Our good friend Tim, Alice’s
surgeon, pronounced the patient had survived the multiple operations and was
well on her way to recovery. After
dumping 2 more quarts of hydraulic oil in AURORA’s bilge Captain Ken decided - time
to find one final leak… and there it was.
Another cheap plastic hydraulic tubing connector… this time on the hydraulic reservoir, which
was conveniently placed such that the bucket or anything else stored beside it
hit the fitting and eventually loosened it.
Yup – the bucket is stored elsewhere now. Alice eventually burped out all remaining air
and is running smoothly. She was
invaluable on our 8 day passage to Darwin.
We could not stop anywhere as we were already late and the last boat. We had good wind going up the coast and made
that portion of the passage rapidly. There
is a ton of shipping traffic up and down the coast inside the barrier reef so
you always need to be on your game paying close attention. We passed an average of 10 ships per day. A long tradition stands of big ships
disliking sailing vessels in “their” shipping channels and sailing vessels
providing a sound basis for that dislike by doing stupid things. We tend to look at it this way… those ships
are many times larger than AURORA. If
one were to hit AURORA it would be of similar scale to an elephant crushing a gnat…
so we made every effort to stay out of their way – regardless of who has right
of way. Lucky most of the big ships
(except the Chinese coal carriers) hail you on VHF and state their intentions –
which is never to run you down – though we have heard some stories and seen
some pictures. Planned avoidance worked
very well. Reluctant Sailor – night time watches freaked me out until I got used
to it! You have reef on one side, land
on the other, flashing beacons to warn you of peril…then you have shipping
lanes and we have to stay on the edge of them out of the way of those large
vessels and sometimes the lanes divide and you have to get across them
quickly. You are watching lights on the
boats, lights on the shore, lights on the beacons….it is not restful! Keep in mind that the shipping lanes are only
marked on your charts so it isn’t as easy as driving down the road. And somehow the Captain slept while I did my
watch…trusting fellow!
We shot up 600 miles of reef
strewn Queensland coast by night and day.
Night was more terrifying as we had to take every short cut we could
which always put us in passages between reefs.
Many of our short cuts were not marked with channel markers as are the
main shipping channels. But captain Ken
had checked out our electronic charts in all places in the AU so far and
everything was as it should be and more importantly where is should be according
to the charts. So AUORA made it without
a scratch. We thought our steering
issues (remember Alice?) were behind
us. While shooting one of the reefs
Captain Ken was doing a little water pump maintenance in the engine compartment
and noticed the stainless steel steering cable was being cut through as it had
fallen off one of it’s many pulleys. Eilo
had to steer AURORA in a big circle so the Captain could get at the bad section
of cable and she had to wait for a large ship to pass before making that turn
allowing Capt K to cut away the broken strands of wire rope and wrapped the
remainder with duct tape and hoped it would last to Darwin. Lucky for us it did and we had that side of
the steering system replaced at Darwin.
By the time we get back to Newport RI we guess everything on AURORA will
be new or almost new.
One huge difference from most
of the shores we have passed thus far on the WARC is the coast of north Queensland
and the Northern Territories have no people, no buildings, no roads, no cell towers,
no nothing except for plenty of deserted white sand beaches between rocky coast
– for more than 1000 miles. So you want some
beachfront property? It appears there
are more than a few such opportunities along those coasts. The whales along the east coast must have a
deal with the dolphins who stick to the north coast which might go something
like this… “You stay out of my water and I will stay out of yours”. We saw no whales after rounding Cape York which
guards the southern end of the Torres Straights but we were accosted often by
dolphins off the north coast. Often up
to 100 of these critters around the boat:
A few even escorted us into
Darwin. We got this big spiel at the ARC
skippers briefing, about the final pass into Darwin which has some tricky reefs
and a very strong current running into your face so you have to hit the start
of that 64 mile pass around 7:00am when the tide is low and starting to
flood. We were late by about 2 hours but
found no problems getting thru. We got
out of the pass right at sunset with 20 miles left to get to Darwin and we did
not want to go into that port at night so we sucked in some sail and slowed
down. Eilo saw Darwin on the horizon so
chanced using her cell phone – as we had no cell signal for the last 7 days. Sure enough she had 3 bars so she called ARC
Rally Control in Darwin and they answered.
They said they thought we could come in at night if we wanted to chance
it, being the last boat, but they would check.
15 Minutes later she got a call back granting us permission to come in as
the Marina gate keeper agreed to stay on duty late for us but more importantly
there was a huge good bye party for some ARC friends, Mick & Helen
happening on the pontoon right at our future slip - Cheers Mic & Helen. That was the motivation we needed – having
not a drop of alcohol in the past 8 days.
