Australia September 26
With our departure date from Australia fast approaching, Ellen and I grudgingly got ready to head out from Vanuatu; we were having a great time there, loved the diving, and were not keen to move on just yet. Nevertheless, we decided our night dive would be the last and began preparing for sea. We had heard horror stories about Australian customs. They would take all of the food we had on the boat; if the bottom wasn’t immaculate they would force us to haul and re-paint at our own expense, and if we had not filled out the paper work perfectly, including sending out advanced notification, we would be fined some outrageous amount. With that in mind we purchased only the most necessary supplies, jumped into the murky water and scrubbed the bottom, and made certain we had sent our notice of arrival (and received a response).
Our departure from Vanuatu, after only one false start, was unspectacular. The breeze was light and the current against us. For a few hours at least we made little to no progress against the houses and flora on the adjacent islands. About three days into the trip, however, the wind decided to compensate for its previous fluky behavior and came up from the southeast with a purpose. The seas did their bit to ensure we did not get too comfortable as well. On top of the primary southeasterly swell we had a southerly swell coming up from the southern ocean and meeting us square on the beam. We opted to take it fairly easy and didn’t push the boat too hard averaging around 5 to 6 knots and did the 1200 mile trip in nine and a half days. Bert, our Dutch friend aboard Sea Beryl, did the same trip in eight days hitting eight knots frequently. As he has raced the OSTAR (trans Atlantic single handed) four times, this did not surprise us.
The time we spent in Australia prior to flying home was spent primarily getting the boat ready for its seven month stay at Yorkey’s Knob marina, just north of Cairns in Queensland. On the off chance someone from that area reads this post I will not say anything too critical, but we were certainly struck by how stereotypically suburban the Cairns Northern Beaches are. Ellen and I did manage to escape for one day to the Barren Gorge national park. The park is a wonderful, if perhaps a small, protection against the encroachment of strip malls and housing developments on the mountains just inland of the Queensland coastline. Sadly, however, the critters there have been cut off from their traditional feeding grounds in the mangrove swamps which has decreases their numbers drastically. Among the hardest hit is the cassowary, a two meter tall flightless bird which, like most Australian wildlife, is best viewed from a safe distance.
On August 26th Ellen and I departed for the States where we will be for the winter, and Ellen will complete her degree at Yale in December. We plan to return to Cairns in April to continue sailing up inside the Great Barrier Reef and westward across the Indian Ocean.