August, 2016

Our sailing energy tanks were close to zero when we reached the Royal Queensland Yacht Squadron. We were looking forward to an extended stay and a chance to get better acquainted with Australia. Big questions such as “Does everything in Australia want to kill you?” loomed large in our minds. and we agreed that being tied to a dock for an extended period of time was in order. We had heard about the sharks, crocodiles, and boxing kangaroos, but until this trip we were unaware of swooping magpies, killer jellyfish and flying foxes. Although it was still Australian winter, the sun was so strong that the local schools included wide brimmed hats as part of the standard uniform.

 

It took Jason a bit less time than me to reacquire the sailing bug. One week into the

our stay, he asked “Do short cruises within Moreton Bay count as sailing trips?” “Define short,” I replied. “One to two days, maybe a bit more,” was his response. I decided it was a rhetorical question and proceeded to buy a bicycle for trips to Woolies (supermarket) and began arranging our itinerary for the grand tour. As a first diversion, we took a weekend jaunt to Brisbane, complete with a half marathon for Jason and a 10K for me.

Recovering from our first long runs in a few months, we had just enough time to plan a trip to Canberra, the capital city, to build our Australian knowledge base. As evidenced by my poor showing in Traveler IQ, my knowledge of Australian geography was not very good. It turns out that our knowledge of Australian history was not much better.

 

Canberra’s National War Memorial gave us our first view into the intense involvement of Australia in the World Wars. We joined in on a 45 minute docent-guided tour. Three hours later, we managed to pry ourselves away from the guide, but he was still going strong. My previous education consisted of the movie Gallipoli, but, no surprise, even that was a bit off. I also had no idea that Northern Australia was bombed during World War II, with entire towns leveled. The Prime Minister’s desk has a view towards the War Memorial, so the PM will contemplate the costs of utilizing troops in the future.

The National Library has a wonderful room with journals of both Captain (then Lieutenant) Cook and Captain Bligh (the Bounty guy). The National Museum contains many artifacts from Indigenous people of both Australia and the Torres Strait.

 

Too often I find that Indigenous Peoples’ art exhibits can be condescending to both subject and viewer. The National Museum exhibition of Aboriginal Art and culture was not. One painting was accompanied by a video chronicling the background of the Artist.  As a child, he lived in remote part of Australia and had no contact with white Australians.  One day a helicopter landed near some of the villagers.  They asked the pilot if he had any water, “KA-FEE”.   The pilot heard their request and gave them coffee.  The brown liquid shocked the Aboriginals.  The Artist enters this story as a young boy who is having terrible pains in his stomach.  He is brought to the coffee-sharing pilot and flown away for medical care.  After getting all fixed up, the Artist returns with his new name for life, Helicopter.   His painting depicts that journey.

When we returned to Two Fish at the RQYS, I tracked down various tradesman, fended off friendly neighbors tempting Jason with “Really, it is just a short sail and you will be in the Whitsundays”, and planned our next trips. It was quite easy to find great services in the bay, so my job was relatively easy.

Our plan was to visit Darwin (north west Australia), Lizard Island (middle of the east coast), Western Australia (no need to tell you where that is), Sydney and Tasmania. We passed on the famous Uluru (red rock), Melbourne (food city) and much more. But four months passes quickly when you are slow travelers. During this vacation from our vacation we also decided on our plans for 2017. We would ship Two Fish back to the US and sail a final short season in the Bahamas to celebrate our grand adventure. Twenty-Five Thousand miles seemed impossible when we left the dock in Argentina. After our Bahamian adventure we will sell Two Fish and chart our next course. When we shared this decision with friends they often asked why we would stop? Did something go wrong? No, just the opposite. It has gotten better every year as our skills have improved. But it is time to try something new.

September 2016

We timed our visit to Darwin so as to join our rally friends Magda and Tim (s/v Belafonte) and explore Kakadu National Park. Darwin caught us by surprise. It was purpose-built for rough men that mine the earth. Our first hotel was a gray building that felt like a scene from Cops Darwin. After we left the Cops Hotel, there was a knifing down the street. On our return to Darwin, I booked a larger room at adifferent hotel and we ended up with a two story 1970’s style suite. Also odd, but at least a bit more Barney Miller than Cops.

Jason enjoyed perusing the small Darwin military museum. The main show was the Defense of Darwin Exhibit, which told the story of the bombing of Darwin in 1942. I enjoyed the 10K coastline walk from the city to the museum.