So we dropped and stowed the sails in record time (as the wind was light)
and turned on the engine full blast and motored at 8 knots to Darwin. The issue is the tide in Darwin is 24 feet so
the Marina is protected by a sea gate. We
arrived at the ferry pier where we planned to meet the gate keeper. Word had spread that AURORA was
inbound. There were and handful of drunken
ARC sailors waiting and ready to help us in.
With-in seconds of tying up at the ferry pier we had at least 5 or 6 hammered
ARC heads on board plus one worried, sober, ARC staff member. Ken radioed the gate keeper who came late to
our pre-party and asked if we were OK to go in.
At that time we did not know what he meant but captain Ken gave that a
thumbs up anyway as we had lots of drunk sailors on board to help. So we all cast off and headed for this huge
hydraulic gate which reminded us of a Panama Canal lock gate. The gate opened and Captain Ken expected a
big current from the water rushing out of the marina but there was none and he
nudged AURORA in thru the gate while keeping a close eye on all the drunk
sailors so as not lose anyone. All of a
sudden Captain Ken realizes he is in a lock and the door is now closing so
everyone (even the other drunk sailors not on the boat but on top to the lock
walls) was screaming to get AURORA to the wall so they can hold her still while
they flood the lock. Lucky that surprise
(that we were in a proper lock) was no problem and we made it out OK and into
our slip where instantly we had another 10 drunken sailors on shore tying
AURORA to her new berth. After 4 trys or
so and differing opinions of how to tie her up…which meant she got tied and
retied…they were satisfied she was berthed; the entire fleet was back together
again. Ken & Eilo had joined the
pontoon party and already had our first round of drinks bellied by the time
AURORA was tied up. All was once again
right with the world.
The next day the ARC organized
a tour to see jumping Saltys about 2 hours out of town, on the Adelaide
river. So why not? It’s not every day you can see a jumper. This pic gives away why one does not nor
should not swim in any muddy colored water in Australia:
We did not have much time in
Darwin so after another hard night at the bar - this is Audrey from "The OWL" doing her best to behave:
we decided best to get out of
town and head for the bush. Sandvita had
rented a Camper Van and we had agreed to share the cost and off we went with
our crazy Swedish friends to explore the outback in the Northern
Territory. We chose to go to a nature
preserve called Kakadu. Again there is a
lot of open land and space in Australia.
For instance - when you get to the park border there is a sign informing
you the visitor center is only 100 KM further.
The Arnhem lands which is an Aboriginal preserve adjoining Kakadu is the
size of Iowa, Indiana, Kansas, Colorado, Wyoming and half of Montana combined…
a moderate size preserve by Auzzie standards.
Another fun fact is 20% of the
world’s uranium is mined from Kakadu.
The draw to Kakadu, aside from being outback and stuffed with things
that want to eat you like crocs (note Eilo is not amused):
as we found this guy on the
river bank near our camp that night:
or kill you (like the
plentiful Death Adder snakes)… is the aboriginal art dating back almost 10,000
years. Here are a few examples - an Abo
warrior:
A roo:
A turtle:
The god of lightning:
… who happens to be below and
guarding this cliff called “Sleeping Lightening” by the Abos:
We teamed up with some more
ARC heads who decided to do the same thing we did, from LEXINGTON, and camped
together (Eilo was absent from this shot as she was guarding the perimeter
keeping both eyes out looking for hungry crocs):
There were lots of good
trekking trails and we tackled a few.
Eilo found a billabong:
Interesting stone formations
– does this look like a duck?
They have 2 seasons
here. The wet season and the dry
season. This was the middle of their dry
season and the whole place looked right for a fire. As it turns out they (the Aborigines) have
been burning the place forever as they discovered it protects the existing
vegetation – but that’s another story.
It is also a birdwatchers paradise:
But our time ran out and we
headed back to town for some last minute provisioning and last minute boat
stuff (like picking up the sails from the sail loft – as we had a little
maintenance done) prior to the start of our next ARC leg to Lombok Indonesia. The start of leg 9 was uninspiring. What wind there was died just before the
start so there were a good few dead boats in the water except for those (the
smart ones) who chose to start their engines.
