October 23/24, 2010 - Our Last Night of the Passage to Australia - Nearly There!

Saturday continued pretty much the same, we read. I baked a loaf of bread and we enjoyed hot fresh bread with butter and honey - yum! The evening was pleasant enough and then last night I just could not get myself to go to sleep at 7:30 for my watch. Frank said no worries, we would bump our schedule back an hour. By 8:30, though I went below, put an eye cover on and forced myself to try to get some sleep. I was dreaming away and snoozing soundly when Frank roused me at 10:30. I got up, saying, "has it been 3 hours already?" He said, "yeah" and headed off for the front cabin. I looked at the clock and went linear. I grabbed his arm and told him if he wanted to change to 2-hour watches, then fine, I would get up but otherwise I was entitled to another hour of sleep. We argued about this like children. He was tired and wanted to go to bed but wanted his 3 hours. Now for anyone who has never done this thing - two people on a passage fight like wolves for their sleep time because grabbing 2 - 3 hours at a time creates a cycle of deprivation until your body catches on. Finally, although quite unhappy about it, he agreed to give me another hour. When he roused me at 11:30, I was in a total brain fog. I got up shook the sleep out of my eyes, drank some strong tea, grabbed some sugary snacks and decided to try one of the audio books we'd picked up. Lots of our friends listen to books on passage; I've just not been able to get into it but decided to give it a try. So I grabbed one (Double Cross by James Patterson) and settled into it as my body began to jolt awake from the tea and sugar. I went through 2 disks that covered a little more than my 3 hours and realized this is definitely the way to do a night watch! I even gave Frank an extra 35 minutes of sleep, waking him after 3 AM. He was grateful and I was happy. Peace resumed aboard Destiny. We managed to make it through the night and readied ourselves for our last full day at sea.

After breakfast on Sunday, we decided it was probably going to be tame enough to play a game of cards so we settled into the cockpit for a game of Baja Rummy. The game took us a through the entire morning - it was a good match! For lunch I scrounged everything I could think of out of the fridge and freezer to cook up. We will undoubtedly have to give up food and who knows what else to the Q officer at check-in so we feasted. Of course we have heard horror stories from other yachts that have heard the stories from their friends arriving in Oz this year already. The stories range from…"They will take all of your food" to "They only looked in my fridge and freezer too the fresh and stuff and dairy" to "They will look in ALL your lockers, even in your dirty laundry bag to see what you might be hiding". One thing is for certain; this year bio-security seems to have become very concerned about termites being transported via infested vessels, so we are prepared for every locker to be opened and inspected for termites. Although our boat hull and structure is comprised of fiberglass, the interior is nearly all wood. We have been warned that boats with a lot of wood will be scrutinized very closely.

I spent the entire afternoon vacuuming, dusting and scrubbing down the inside of the boat. Although I did a deep cleaning just a couple of weeks ago, I am amazed how quickly dust, hair and unidentifiable particles collect on board. We will be as prepared as we possibly can and hope for the best. I know we have no bugs or termites.

After finishing cleaning, Frank and I sat in the cockpit enjoying a cold drink when he said, "Wow, look at those huge tankers!" Two large vessels were passing in front of us about 3 miles away. Frank looked them up on our radar and reported to me that one of them was traveling over 21 kts/hr. That is fast out here. We realized we are in some serious shipping lanes and that from here on in, we had better be extra vigilant, always having someone alert in the cockpit, because at night they will not see us until they are upon us, and trying to get out of their way isn't so easy when we are traveling between 5.5 - 6.5 kts.

We chewed on that for a little while, and then as dusk was approaching, he said, "Oh my gosh! Something huge just jumped out of the water! Over there!" and he pointed to about 11:00 out front. Sure enough just when I looked over, a pilot whale or a very large dolphin shot up out of the water about 10 feet and did a side flip! We saw a few more similar acrobatics and then suddenly the show was over. It was a nice end to our last evening on passage. Thanks, God. Nice job.

So now it is 6:30 PM. Frank just finished reporting in on the "sked". We are 100 miles away from Bundaberg. Frank estimates us passing through the reef pass at between 2:30 and 3:00 AM, and then it will be another 6 hours to the marina. We are nearly there - but the fat lady hasn't sung and chicks haven't hatched so I'm not counting anything yet.

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Oct 20th - 23rd - Passage From New Caledonia to Australia, Days 1 - 3

We awoke the morning of the 20th trying to decide whether to leave for Australia (OZ) or to wait another day. It was raining and the winds were really whipping up a chop outside. We decided to have breakfast and give it some more thought. I was anxious to get going - once we'd made the decision to leave on the 20th, I was psyched up. It's also something I can feel in my bones - no reason to wait another day, and it felt right to go. Frank agreed, so we waited for the storm to subside and at 11:00 AM, I went forward to cast off the mooring buoy. We made some calls to our children, parents and siblings back home on the Sat phone and said good-byes over the VHF to our "yachtie" friends, many of whom were departing for New Zealand. This was a farewell to Ivory Quays, Just In Time, Scallywag, Cop Out, Windflower and a few others. It has been a good season and a good time cruising with these wonderful Kiwis. We know that we will stay in touch with several of them. As I write this I am thinking of creating a list of the boats/friends we have met along the way and those we have cruised with; a list that will include where they are now or where we last parted company, which will be nice to look back on in the years and miles to come. This departure right now is a BIG goodbye for us. Time for Frank and I to begin new chapters and for Destiny to experience a new country. We are looking forward to reuniting with our Aussie friends.

Although we are participating in a rally, it is not an organized sail. We left by ourselves and will be checking in on a "sked" with the rally organizers out of Bundaberg every morning and night. The check in will require us to report our current location (lat and long), boat speed, wind speed, sea state and miles left to go (to reach Bundaberg). Bundaberg is north of Brisbane in Queensland. We have anticipated arriving at the marina around 2:30 Qld time on Monday, October 25th.

Our first 24 hours out of the chute was a splendiferous sail! We had 25+ knots on the beam and 1-2 meter following seas. It was fast and rough but we both took a Dramamine and tried to settle into the at sea rhythm of the boat and our bodies. Frank is posting his Captains Log Updates on his blog so I won't get into the technicalities. Anyone reading this can go check out his blog for the 411 there. Thank goodness I had pre-cooked all of our passage meals because the ride, being fast and furious was also tough on the below decks maneuvering. All we had to do was "heat'em up and eat'em up". The first night of watches was agony, trying to get into the 3-hour on/off routine.

Day 2 was again a very nice sail but a little rougher, but we made good progress. We spent most of the time holding on and reading books. I finished my first passage book and was onto the next one. By this time we have been sailing pretty closely with three other boats that left within 4 hours of us: Wind Pony (USA), Alliance (Aussie), and Bijou Verhmelo (Brazil). It 's been nice to have VHF contact and to see the other boats from time to time - the tips of a white triangle on the horizon during the day, and the twinkling of a mast light or two at night. The night watches were more brutal the second night - each of us nearly shoving the other out of bed at the end of a watch in order to pass out as soon as our heads hit the pillow. I finished my second passage book and started my third. Frank is beginning the second one I just finished. (both James Patterson novels)

It is now around noon on Saturday. We just completed our 3rd, 24-hour period of the passage. All is well except that last night we lost our wind and the waves began coming at us from the stern quarter to the port beam (hitting us at an angle), and making the ride ridiculously uncomfortable. I'm tired of crashing around and getting bruised and so is Frank. We finally turned on the engine and center-lined the staysail and a partially reefed main. The ride is much nicer now. I am finishing my third book, a Jonathon Kellerman novel. All is well aboard the good ship, Destiny.

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