Kakadu is now a national park covering 20,000 square kilometers with many trails and campsites, but it has been home to Aboriginal peoples for 50,000 years. They were hunter-gatherers and roamed the terrain seeking food and staying in temporary shelters. The people in the Kakadu region recognize six seasons of the year: pre-monsoon, monsoon, stormy, humid, cold, and, hot and dry.  Their activities and food varied with the seasons. I was captivated by the story of their cough medicine. There are tiny green ants, Yangga, that roam the rocks. The people capture the ants and grind them into a paste. Looks like Vicks Night-time to me. The arrival of outsiders changed the lives of the Indigenous People and reduced the population but some of the descendants remain to tell their stories. There are many places to view rock art depicting past endeavors and legends.

On our way to the Nouralangie Rock area, we came across a wonderful Thai roadside stop. Our post-lunch progress slowed, we still managed to hike the plateau and get to the campsite before dark.

We had chosen to rent a simple four wheel drive car while Magda and Tim rented a small camper van.  Jason was fascinated with the pricing scheme.  For an extra fifteen Australian dollars per day they added a picnic table AND WiFi.  They were only available as a package.  He kept asking why chairs did not come with the table but a WiFi router did.

We prepared for a six hour hike after a less than perfect night’s sleep interrupted by a drunk individual banging on our cabin door at midnight. Good thing the doors were locked. Magda carefully calculated the water needs for the heat and I packed some snacks. As it happened, the hike over the hilly terrain took only three and a half hours. I saw many of the green ants along the way but declined to gather them for our medicine cabinet.

Our friends had suggested that we sign up for the six a.m. billabong tour.  A billabong is a water area which is crucial for life in the arid terrain. We were reluctant to wake ourselves in time for the boat tour, but we were rewarded with views of morning bird activity and a peaceful atmosphere.   That is, until the crocodiles started circling. I kept my arms inside the boat. Male crocodiles divide up the river into territories containing several females. Both can leap six feet into the air when seeking prey or my arm.

Once again seeking sustenance on the road back to Darwin, we stopped in the town of Humpty Doo. How could you not? The tavern served me sliders: barramundi, crocodile and buffalo. Back in Darwin, we strolled the streets of the city that doesn’t seem like it ever discovered its spirit after being leveled 75 years ago.

Before leaving Darwin, we went to Tipperary Marina to wave off our rally friends who were exiting the marina lock for the next part of their circumnavigation. S/V Barbara Jean sailed the world on a 38-foot Island Packet with just two people. Meara Nieda from Finland rotated seven people aboard with Pekka always at the helm. Into the Blue is a family adventure. The lock operator even let Jason take the controls for one of the boats. Next time we see everyone will be in Europe.

October 2016
Despite being told that Perth is a modern city, I still think of it as a frontier town and was eager to visit. Most of Western Australia is red dirt; 2.6 million people live there, and three-quarters of them live in Perth. If you like a good story, watch the movie Red Dog and you will feel the iron-stained dust in your hair.  The region had enjoyed boom times when commodity prices were surging but now the downtown sky tells a story of corporate belt tightening.  Rio Tinto and BHP Biliton are selling assets and the port is full of large dump trucks waiting for any global buyer.

Since mining is Western Australia’s lifeblood, we stopped at the Perth Mint for a tour. The Perth Mint houses the record-setting Australian Kangaroo one ton gold coin. Eight of the World’s Ten Largest discovered nuggets were found in Australia, including one that a boy stumbled over in a field.  Another nugget was so large they had to break it into three pieces to transport it by wheelbarrow.  The Golden Nugget Casino paid more than melt value for the largest surviving gold nugget.   The gold dust that was a residue of the minting process was so valuable that the workers scraped and collected the gold off of the pots and ceilings periodically.  It is the metallurgical equivalent of licking your ice cream bowl.  I was quite impressed with Perth as a city and could have spent a lot more time there. Perhaps I was influenced by the awesome nut bread with poached eggs and avo, and the fresh juice at our hotel?

Fremantle was just a short train ride away and we spent a day at the Maritime Museum, mostly examining the America’s Cup models.  Australia II was the first non-American boat to win the America’s Cup.  Her secret weapon was a winged keel.  Late in the race series, the Australians leaked their keel design in a hope to confuse the Americans.  The American designers tried to bolt on plywood to their boat to match the Australian design.  The altered keel slowed down the American boat and history was made.