The leg had 2 days of good wind but it was mostly shite so we did the
most motoring we have ever done (no
prizes this leg for AURORA) as we needed to get to Lombok because Lara and
Christian, “The Kids”, were going to arrive there first due to our slow
progress. We crossed the finish line at
4:25 AM and slowed down so we didn’t risk making a night passage between the
islands leading to Gilli Gede island and the Secret Island Resort. The passes between the islands are littered
with pearl farms, which would be very easy to get tangled up in at night, being
poorly marked. Tampering with the
livelihood of the pearl farmers would be a poor way to say “Hi – How R U?” when
arriving their country. So we were only
20 miles away from the resort at the finish line – probably 3 hours
sailing. Little did we know that there was
a 7 knot current staring us down as we rounded the corner and arrived the pass
between Lombok and Bali islands. Lucky
the wind had picked up and was blowing 20 knots so AURORA was doing 8+ knots as
we rounded the corner and the next thing Captain Ken noticed is a few small
standing waves which we plowed through and instantly our speed over ground dropped
to between 0 and1 knot so we fired up the engine and cranked her up to 2800 RPM
– the equivalent of 6.5 knots (in still water) and all of a sudden we were
doing between 1 and 1.5 knots. It took
us 2 hours to get through the 3-mile pass between the islands. Ouch. We got to the top of that pass and it
appeared there was a local sailing regatta going on (at 7:30 AM???). About 100 little white sailboats, with
outriggers, all the same length. The only difference between them was each had
a different colored sail. We later found
out that was their fishing fleet. A few “fishing
flyers” came over to spar with us (or at least check us out) and they are fast:
We hit some more head current
but did manage to get to the resort by 9:30 that morning. Ken had a big breakfast of beer followed by
more Indonesian beer called Bintang served in quart bottles disguised to look
like a big bottle of Heineken. We ran into
our kids who had stayed in this “Suite”
built over the water. It looks a little tired on the outside (although
it is only 12 years old) and was delightfully funky on the inside in Indonesian
style, yet very cool. Over the next few
days we took a couple of tours with the kids, as westerners could not rent
cars, nor would you want to, as death would be almost certain given the random
driving habits commonly practiced (for instance motorcycles use either side of
the road) in this part of the world.
We checked out weaving
villages:
pottery villages:
used what the locals refer to
as their Ferraris taxis:
went to the Water Palace
(ever notice how palaces always have nice doors?)
built by a Raj in 1732 – with
many pools and water features
and what palace would be
complete with-out a fountain of youth and the attendant youth god?
A couple of sips of lovely
sweet spring water from this shrine
and your good for another
couple 100 of years or so. We drank
gallons just in case.
There are still enclaves of
Indonesians on Lombok who live in a traditional manner in traditional villages
as they have for the last 20,000 years or so.
Here’s a traditional wedding - this was not staged - we just happened to be there when the newly weds were walking to their reception:
On a traditional village street… you
get the idea:
On the way to visit the mount
Ringani volcano – last active in 2009 we passed through a rain forest and we
risked it all (again) for a little primate time. Ken, against doctors orders, risked it all and had a little one on one primate time:
Here the monkeys demonstrated roadside
fornication for our amusement:
Does this one have bedroom
eyes?
We stayed in a nice new hotel
one night. Ken got up and had a great
shower but as in most developing countries the water was only cold:
We hiked up to a nice set of
waterfalls near the volcano:
On the hike back to town,
with Doug, Eilidh and Val from TULLA
MOR, we walked through their water-supply (our guide said that would be OK) –
we left as the ambulances started to arrive town due to rumored poisoning of
their water supply:
And had time left over to
check out a couple of local restaurants:
Indonesian food can be summed
up as fried rice or fried noodles with veg, chicken or fish and add in an
infinite variety of spices and we had many very tasty, hot, spicy meals - breakfast,
lunch and dinner.
Speaking of rice – it’s
growing everywhere there is water:
We’re driving along minding
our own business and all of a sudden this appears. So what then is this thing?
Obviously it’s an Indonesian
live aboard fishing platform.
We should mention the sailing
seeing as that’s what we’re doing.
Sailing the east coast of Australia was fun. The wind was good, relatively strong and
predictable but once we got around the north east corner at Cape York/Straights
of Torres and ever since the wind has very rarely conformed to the wind
predictions (GRIBS) and often blows the opposite way but that does not matter
as it changes direction and velocity frequently. They still call them the trade winds. In our opinion someone is losing money if
they are attempting to use those winds for trade. The whole idea with the trades is you set
your sails and point at where you are going and take down the sails when you
get there. Here you set the sails and 5
minutes later you re-set them and 3 minutes after that you change
direction, 45 seconds after that you
have to gibe (all the while the cursing is getting louder and more flowery), 12
minutes after that the wind dies so you drop the sails and motor and then it
picks up again and a mental institution is now seeming to be a more certain
future – you get the idea. These are
very challenging sailing conditions for lazy sailors like us. We did finally get to Christmas Island which
is a 48 hour stopover on Leg 10 still 525 from our leg destination which is
Cocos Keeling Island – the last of the atolls we will see this circumnavigation
and thus the last of the tricky coral we must navigate one last time. We will not miss coral times.
