Off to Australia - Arrival and Inward Clearance
24 October 2018 | 24 45.6'S:152 23.3'E, Bundaberg Port Marina
As expected (eg, hoped for) we arrived Bundaberg in th evening. Unfortunately the E/NE winds filled in late, so we didn't get as much time sailing as we had hoped for, putting our arrival after dark. We did get to see a great sunset as we were approaching the coast - Australia is pretty flat where we are (northern Queensland). As we approached the cardinal mark for the channel, I felt like we were on an airplane coming in for a night landing. We had green lights marking the right side of the channel (Australia is green right returning - not red right returning like the US), red lights marking the left side of the channel, blue lights as ranges (leading lights to line us up in the middl e of the channel, white lights from the light house, and yellow lights from several cardinal marks. And we had 10-15kts of wind behind us, and were riding an incoming tidal current of 1 kt or so. We were asked to anchor out (we arrived outside of the marina hours) and call the marina the next morning for guidance on our inward clearance to Australia. We found the anchorage small, crowded, dark, and oh yeah, ther was that current and wind I mentioned. As I called to Cindy to take the helm while I went forward to ready the anchor, she shot me one of those looks that said "I'm not comfortable with what you are asking me to do!" We could not get comfortable with the first anchoring position that was suggested to us by another boat, and tried another area that seemed less crowded. After we got anchored we saw why it was less crowded - we were up next to a bouy that said - no anchoring, and unlike New Caledonia, the sign was in a language that I could read and understand. I promptly made the assumption that they were talking about no anchoring on the other side of the sign - not the side we were on - at that point in time. About 30 minutes after anchoring, the tidal current shifted and we swang around the other direction. How we didn't hit the no anchoring buoy is a mystery to me, but we never did. Even so, I stayed up most of the night on anchor watch to make sure we didn't end up on the rocks. Cindy reported a pleasant nights sleep.
The next morning the Marina staff got on the radio and developed a list of all the boats that were waiting to clear in. The list topped out around 6-7 boats I believe. We were the second boat to be called to up anchor and move to our assigned slip in the marina. We were met by marina staff who took our dock lines welcomed us to Australia and reminded us that we were not allowed to get off the boat onto the dock untill we had completed our clearance. Several hours later the Australian BorderForce Officers arrived at the boat and came aboard to begin our Customs/Immigration clearance process. They were very polite and professional. When they saw we were from Texas, they immediately asked how many guns we had to declare! About an hour later, the Bio-security Officer arrived. She was also very personable and professional. There are a standard set of questions that they ask - like, do we have any pets on board, any plants, and oh yeah, did anyone die on the passage! She bagged up all the food that we couldn't keep, but must have felt sorry for me and suggested that I keep my sausages and ham for a big lunch! She looked over things and convinced that we weren't bringing any restricted substances or other critters into the country said we were cleared out of quarantine, but that they would have to come back next week to perform the timber inspection where they look for termites. So, the Q-flag has come down, the Australian Coutesy Flag has gone up in it's place, we can get off the boat and set foot on Australian soil, but - we still need to be inspected next week to make sure our fiberglass, composite boat doesn't have termites!