Aurora

Aurora
Aurora - the adventure begins...

Sunday, August 20, 2017

We’ve crossed the Pacific – Hello Australia


Just in case anyone is keeping score we are half way round the world.  We said farewell to the Pacific when we crossed the Great Barrier Reef at the finish line for leg 7.   AURORA took a first place on leg 6 from Fiji to Vanuatu and took another first sailing leg 7 from Vanuatu to Australia.  In the first 7 legs AURORA has placed 5 times – not bad considering we are not racers and are fairly non-competitive.  We did hit some great wind (19 to 26 knots continuous for 4 days in the middle of leg 7) and never went under 8 knots and spent a lot of time in the 9’s and even a little in the 10’s and except for day 1 we were reefed down and thus not pushing too hard.  We are told that according to the ARC site AURORA is somehow in first place in our class at the moment – I’m not sure we believe that but it’s not as important as arriving alive!

We entered the great barrier reef just after sunset on July 25th, at slack low tide and about half an hour into the Hydrographers Passage we had a 3 knot tail current on a rising tide pushing us along so we were screaming along at 11 knots in pitch black.  The issue was a 20 to 23 knot head wind working against the opposing and building current which kicked up 4 to 7 foot high standing waves which we could not see so we were crashing up and down thru those,  as demonstrated below by NORTH (but without sails) in 5 foot standing waves experienced while shooting a reef in the Society Islands - Up!:



 and 3 seconds later Down! 




North did that up/down thing for about 5 minutes.  AURORA did it for about 3 hours except we were in bigger waves on a heavier boat.  The foredeck was awash most of the time often burying the bow and taking waves 2 feet up the Bimini wind shield – yet our cockpit stayed dry as the wind was right on our nose.  It was like a 3 hour Disney ride in the dark.  It gets your heart pumping.  Luckily we were back in civilization and the reefs are all very well marked with bright lights and yes, they matched our chart plotter reference points exactly so all we had to do was stay awake.  3 Hours up the passage and we turned the corner heading to the port of Mackay with 20 knots of wind on our beam. Captain Ken went down like a ton of bricks, having not slept in 40 hours (yes had some breaks but hard to actually sleep!), and First Mate Eilo took the helm and screamed along for the rest of the night shift.  Captain Ken was awakened just before sunrise with Eilo banging on the traveler with a winch handle.  So Ken shot up to the cockpit to assess the imminent danger.  Eilo was minding her own business, watching a warship on maneuvers with their latest course, on our AIS, predicting a broadside collision in less than 5 minutes and then a humpback whale jumped clean out of the water in front of her and came down with a monstrous splash.  She had no idea there were whales inside the reef.  The banging was to share the excitement.  We saw another pair of humpbacks a few hours later.   Whale excitement aside captain Ken decided he better call the warship Canterbury before rounding up, turning at her, to allow her to pass safely in front of AURORA so he got on the VHF and hailed the ship and they very smartly came back and indicated they saw us but they were already altering course heading for further maneuvers.  So we survived yet again and headed for the Mackay harbor and the clearing into Australia procedures.  One issue we were aware of, but was undersold to the whole WARC fleet, was the 2.5 liter alcohol limit per person which the Aussies take seriously.  Well, the Russian boat ARABELLA, who got in the day before, had about 100 bottles of wine and god only knows how much vodka in their stores and when they learned they would have to turn it over to the authorities hosted a consume all the alcohol party on the customs dock in front of the customs surveillance cameras.  They shared almost all that alcohol with the other 5 boats who had arrived, but had not yet cleared in, and they went ‘til about 3 in the morning.  They could not finish it all but gave it a good run.  We saw the carnage the next day mostly in the form of burgundy colored eyes and telltale hangover moaning.  Another great example of ARC supporting ARC.  A few days later it was ARABELLA’s owner Andrey’s birthday and he hosted, with his skipper Sergey, a barbeque and more vodka and cocktails on the pontoon – an excellent session – this ARC is really gelling.  Sergey is in the Rasta hat on the left and Andrey is to his right in the same collared shirt and the light colored hat:




A few thoughts about the Pacific.  It seems more like a big pond than the Atlantic does in that everyone talks about the big pacific swells and weather forecasters predict them, their direction, period and height but that is a load of nonsense 90% of the time.  The waves are usually coming from at least 5 or 6 distinct directions and with different heights and periods.  The result is a continuous confused sea… a real pain to sail through comfortably unless you can steer to some sort of reach and have enough wind to keep the boat on a heel.  My gut feel is the Pacific is so big that at any one time there can be 3 or 4 or even 5 pacific storms and even thought they are far apart they all send their waves and then there are the 21,000 islands which reflect those random waves as well as the shore lines of the ringing continents which provide additional wave reflection providing confused ramdomness.  We are happy the Pacific is done for us.

