclees in the capable hands of our good friends Noel and Jackie. We will miss her and remember the times on her as the most precious and exciting times of our lives.

It would have been easy to put Periclees on stands and head home from Bundaberg but it wasn't to be. For over a week the wind had consistently blown from the south. Until it would change we were stuck. We waited patiently for the weather and enjoyed the company of the other cruisers. Our, now good friends, Noel and Jackie of the Pywacket arrived. Noel, who is Australian, changed. I think he might have even had a slight American accent when we last talked to him in New Caledonia but when he hit Australian shores he immediately slipped back into his native tongue filled with, unknown to me, idioms. I often had to ask him to translate what he had last said. He also showed us how to use a barbie on a sunny day at the beach by cooking a host of sizzling sausages, lamb, shrimp, various vegetables and potatoes on the new and improved, public, electric barbecues. We drank white wine with a drop of cordial. Beer and spirits are more expensive than in Canada but drinkable wine can be found at less than three dollars a bottle.

One of the boats in our Point2Point rally, Friday Freedom, who we briefly encountered was later found to be trafficking some thirty seven million dollars worth of cocaine. We missed the drama of several dozen custom and police swarming all over the marina because we were sailing through the Sandy Straits on our way to Brisbane. Perhaps you heard about the drug bust on the international news?

It seems the weather is turned around this year. Normally the wind is from the north with occasional southerlies. This year it is opposite. The Sandy Straits are narrow passages between Fraser Island and the mainland starting at the head of Harvey Bay. They are only navigatable in a boat of our draft at high tide. I wore my brown trousers knowing what could happen when the fear generated by going aground at high tide and the thought of being stranded for a month in a mosquito infested swamp grips me. We slid through the narrow passages at times with less than a foot under our keel. No dramas but my nerves were shot when we finally dropped our hook off Pelican Bay behind Fraser Island. We had a lot of fun for three days waiting for a favorable wind. It's a beautiful place with pristine beaches stretching for dozen's of miles around. We visited Tin Can Bay and walked for miles on the white sandy beaches of Fraser Island. Finally there was a one day window to get to Brisbane. We had no trouble with Wide Bay bar and headed south with little wind. We motored most of the way and anchored in Maloolooba for the night. Thank God there was no wind because it was very tight in the very shallow anchorage. The next day we sailed and motored through the shoaly waters of Deception Bay to Scarborough Marina. Again we fell in love with the suburbs of Scarborough and Red cliff. They have tons of bicycle lanes and barbecues. One morning we rode our bicycles to a lovely park near the marina and made breakfast on a barbecue. Such opulence! We connected with our yacht broker, Anita Farine, who we found to be very professional, friendly and accommodating. Again we thought this was as far as we would go so we settled in to wait for a buyer. We invited our friends, Don and Bonnie s/v Minerva, for a visit, connected with a wonderful Canadian, Bruce, who was also there selling his boat, met Dave and Chrisy on an Australian boat named Kay and had lots of barbecues with these new and old friends. After a few days it became obvious we would not sell the boat at the end of the season in Brisbane. The boating season ends in November and Periclees would probably languish at the marina until we returned next September to the tune of more than five thousand dollars in mooring fees. We told our sad story to our friends, the Pywackets, and with their usual spirit of generosity and good will they suggested we bring Periclees south where the selling season was just beginning. There was a mooring ball available next to the one where they would keep Pywacket on. We felt very lucky and agreed to move the four hundred and fifty nautical miles south. What the heck! only another three nights at sea. Rolande had agreed to help mind the grand kids in Vancouver at the end of November so now we were on a schedule to get her on a plane before the deadline. We wanted to avoid the narrow shallow channels between Stadebroke Island and the mainland but as usual the wind blew from the south making it difficult sailing around Morton Island so we borrowed charts from Dave and Chrisy, I put my brown shorts on again and we headed south through the even more tricky shallow channels than the Sandy Straits. We made it all the way to Jacob's Well before we went aground. We got to know the wonderful people of the Volunteer Marine Rescue team at Jacob's Well...... An early evening drama of tow boats and kedged anchors with the fear of Periclees laying on her side like a beached whale. In the end we towed her off with the anchor I had set with two hundred feet of chain. The motor which drives the windless didn't have the power to pull us off and I didn't want to burn out the motor. In the end I found I could manually crank the windless. With the chain singing tight, Periclees' twenty tons slowly dragged into deeper water. The VMR guys led us down the channel and found us an anchoring spot. Early the next morning we headed down the channel to the next set of challenges. When we passed the VMR building three of the VMR guys came out and gave us a hearty wave. With over stimulated awareness we passed through the shoals on a rising tide competing for space with a giant red dredge. We made it to Bum's Bay (really, that is th name!)and anchored. It was like a bathtub with kids playing with toy boats, Seadoos, giant catamarans, racing powerboats all screaming around making waves so we moved along to quieter Runaway Bay.

