Alice was revived and we’re off again

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:

 A traditional house:

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.