The further west you get in the Pacific the countries, in general, seem to get poorer and poorer compared to America or Europe.  By the time we got to Vanuatu most of the islands we visited did not have shops or stores or markets.  Luckily we knew that would be the case so we had enough provisions on board to get us to AU.  Some of the more populated islands had markets where you could scoop fresh veg, fish and chicken.  Here’s Eilo on the hunt for some veg and fruit in Port Villa, the capital of Vanuatu:




Rather than using plastic bags for hauling their market purchases home they weave bags from palm fronds.  The rolled up banana leaves are used both as plates (the leaves are used as liners for woven plates)




and also for rolling stuff like fish and veg or chicken and veg  in with spices and cooking the roll ups directly on hot coals of a pit fire.  The ultimate in recyclables:




The ARC hosted a tour to a nearby beach at 5 in the morning as the small kangaroos know as wallabies go down to check out the surf every morning (no one knows why???):



And they are fairly friendly – Eilo made friends with this one:




That Roo thought they were such good friends that she tried to entice Eilo to dance with her:




We rented a car to visit the Eungella national park to do a bit of trekking in the local rain forest:




… and seek out the illusive duck billed platypus.




Who knew they had parrots (actually a lorikeet) down under?...  as well a few other types of birds we have not seen before.












Finally we found a decent chandlery in Mackay and scored some bulletproof line for our lazy jack up-haul, which blew out 3 days from AU.  We managed to install that freeing us up to go island hopping up the inside of the great barrier reef so off we went first to Brampton Island.  On the way up we encountered at least a dozen humpback whales. 



One was playing – swimming upside down simultaneously thrashing the water with both of its huge fins (probably 15 feet long):




The bay we anchored in had a lovely resort until last April when it got hit full force by a hurricane which really trashed the place – they are in the process of rebuilding.  We had sundowners on AURORA with Joe and Barbara from ALTAIR and before we went to ALTAIR for dinner we heard whales blowing very close by but it was pitch dark so we could not see them.   ALTAIR heard the whales singing through the hull of their boat that night because there was no wind and it was very quiet.  Just after a brilliant sunrise (Barbara from ALTAIR snapped this pic of AURORA)…




…we took off for Whitehaven Beach on Whitsunday Island. Whitehaven beach is a fine white sand beach a few miles long which was voted one of the best beaches in the South Pacific by Trip Advisor.  This time we encountered about 15 more whales - this time traveling in several small pods.




We got caught by surprise when one large humpback surfaced and eyeballed us from about 40 feet away.   He had a lot of big bumps in a uniform pattern on his head – very strange to be looking eye to eye with a big guy.  He let us pass in peace.  Whitehaven beach has some of the most perfectly uniform fine white sand we have ever seen. It is a real playground for those who can figure out how to get there being about 20 miles off shore.  There were about a dozen yachts, 4 charter boats, 2 sea planes and 3 helicopters spread across about 5 miles of beach.  It’s a national park so, sadly there were no bars.  Dryly we walked the beach and hiked a trail to a lookout from which one could see many of the other Whitsunday Islands.  Our friends on Tula Mhor caught up with us the next day and we had sundowners on their boat and diner on AURORA.  We hoisted anchor the following morning and in 3 to 6 knots of wind sailed at a painfully slow 2 knots to Nara inlet on Hook Island.  The Nara inlet is about 2 miles deep and very narrow with 100 to 600 foot steep hills on each side making it feel like a Norwegian Fjord… a very quiet anchorage:




We ran into our German and English Friends on a 56 foot elegant Swan called CESARINA at the end of the inlet and they invited us for drinks and dinner and off we went for more fun.  The next morning we hiked up to check out some fairly old aboriginal cave paintings – the experts think these represent turtle shells – they look like hot air balloons to us (dating them to about 1970 instead of 1790); who knows? 