The weather looked good for the next morning so we we left at first light. The run down the coast was the usual thunder storms, contrary winds, lumpy seas and general crap but we did have the South Australian current on out side. At times we were sustaining better than nine knots going to windward in a lump. After two nights we stopped in Port Stevens. We had the most beautiful day tied up to courtesy mooring balls in front of Nelson Bay. We waited there through another howling south wind. The weather guy said there was a twelve hour window with light northerly through the night so we took it and arrived in Sydney harbor at three AM. It is overcast and miserable but we are anchored in Farm Bay next to the Opera House and the Sydney bridge.

I loved the inland waterways of Fiji, the uncluttered spaces with the smooth water. We left Savusavu with our friends Don and Bonny of Minerva. We took pictures of each other sailing. I loved the picture Don took of us sailing close hauled across the Koro sea. Periclees was a misty cloud of sails clawing forward, calmly gaining against the wind. It is strange how a boat moves forward to windward. Bernoulli knew the principle and applied it to the wing of an aircraft. There is always worry when sailing and I think I worry too much but then and again, we normally have comfortable passages. We anchored in bays so quiet we could hear the fridge running and each other breathing. I love the quiet. The reefs were scary because the charts were off but in the middle of the day, with the naked eye, we could see in detail the reefs and coral heads to be avoided. I felt like we were leaving the promised land too quickly. Fiji hadn't worn me down. The wind carried us quickly to New Caledonia. We had a series of record breaking days of one hundred and sixty plus miles a day. Four nights at sea and on the fifth day we were entering the reef surrounding New Caledonia. We rafted with our good friends, Jackie and Noel of s/v Pyewackett, for two nights before heading for Noumea. New Caledonia is a series of rolling green hills, covered with scrub, punctuated with Canadian owned open pit mines extracting the rich nickel content of the volcanic rock. Where the rivers meet the sea palm trees grow amongst forests of Column pines almost the same as Norfork pines. It is a fertile land populated by a people we hadn't encountered before, Melanesian people. I found them to be darker than Polynesian with tight curly hair. Their ancestors had an obsession with the penis as evidenced by ancient carvings. The men in full formal dress only wore an elongated penis sheath (reaching to mid calf) attached with a thong around their waist. I think I would feel uncomfortable with this mode of dress. Time went by quickly as we visited museums and rode our bicycles through up-scale suburbs covered with multi-storied European looking high class apartment buildings. The beaches were covered with pink European bodies and the sea was filled with wind and kite surfers. After staying in the crowded city of Noumea we sailed north and discovered silent empty bays just ten nautical miles away. We anchored in perfect comfort and walked in the green hills on seldom used tracks. The air was a welcoming perfect temperature, fresh and cool stimulating the senses, giving me a sense of well being. I love the quiet with a breeze moving the grass like the ripples on ocean waves. We waited for the wind from the east. Finally I could wait no longer. We left out friends, the Pyewacketts, on Tuesday and sailed out into the undulating seas. The wind was against us. We bravely set our sails and beat to weather. The only difference from one day to the next was the heel of the boat. Periclees doesn't roll when going to windward, she bounces on the waves she hits. Rolande and I both felt sick for the first few days going to windward but we adjusted. Our appetites came back and we wedged ourselves in the galley and cooked gourmet meals with the food we needed to eat before we arrived at the quarantine dock in Bundaberg, Australia. Even the winds from the west petered out so we motored. We needed to avoid Chesterfield reef and Cato island but the currents carried us to the north. It was frustrating going against the currents and making only two to three knots but finally after we got beyond Cato island the current lifted us towards Australia at a knot or two. For a day the wind filled in from the north west and we sailed close on a tight reach. The north west wind brought giant cumulo-nimbus clouds and a series of intense thunderstorms with a lot of electrical activity. We put our computers and GPSs in the oven and in the middle of the night during a particularly intense electrical period I climbed out on the foredeck in forty knot winds, getting continuously blinded by the lightning and pelted by large balls