The West Coast of Australia was explored many years before the East Coast; it  was a stopover point for the Dutch and Spaniards.  Australians could have easily been speaking Dutch or Spanish now.   The Western Australian reefs are dangerous and the weather is fierce so quite a few ships ended up at the bottom of the ocean. The Shipwreck Museum was dominated by the 1629 wreck of the Batavia. (see photo below) The VOC (Vereenigde Oostindische Compagnie-East Indies Company) Batavia set sail with antiquities, coins and pre-fabricated sandstone blocks for a portico to be erected as gatehouse for the city of Batavia (present-day Jakarta). A mutinous crew had not yet executed their plans when the ship was wrecked in the Houtman Abrolhos. Most of the crew were taken to nearby islands but the Skipper and Commander went looking for water in longboats. They eventually made it to Batavia; the Skipper was arrested for negligence and the Commander was sent back to retrieve the passengers. Back on the island, one of the senior crew, Corneliszoon took control, including abandoning some crew members on a remote island to starve. He proceeded to kill anyone else who voiced opposition. The plan was to retake the ship and its treasures, and to begin a career as a pirate. Meanwhile the abandoned crew had found sustenance and tried to signal this to the main island. They sensed something was wrong when there was no response so they began building fortifications. The attempted mutiny was finally squashed when the original Commander returned to the area. 125 people had been murdered. Corneliszoon’s hands were cut off and he was hanged for his crimes.

Quite uncharacteristically, I signed us up for a full day bus tour North. I wanted to see the Pinnacles, a field of limestone formations, and I knew the driving would be more than we would want to do in a day. The tour of the lobster factory was a bit of a bust, and the sandboarding boards were not waxed enough to move more than a foot on the wet dunes, but the Pinnacles and the wombat were worth the trip. Our co-bus occupants were pretty quiet until the driver engaged four by four mode over the sand dunes. They egged him on as I tried to figure out how much longer this would last.

Further North is the Ningaloo Reef. We flew there for our glamping experience. The wind was howling and our tent was creaking but I was somewhat comforted by the knowledge that if it fell down, I was on land and someone else would need to fix it. Not every glamper was as happy with the weather – one couple left early. I enjoyed reading in the hammock with Wallaroos hopping by and comforted that the tent had USB outlets to recharge the kindle. The manager began to tell me the story of his Aunt and Uncle who had left South Africa in a small boat with gold bars stashed in the keel. I recognized the story as that of a book I have wanted to read but could not get electronically-A Small Boat to Freedom, by John Vigor. Small world.

The motorboat ride into the Indian Ocean was wonderful as we swam with the whales darting by. The boat’s cubbyhole included a next with some baby birds. When we returned to our mooring, mom and dad bird quickly flew to meet us and check on their progeny.

The whales are adapt at avoiding contact with humans and boats, a fact I happily remembered at a later point when I saw one dart across Two Fish’s starboard bow.

Despite my reluctance to sail to the Great Barrier Reef, I couldn’t imagine a stay in Australia without a visit to the reef. I booked a room at Lizard Island, the farthest North spot. We were greeted by a friendly lizard, although our co-guests didn’t seem as enthralled with it as we were. Anything that eats bugs is okay by me. We looked at the sailboats bobbing at anchor from the comfort of our room. The only other ship that passes by is the bi-weekly supply ship, bringing food and heavy items.

Cook’s presence was strongly felt. The HMS Endeavor stopped here in August 1770 to find a passage through the reef; this was just a few months after the Endeavor ran aground on a shoal.  The crew were eager to get into open ocean but the path was difficult to find.  The Great Barrier Reef is far from the mainland and has infrequent gaps for safe passage.  The crew anchored on the west side of Lizard Island and sent a party to the highest point on the island to chart a safe exit.  The hike to the summit took Cook a day; now we were following in their footsteps, but aided by a path. We arrived at Cook’s Look and tried to imagine how he had made his navigational determinations. There is a guest book at the top, and, after adding our name, we spent some time paging through to find the names of boat friends that had recently visited.

Back at sea level, we went on a few dive boat trips. I snorkeled with a pack of manta rays while Jason communed with the Potato Cods. Jason went on his first night dive and was greeted by a guitar shark (really a ray).

Eager to see more of the coastline, we visited our friends in Coolangatta. Coolangatta is the southernmost coastal town in Queensland. After marveling at the panoramic view from their apartment, we went to New South Wales(NSW). The airstrip at the Coolangatta airport crosses over the border. During daylight savings time in NSW, you can gain or lose an hour repeatedly while taxiing. That wonderful feature of your iPhone automatically detecting the time zone doesn’t seem so great anymore.

Although Two Fish was cleared into Australia for one year, our tourist visas were only valid for ninety days. We needed to leave the country and re-enter for a reset. Emirates happens to fly its A380 from Dubai to Brisbane and then Brisbane to Auckland. The second leg is not a very popular stand alone flight as evidenced by the relatively cheap seats for such a luxurious aircraft. The great in-flight service made the trip worth it. I am not looking forward to being back in the USA where great service and flight are not words that are heard together.