We stayed for 2 days and the second day OWL, SANDVITA, TULLA Mhor joined us.  So we all had sundowners and diner on “The OWL” and more drinks (of course) and stories – many of their recent whale experiences.  We all decided to head to Butterfly Bay on the north end of hook island the next day as it is reported to have excellent snorkeling.  Wind was good so we got there in no time and went for a snork.  The coral and tropical fish were good but the water was not as crystal clear as many places we have visited so the snorking was cut short.  Are you surprised that we burned the saved time consuming a few cocktails – so the PAW (party around the world) continued.   Next day we sailed off to Gloucester Island and we moored at their ECO Resort.  The mini fleet headed in to the resort to sample the local brew and discuss most things sailing - solving all our problems.   But nobody was taking minutes so all that precious knowledge was lost.  Back out to our boats for a scrub before dindin and then back to the resort for an unexpected surprise, one of the best meals we have had yet on this ARC adventure.  The next morn we took off for Magnetic Island, so called by Captain Cook (I think there are very few places we have sailed to this trip which we have beaten that Cook guy to) because of the huge boulders all over the island which he mistakenly thought had high concentrations of iron and were throwing his ship’s compass off by a few degrees.   Magnetic Island is Aussie vacationland with lots of bars and restaurants lining the beaches so we anchored off one of those and engaged in some R&R Aussie style for a few days.  Of course one needs to check out the local croc farm – Eilo liked this baby salty:




But she liked this Koala better:




And yes you can find them in the Eucalyptus trees around the island, mostly doing what they do best – sleeping:




We took a few buses and ferries and visited the mainland city of Townsville.  A nice looking city/town but it was eerily devoid of people, which seemed strange as we there on a Saturday.  We later found out that a lot of the local mining industry had shut down, which was their major industry, and many of the inhabitants had fled to find work elsewhere.   Enough vacationing – we needed to head back to the real world so off we went to Cairns – a small city on the Queensland coast an overnight sail away, if you have wind – but we had none so it was an overnight motor.  We slowed down for the last few miles to get to the marina at close to high tide as one of the other fleet boats had radioed in that they had hit bottom on the way in.   Our autopilot hydraulic ram and the hydraulic drive both experienced slow death while sailing up the Whitsunday Islands so we have been hand steering AURORA since leaving Mackay.  (Actually it was a really slow death which Ken predicted and so he has been nursing it along and we had to hand steer from time to time but then it really died!) So we are stuck in Cairns for about a week while we get a new hydraulic pump and get the ram rebuilt.  We are kind of disappointed, as this will put us into Darwin a few days later than we planned.  Tim, who is helping us with this hydraulic refit, knowing our disappointment, laid this bit of Aussie style philosophy on us…  “Dad comes home and asks his son what would you prefer?  Your mom to die or your dog?  His son thinks hard about that and finally answers I would prefer my dog to die.  His dad responds – Well you’re in luck.”  It could always be worse.  Lucky for us Cairns is a great place to be stuck in.  It is a very lively, thriving, well looked after, well-planned and picturesque town.  For instance to keep the locals and tourists from being eaten by sharks or crocs or stung by any number of types of poisonous jelly fish, they built a huge lagoon (a massive pool) with sand beaches: 




There are lovely parks with gardens:




and walkways  with Banyan trees which are beautifully up-lit:






 throughout the city and along the sea front with lots of city sculptures:




botanic gardens:




and many gas fired barbeques




accompanied by large picnic tables.   They must pay huge taxes in Aussieland to pay for all this free to the public stuff.  There are hundreds of bars and restaurants  




and clubs providing the variety of foods and entertainment one could find in a town like NYC as well as a few museums in case one needs a cultural enrichment fix.  The ARC mini fleet took one of the barbeque areas over for an evening of fun and frivolity and now we can cross “grilling shrimp on the barbee” Aussie style off the bucket list.  The local shrimp are huge and so are the boats in their shrimping fleet – which you must keep an eye on as you sail around here as it would be a bad thing to end up in one of their shrimping nets.  As we were walking the town, we noticed ahead a white sidewalk around the public library.  As we neared the white we heard commotion and plentiful birdlike sounds in the trees above and we realized the white on the sidewalk was a layer of guano.  It being close to dusk we further realized and spotted the source above – maybe 20,000 fruit bats getting ready to fly




 These are big guys with 2.5 foot wingspans.




When they take flight it kind of reminds us of a scene out of the Wizard of OZ.  Hopefully our autopilot will be fixed tomorrow and we can head off to Darwin – about 8 days sail away.  Might be able to report more from there.

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