of hail, with a pair of jumper cables. I attached the jumper cables to the mast and threw the free end into the sea. I didn't see any strikes in the sea but imagined someone finding Periclees on a reef with the remains of our charred bodies suspended in our harnesses. There is one positive thing about the gut wrenching fear I suffer from at times like these and that is the sense of being very alive. The horror stories about Australian bureaucracy, we had heard from mostly Australians, proved to be wrong. We had done our homework and prepared the boat by eating restricted foods and cleaning the boat thoroughly before we arrived. We followed all the protocols, informed the agencies by email 96 hours in advance of our arrival, notified the marina and flew our Q flag. We sailed up the river in the dark, finding the charts to be perfect and the anchorage welcoming with a good bottom. In the morning the marina called us and asked us to bring Periclees to the quarantine dock. When Rolande put the boat in forward gear there was a long pause before it engaged. Sarah did our quarantine inspection. She was very friendly and didn't take our honey and some other items we thought she would take. She only had a tiny bag and told us of other boats where wheel barrow loads of food had to be removed. Ross and Trudy did our customs and immigration. After going over our boat they asked us about our intentions with regards to selling our boat in Australia. They informed us they had been reading our blog and noted we were thinking of selling it. We told them we hadn't made up our minds yet and so reluctantly they gave us two weeks, when the boat would be under Customs control, to make up our minds. We appreciated their friendly, diplomatic and professional manner. We moved the boat off the quarantine dock and again I noticed, to my horror, the transmission slipping. We had no trouble getting her into a permanent slip. I totally ignored the transmission and went ashore where we were greeted by Judy, a volunteer from the yacht club. She gave us a bag of goodies and welcomed us to Australia. Over the next week we attended many fun yacht club occasions met wonderful people like Leslie the organizer of the point2point rally, Richard who runs the Chandlery and did our importation boat valuation, Jean who gave us tons of advice about the local area, Fred who was the voice behind the radio, John, Grant and Wayne who served us drinks and became good friends. We stayed in Burnett Heads for two weeks and largely due to these wonderful people totally enjoyed ourselves. We got our bicycles out and went shopping. It was so nice to be in this lovely country. Although the local IGA didn't have miracle-whip it was clean and had everything else we wanted. The area is perfect for cycling with lots of bicycle paths along the sea shore and largely flat roads through the countryside. It was the next morning when I decided to test the transmission. I couldn't even get it into forward gear. My heart sank. What was I to do without a working transmission? Over the next few days I removed the gear box and, through the local mechanic, found a specialist near Brisbane who would look at it. He was very reluctant. He told me he was old, very busy, and said there were only three people on the east coast of Australia who would look at my particular transmission. He added, "it was a lot of work to set up". I decided to rent a car because to courier the gear box to Brisbane would cost seventy dollars each way. We picked up the car on Tuesday and that night the local hotel was offering a two for one for the point2point rally members. The bus was full so we offered to take extra people in out rental car. Talk about serendipity, Brian one of the people we gave a ride to happened to mention to me that he is a Kiwi marine diesel mechanic. He told me he had repaired at least two hundred gear boxes like mine in his twenty-five years of owning his business. He offered to come over and take a look. The next day he came by, examined it, told me it was like new. He contacted the person who had bought his business in NZ to get some specifications and came back the next day with his micrometer. We put in a couple of shims, re-assembled it. I installed it and at this point it is working perfectly. Brian suggested I re-pitch my prop and I found out I was probably using the wrong automatic transmission fluid. The specifications say use type-F. Today all is well. Since the transmission repair we have been having fun riding our bicycles around the beautiful sea side, going to the market in Bundaberg and eating pies and drinking schooners of beer. This morning we got up early to take pictures of the kangaroos in the neighboring field. The weather looks good to go to Brisbane on Tuesday. We will attempt to go in behind Fraser Island on a high tide.