It was just a short visit but we made the most of it, visiting the Royal New Zealand Yacht Squadron and the Louis Vuitton Cup, complete with its custom valise. Other highlights were visits to the houses of a few work friends, who have returned to their native land. I was struck by how far away from the world Auckland feels; for a brief moment I could forget about the problems of the broader world. A few more long walks and we were back on the A380 and eager to see Two Fish again.

November 2016

I was jogging north, while enjoying the waves lapping at the edges of Brisbane’s Moreton Bay, when my music was interrupted by a phone call from a Swedish sailing friend. He needed help. Thankfully, sailors’ favors usually involve low level advice, not organ transplants. He needed crew for the six hundred nautical mile trip from Brisbane to Sydney. I was just about to do that same passage on Two Fish. We both had thought our yacht shippers were leaving from Brisbane, only to have the departure city changed to Sydney. I agreed to help my friend, so in a short period of time, I would travel the Eastern Coast of Australia on Two Fish and repeat the passage on my friend’s fifty-two foot Baltic.

In late October 2016, we finally left the RQYS dock for our trip to Sydney. Two Fish was clearly smiling as she had had a post-Pacific refit. Some new running rigging, a professional rig tune, sail maker attention to the suite of canvas, new flat screen autopilot, new engine exhaust elbows, new covering for the nav station chair, some cosmetic touch ups, power -leaned cushions, software updates for navigation systems, oil and filter changes, complete servicing for the dinghy, greasing of the furling gear and winches, varnished wheel, new navigation and courtesy lights, and an elbow-bending amount of scrubbing. Two Fish was ready for another ocean crossing.

Moreton Bay is full of marine life, despite being the backyard for Brisbane, a major city. Humpback whales use the calm waters to train their young calves. Vast quantities of blue jellyfish with symmetric tentacles arrive on a north wind. Locals will move the jellies by grabbing the top to avoid the stingers. Birds of many species have created homes in the shallow waters created by dredging. A few sparrows tried to nest in the boom of Two Fish. We worked hard on discouraging the birds but the best defense was raising the mainsail while out for a short trip. Moreton Bay is another spot on the coast that owes its naming to Cook; Lord Morton probably noticed the misspelling but no one else seemed to mind.

It was difficult to finally leave the Royal Queensland Yacht Squadron because Two Fish had never stood still for longer during her three year existence. The club is serious about its sailing with five members participating in the most recent Olympic games. We saw Moths foil past and Wild Oats XII (Australia’s most famous sailboat) start an offshore race in front of the club. Club members encouraged us to join Wednesday racing and to untie Two Fish and visit distant and near anchorages.

On our final departure day, the engines purred as we navigated the narrow channel to exit the yacht basin. I think of Two Fish as a two hundred foot boat. We drop our sails very early and I like plenty of sea room from other boats. I am aware of how silly I must look as Wednesday racers come darting in and out of the harbor with only small margins for error. I used to sail like that, but the miles under the keel have warped my view of being almost at the dock. I joke that we put out our fenders for docking farther offshore than the average day sailor’s voyage. Our conservative approach is driven by the fact that every dock, channel, mooring field and anchorage has been brand new to us. I miss the comfort of sailing in my home waters of New York where we would sneak behind ferries and had memorized the current’s patterns.

After less than a mile, the main and screecher were gently pulling our twin hulls over the small waves to Peel Island, a sand island in the southern end of Moreton Bay. We anchored the boat in the lee of the island, making it a very comfortable anchorage. We were cruising again. No Uber. No WiFi. As I lowered the dinghy, I realized hikes, swimming and explorations were back on the menu.

We met a local sailor who was anchored in one foot of water as he had a lift-up keel. His small red boat did not require fancy hydraulics to lift the keel, just a simple rope. For a moment I thought his anchor was a stolen lawn ornament. He had the best spot in the anchorage – a short wade and he was onshore.

Australian weather tries to keep pace with the deadly reputation of Australian wildlife. Australia has the most deadly collection of snakes and also has experienced the most deaths in one yacht race. However, many Australian cruisers would tell me they were not brave enough to sail across the Pacific but they were comfortable circumnavigating their treacherous homeland. I was quick to inform them that I was more focused on the weather for the trip from Brisbane to Sydney than I had been for the entire Pacific Crossing. Australian weather has rough seas when the powerful ocean current transporting millions of gallons of sea water north conflicts with a strong breeze that tries to push the water back to the south. Waves start to resemble rolling hills and sailors wish they had chosen tennis as their pastime. Local sailors were bemused to find out that their trip to the southern island Tassie (aka Tasmania) was world-renowned for danger.

