From Australia 2015

From Australia 2015
We're finally in to new territory and the pace has picked up somewhat which is great. Plus we've had some fun. I forgot to mention that when we were putting the jib back on when we were getting the boat back together to sail off, the luff tore from sun damage. Not fun. It is our oldest sail and we're planning to replace it once we get to Thailand so we had to scramble to get a sailmaker to replace the luff tape to tide us through this season. A really nice local guy from Switch Sails made the repair in a jiffy and even picked up & returned the sail to us. We've been using it so far with no problems so that was a success. Then, on the day we arrived in Bundaberg to avoid an approaching cold front, we were pulling in after dark through a long channel that is lit up like a runway. We'd just made it through the channel and were fixing to put the anchor down when the overheat alarm went off on the engine. Not fun! We shut it down and dropped the hook, glad for good holding in sand. We looked around with a flashlight but couldn't see how we'd lost the antifreeze so decided to figure it out in the AM. And we did, it was the hose that attaches to the hot water heater that had become loose. THANK GOODNESS! I can't tell you how much I love this engine. So we refilled the antifreeze (now we don't have to change it this year) and then spent the day doing errands and taking one last walk around Burnett Heads on the lovely path that helped us make our first impression of Australia when we rolled in last October. Saw a few roos too. As an added bonus, when we showed up at Bundaberg Port Marina to get fuel, the manager Geoff remembered us from October since I'd written a positive review on google after such a great experience and he comp'ed us a free night or cash! How nice! We took him up on it. When we went to the IGA supermarket to pick up some groceries, the manager came up to us asking if we needed a ride back to the marina. This always surprises us because we don't see how we look any different than anyone else in the store but Jon always jokes "we're being labeled again", just because it is funny. What a nice thing though. If I had a dollar for every nice comment, conversation or gesture that we've experienced here we'd be rich. Speaking of labels & groceries, we notice that there's a good deal of Aussie pride in the foods we eat. We don't just eat carrots for dinner, they're Australian Carrots, we don't just have milk or cheese, they are Australian Milk & Australian Cheese. It says so all over the package. Just little meaningless things we notice...
From Australia 2015

That night, the cold south wind came and it was in the 60's in the cabin so rather than BBQ the chicken we'd bought we baked it with the windows shut! Then we got up at 5am and motored out the runway channel headed the 55 miles to Lady Musgrave Island, which has a coral encircled lagoon. It was a beautiful sail and we got there in time to toss the dinghy in and explore the little island. It is park and the interior really belongs to the birds- mostly noddies, terns and banded rails which are flightless birds. It has a park trail which winds it's way through lovely trees filled with birds above & below. Then the next morning, we did our first scuba dive of the season- to clean the bottom! It wasn't too bad actually; the prop was covered in barnacles but the hull just had some easy to remove slime. We refilled our tanks and then went out for a real dive outside the pass that afternoon but it was just OK. What was better was the snorkel we did the next day inside the
lagoon. Unimpressed with the dive, I'd put away the camera in prep for the overnighter we planned to do so we didn't have our camera with us. It never fails! That's when we see something we've never seen before- this time 2 octopus in two holes right beside each other, both standing up looking at us. One was doing some housekeeping moving rubble out of his hole and the other was just sitting there doing nothing. At one point they "held hands" which Jon says was probably not friendly but I thought it looked pretty neighborly. Either way, we could've gotten this in one frame and it would've been really funny because we've never seen two at the same time and we never will again! While at Lady Musgrave, we met up with a boat Aquamante who we crossed the Pacific with. It was nice to see familiar faces. We both set out that afternoon for Great Keppel Island, 100 miles away.
From Australia 2015
The overnight to Great Keppel was one of those passages that has strong wind on the nose (not forecast), lightening of wind so that motoring into it is comfortable, then getting slammed after dark with a windshift to 25-30 necessitating 2nd reef, needing to get Jon up to put in another reef, get boat all set, then wind settles in at 20 and we have a great remaining passage arriving at sun-up. We had a big brekkie, tossed the dinghy in and went ashore to hike for the day. We never really got the ownership of the island figured out but it is filled with great hiking trails. The end we were anchored at has a small eco-resort run by a man named Carl & his wife and he has lived on the island his entire life. We met him by happenstance when inquiring about the trailhead and he gave us the best orientation to the island we could ask for. His wife makes all the signage for the trails and carves out pics & poems into directional stones along the path. But the best part were all the chairs they've set up along the way. It was a gorgeous day, we hiked a long way and we were tired from not sleeping much the night before so every time we came upon a set of chairs, we sat down to take a load off. At one point, we walked into a fairy tale of butterflies. Blue monarch (not sure if this is what they're called) butterflies must've be having a mating ritual or end of life thing because there were many thousands of them flitting around and resting in trees along the path. Approach a bush with hundreds upon it and it would start snowing blue stained glass windows- at least that's what they looked like to us. I don't guess we'll ever see anything like this again. We got a video because static pics don't show the butterflies which seems odd. When we got back to the boat late in the afternoon, Jon asked if I wanted to go for a little snorkel since it was such a calm, lovely day. Well yeah man! There's nothing I like more than eeking every last minute out of a day! We took a recommendation from our buddy Carl and snorked on a rocky point. It was just OK but there were some nice fish, a few nudibranchs, rays and corals. The water was COLD but it was nonetheless a perfect topper for a perfect day.
From Australia 2015

One of the many hikes we did followed the spine of a small mountain range that crossed the island to a point with a lighthouse. This was the light that I'd seen the previous night on my watch from over 15 miles away. We were headed straight for it of course. It always amazes us how when we walk up to some of these automated lighthouses and see what wattage the bulb is that actually lights the thing, how it can make a beam that shows nearly 20 miles away. It is all about concentration of light on the lens I guess. This walk had some stunning views with feral goats posing in the foreground.
From Australia 2015

From Australia 2015

Jon really loved this island as did I mainly because there was practically no one on it, it was extremely beautiful with so many trails and it had a great anchorage. There were at least 25 boats there and room for more. Carl has set up a campfire area just for the yachties and we got to hang out there some meeting new faces. One was an especially nutty dog named Pebbles. He appeared possessed, if not almost too smart and he loved digging for things in the sand. He spent most of his time head down in a hole he'd dug and you could egg him on to dig faster if you talked to him. Go get it boy! Whatever it is you're looking for...

From Australia 2015
From Australia 2015

We decided to continue on today because we want to cram in as much as possible with the time that's left. We did a boisterous sail to a stopover anchorage and will do another longer daysail tomorrow. The wind isn't really cooperating in that it's blowing harder than we want making for big seas and nail biter approaches to places but we hope to see some improvement in seas anyway as we move up the coast where the great barrier reef becomes more continuous acting as a huge wave break. We're all over that!

Well better stop here. I wanted to mention that Tim on the sailboat Slick, who we left New England with 4 years ago in October 2011 and sailed together with as far as Tahiti, has just completed his circumnagivation and is back in Boston. Woohoo! And since we don't have any internet, I'm asking my friend Charlie to post this for me.
From Australia 2015

Link to Butterfly Video on Picasa:


https://picasaweb.google.com/lh/photo/fcJr4byBqK4amIshrIbwDdMTjNZETYmyPJy0liipFm0?feat=directlink