Following the Yellow Brick Road, and Arrival in OZ

Full moon over calm wagters

Boobie attempting to land on mast - amazing control with the mast swinging side to side

Success! - at least from the Boobies point of view

Sunset with spinnaker flying

What could be better than one boobie on the pulpit!

Dolphins playing in our bow wave

First look at Australia - islands offshore

Approaching Mackay

Following the Yellow Brick Road, and Arrival in OZ

September 3, 2015

Our light wind days did arrive as forecast. We spent 22 hours motoring one day before getting enough wind to fly our spinnaker. Ran out of wind again in the middle of the night and had to take it down in the dark. Luckily we had a full moon to provide some light.

The boobies continued to return. One night we tied a boat hook to our spinnaker halyard so when a boobie landed on our mast we could raise it above the mast height and shoo it off. The next night we were using that halyard to fly the spinnaker, so a boobie remained atop the mast all night. It looked like a parrot, with the red port navigation light reflecting off its head, and the green starboard light reflecting off its tail feathers.

The entrance to the Great Barrier Reef is 125 miles offshore in the Mackay area. As the reef is a national park there is one well defined shipping channel to get through it. While small boats don't have to use this channel, all larger boats must use it, and must use a pilot as well. Given the distance from shore to the channel entrance, pilots are transferred back and forth by helicopter which land on the deck of the freighters. It was very interesting to watch the helicopters and listen to them talking to the freighters on the radio.

Tides in this area are 15 feet which generate a very strong current when the sea is being forced between the reefs. We timed our entrance into the channel for 8:00pm which was slack tide preceding a flood, or incoming, tide. Currents reached 5 knots or more which made steering interesting. It certainly confused our autopilot when our boat was drifting in the current and not much water was actually flowing past the rudder. We stayed outside of the main channel as there were several freighters that passed us on the way in. They also time their passage to take advantage of the tides. Given the narrowness of the channel area it was somewhat unnerving to see these large vessels passing so close in the dark. The pilot of the last freighter radioed us to thank us for clearing the channel for all the boats saying it made the pilot's job a lot easier. As morning arrived we had one freighter pass us heading out, taking advantage of the ebb tide. The freighters are all heading to Hay Point, not too far south of Mackay and will all carry coal for burning somewhere else.

We had originally calculated that we wouldn't be able to make it to the marina in Mackay in daylight the next day so planned to anchor in a bay off a small island about 25 miles from Mackay. We were buzzed by a Border Force airplane whose officer radioed us and asked us lots of questions, however we had already provided the mandatory 96 hour Advance Notice of Arrival information and had no problems. We asked the officer if we could proceed with our plan to anchor overnight and were advised at it was our right to do so providing we didn't have any contact with any other person. We exercised that option and spent a very wakeful night as the wind shifted and the anchorage was exposed to the swell. We were very glad to get out of there as soon as it was light in the morning.

Yesterday we sailed to Mackay arriving just before noon. About an hour out we were radioed by Border Force requesting our ETA. As soon as we tied up to the quarantine dock two of them appeared and spent an hour on board. They were very pleasant and accommodating. When we advised we had anchored the previous night they indicated that this was not allowed, and wanted the details of the officer in the airplane who gave us apparently wrong information. Seems Customs officers are the same everywhere. You get a different story from each one you talk to!

Next we had the Agricultural officer who checked out all our food. He also was very pleasant and informative, and in the end confiscated once small bag of rice that had some weevils in it. Things were not nearly as draconian as we were led to believe! As soon as he left we removed our quarantine flag and hoisted our Australian courtesy flag. It felt really good to be back on firm ground again, and we feel quite accomplished having arrived in Australia. Seems like a long way from home, although still a long way to go!

We arranged haulout for the following day, and talked to several of the trades businesses in the haulout yard. We don't think it will be a problem getting the work we need done. The BPO  rally organizers have hired an agent who is in the yacht business and is familiar with what can be done and who is best to do it. This will be very helpful.  We're confident that we can get things organized well enough to head for New Zealand at the end of next week.

We met up with the other rally boaters at various times of the day, and had dinner with the No Regrets crew, including Bob. Then enjoyed a stable night as we were allowed to remain tied to the quarantine dock overnight due to our early haulout.

More on the marina and Mackay later