To enter sheltered rivers on the Australian East Coast, one must pass over a bar. These are sand bars, not bars that serve drinks with umbrellas.   A bar can become a dangerous mess (Video of Catamaran Surfing into Southport) when volumes of water are returning to the sea while the breeze is blowing onto the shoreline. In preparation for our trip South, I researched bar crossings. The guides offered the ominous tip that when you are in a dangerous bar you should never turn around – just keep going. Gail found online cameras to monitor these bars.   The cruising guide also rates the bars almost like a ski resort rates their trails in degree of difficulty. I plotted our potential duck-in entrances from bad weather, while triangulating the chance that the bar may become impassible. By the end of my efforts I was confused and over-prepared. Australian officialdom posts many signs near the waterways warning of the dangers of bar crossings, which did little to calm Gail’s nerves.

There are two possible routes to Sydney from Moreton Bay. The first is to exit to the north, a longer but easier to navigate route. The second is to head south into a delta area with shallow spots and low power lines. We chose the more difficult second option since this path allowed us to explore backwaters. Power lines and sailboats are a poor mix as evidenced by warning stickers often found on masts. So I scoured all the data to see if Two Fish could safely navigate under the power lines.  The older cruising guides listed the wires at 23 meters, but a more recent document lowered the measurement to 20.3 meters, offering us only 1.5 meters of clearance.   In the USA, the power lines are much higher to prevent the power from arcing from the power lines onto the metal boat mast. I suppose the Australian electrical engineers do not see arcing voltage as a serious problem. A few drunks at the yacht club bar assured me “it was no problem mate” and that was enough reassurance for me. As we passed under the wires, Gail was quick to remind me not to hold onto anything metal. I steered the boat close to the power line tower and traveled at low tide to get the maximum distance between our masthead fly and the high voltage lines. The boat did not smolder, but we were now in dangerously shallow water. A quick turn got us back into the channel. We were now free to explore the Delta which was reminiscent of the Carolinas. Fish camps, small fuel stations, and tall reeds contributed to the Carolina look.

We tied up in a small marina and became local celebrities. Two Fish was huge compared to the local runabouts and consumed a slip meant for two boats. We spent the mornings jogging past corn fields and fish farms. I met a twenty-five year old guy who had bought his first motor trawler. It was wood and an old salt was offering him advice on anchoring, boat repair and docking. His eyes were wide open and I felt sympathy and jealousy for all the new surprises headed his way.

After sailing for over three years, we are no longer complete idiots, just partial idiots. And with that extra salt in the veins comes some amount of wisdom. I don’t claim to have discovered the meaning of life unlike other sailboat bloggers. I disagree with their opinion that world peace would occur if everyone was living on a sailboat. Judging by some VHF radio chats I think world war might come sooner with everyone afloat? Imagine if Kim Jung Un dragged anchor through a crowded harbor. I suspect his admonishment would be harsher than he gets firing missiles into the ocean.   What has changed with the passage of sea miles is that cruising gets easier. A pump wears out and an hour later, with little drama, the pump is replaced. When we are about to execute a complex maneuver, we talk it through and it goes smoothly. We know how to manage bad weather and we know how to do more of what we enjoy. For us year three has been a joy.

We left Steiglitz after exhausting the restaurant’s menu. When I arrive at a new port, I am full of excitement and optimism. We tend to leave when that feeling has been pushed aside with an annoyance. In Steiglitz, the birds were my nemesis. We were tied up beside a large tree which was home to many competing birds. At dusk they would create a collection of evil cackles that drove us inside to seek shelter. The birds also left calling cards on the deck that looked like melba toast. The birds pushed us out of town and farther down the delta.

As we headed farther south the scenery changed from swampy marsh to huge homes that must be either owned by sports stars or used in a reality TV show. We had reached Southport, the center of Australia’s Gold Coast. The farms were replaced with glitz; there were towns with dreamy names like Surfer’s Paradise and many places vying for your money in exchange for sunnies and thongs(sunglass and flip flops).   Our host for a few days was a power boating club whose members showed up in great numbers for club dinners. A box style gambling scheme arranged by the club was very popular with the members.   The winner took home thousands of dollars. The friendly boats sharing our dock also shared some great suggestions for our coastal journey.

Southport looks a lot like Broward County in Florida. This is not by coincidence; the developers had been inspired by the canal construction in South Florida. However, after the first bit of construction on the Gold Coast, the canals turned green with fetid water. A few Florida engineers were flown to Australia to make modifications to the drainage and construction and the canals turned blue.

We had reached the end of the sheltered route; our next steps would be in the ocean.