We have completed our South Pacific adventure!! We clocked some 8000 nautical miles (14,800kms) which is 1/3 of the way around the world. Whew! It was an amazing experience and I feel so blessed to have been able to do this!! Thank you to my amazing boat building/captain/husband. Some moments were better than others, for sure!! But I never feared for my life....good. Angus always says the planning for and the memories of any adventure are always so much better than actually doing it. He is right. Our memories of this one will get better each time we recount them.

Our last trip took a full week. The winds and currents were against us most of the time! One day we only made 60 nautical miles to the good what with zig zagging into the wind!! As we neared Australia I saw a big shark circling our boat and then about 20 miles out a 5 foot long snake wiggled past us! Poisonous, I am sure! But where was he going? Then the dolphins came by for a frolic and a "welcome to our waters".

The transmission of the main engine was slippping a bit at the end and we actually tied up to the dock and it gave up the ghost. YIKES. this dock is 4 miles up the river which has a strong current and we could have been in very serious trouble if the engine had failed us even one mile before it did. So Angus has one more major Fix on Periclees.

Check in procedures were very efficient and painless. Now we are visiting mechanics and machine shops. But I am sure Angus will get this under control soon and we will explore a bit of Australia before we fly home at the end of November.

Well, it appears that Winlink is working now! So I am able to post a blog entry! YEA!! This email at sea is amazing and wonderful....when it works and it has worked very well for us right up until this last little while.

We are sitting in a quiet a little bay about 10 km's north of the city of Noumea on New Caledonia. I sure do like what we have seen of this country. The main island is the same shape and a little bit smaller than Vancouver Island. Most of the land is arable, unlike Vancouver island which has that very high and inhospitable Mountain range in the middle. So the population here is much higher...I think. I have not checked the numbers. I do wish we had more time here. Maybe it is worth a return trip. Actually, in retrospect we realize we spent too much time in French Polynesia (Marquesis and Bora Bora) It really got so much better after that.

We are here with our Australian friends, Jackie and Noel on s/v Pye Wackett, which is a very good thing! Noel makes me laugh so hard with his dry sense of humour. Laughter is good for the body and soul!! So I must be doing "good" these days!!

We have a 6 day trip to Australia ahead of us. So we are trying to predict the weather for every day for the next week. Needless to say we do not want to be caught in bad weather and seas but neither do we want No wind. Also we cannot arrive on a weekend because Immigration and their mates charge about $200 in over time fees to check us in on the weekend. The fees are $220 without out time fees. So that is quite enough. Oddly enough, New Caledonia has no fees for boats to check in or out???

Yesterday was sunny and hot and we went for a hike over the hill through prickly scrub bush....who's idea was this?? Then I jumped in the ocean for a bit of snorkeling. The visibility was only about 12 feet so that was not very good. All the lovely fish that we usually see are down there but the numbers are down in this particular bay...the turbid water??

Today it is raining!! with thunder and lightening off in the distance. Angus is studying the weather faxes and he thinks tomorrow will be as good a day to leave as any. We are a little anxious to get on to Australia and get Periclees settled before we fly home. We are going initially to Bundaberg because we are part of a rally. But we will quickly get our selves down to Brisbane where we will leave Periclees with the boat broker.