A view of downtown Brisbane as we motor up the Brisbane River to clear customs and immigration
We have arrived safely in Australia taking about 5 days to cross the Coral Sea from New Caledonia to Brisbane. The whole trip was rather boring. Boring on a boat is a really good thing. It means no bad weather, nothing broken, decent sleep, no seasickness, and good food. Cindy read two books and I played games on my tablet. For the most part, the Puffster sailed herself.
We used Chris Parker’s Marine Weather Service once again. As previously mentioned in the blog, we were waiting a long time for a window to sail. Once we were ready to go, the weather on the Coral Sea just didn’t want to cooperate. We wound up waiting for a little over 2 weeks for the green light from Marine Weather. They nailed it. Good things come to those who wait.
Waiting wasn’t a problem. We have plenty of time and no need to be in Australia other than it is cyclone season and we need to move out of the area for the summer. Our insurance requires us to be out of the prone area by December 1st. As you can imagine, we keep a very close eye on the weather at all times but especially during the summer in the tropics.
It’s kinda funny. Setting sail for five days is now something we look at as a very short trip. If there is one thing sailing in the South Pacific teaches you, it’s that everything is far away and nothing is a short day sail. It is the absolute opposite of sailing in the Caribbean where we could often see the next country or island from our current anchorage. Just about everything there were day hops.
Even though we plan to return to New Caledonia next year, we tried to get rid of the money we had. We do this in most countries knowing that whatever we carry out with us is just a souvenir since we can’t spend it anywhere else. It has become sort of a game. How much do we have? What can we buy that is just for fun? We tend to toss small coins in a container or a backpack pocket when out shopping. At the end of a visit, these can add up. After provisioning the boat with just 5 days of food (more on this later), we had about 1,000 xpf in loose coins. Hmm. What can we buy?
We decided to get ice cream. The funny thing, we didn’t need our freezer this trip since most stuff would stay cool in the fridge. The freezer box inside the fridge is pretty small so it is limited to making ice. So, buying ice cream meant we’d have to run the big freezer. Totally worth it! Screw the low power consumption strategy. We’ve got our priorities in line.
Life is good on the Puffster
We are traveling light on the food this trip. We usually like to keep more aboard so when we arrive we don’t have to immediately grocery shop. And, it just makes sense to have food aboard in case something happens and we are seriously delayed out on the ocean. Don’t get me wrong, we have food like cans of veggies etc. But, it’d be hard to put together a meal. But in dire straights, we’ll live.
Australia has very strict rules about bringing in food. They also have very strict rules regarding bugs, especially bugs in wood. The Biosecurity department is self-funded. This means we have to pay to have an inspector come aboard the boat and inspect us. While customs and immigration are free, Biosecurity can be a little bit pricey. They charge by the 15-minute increment. Our fee was US$368. The inspection took about an hour. This is about the low end of the average for private boats checking in.
I won’t go into all the silly rules they have regarding food and wood. But, I will say this is a sort of bullshit fee. I seriously doubt all people arriving on every plane or cruise ship are inspected with such scrutiny. And, you will never convince me all the millions of containers arriving each year in Australia are inspected with the same scrutiny. The fact is we are an easy target for this “self-funded” government agency since we have a very small voice. The bottom line is we pay the “tax” or don’t come in.
Cream Puff rigged for downwind sailing
On our journey over, we got to fly our downwind rig. This is a bit of a rarity for us. Because the setup is such a pain in the arse to put up, we tend to avoid rigging it unless it’s going to stay up for a few days. The Amel downwind rig is unique and has its pros and cons. Let’s start with the cons.
I already mentioned it is a pain in the arse to set up. It takes us about 2 hours to rig the boat. This involves us both being on the foredeck together. Even though we are both tethered to the boat, this is not something we like to do. Another issue with the system is if we hit a big squall and don’t have time to take the rig down, our options of how we sail in that squall are now limited since we can’t fly just the jib. We can reef our downwind sails but at some point must fully reef them. This is where a staysail would really help (some owners have added one). If it is a pain in the arse to set up, then you know it’s a pain to put it all away.
Now the pros. Or, I guess, the singular pro. With this set up, our boat sails beautifully. And, I mean beautifully. We are mostly upright, running with the waves and going rather fast. It is a massive amount of sail area exposed to the wind and will propel the Puffster easily at 7-9 knots in just 10-15 knots of winds. I read in the specs on the boat once that the sail area is 217 Square meters (2344 Square feet). When we are rigged this way, this is when we eat hot meals, sleep soundly and relax. That’s a pretty big pro, right?
As if being fully rested, eating hot meals, and showering isn’t joyful enough, once in a while we are treated to something really spectacular on a journey. On this one, Cindy was the one who was awake and got to enjoy one of the most magnificent sunrises ever. She grabbed a couple of pictures but will ultimately claim they don’t do the experience justice.
OMG – right? This is not photoshopped. A few minutes before sunrise.
Almost there
Good morning sunshine!
Speaking of Cindy, I think we need to buy her a crash helmet here in Australia. She hit her head more times than I can count on this trip. It’s not uncommon for us to bang up against something as the boat is always moving and it’s often hard to anticipate the motion, especially when below deck. We often joke about how women who sail are asked by their physicians if they are in an abusive relationship. Bumps and bruises are a way of life on a sailboat.
This trip I was smacked on the right side of my face with the bitter end of the mizzer ballooner sheet (rope on a sail). I went to secure it when it came loose and was thrashing about as I was taking down the sail. I have no idea how it came loose. Unexplained things like this happen all the time on boats. I could immediately taste blood in my mouth. At the time, it didn’t hurt much and I thought, now that’s going to leave a mark. For the next couple of days, I slept on the left side of my face.
That’s a massive cruise ship that passed our bow in the middle of the night about 1.25nm away (we were talking to them on the radio to ensure we missed each other)
When we arrived in Brisbane to check into Australia, I wondered if the customs guys thought we’d been in a fistfight. One of them did mention he used to be a professional boxer and I wondered if he wanted to go a few rounds. They turned out to be two of the nicest customs guys we’ve encountered in all of our travels, Nash and Lee. They were polite, joked, very thorough with their inquiries, and search of the boat.
Lee and Nash helped us with the pronunciation of some of the areas we plan to visit. Apparently, Brisbane is pronounce as Bris.ben. We learn how Aussies like to shorten all words. Some of the abbreviations are rather funny.
We already knew that Australian is home to eight of the top ten most deadly animals in the world. Regardless if you are on land or in the sea, something is always trying to kill you. Nash and Lee shared their stories of encounters with things like Brown Snakes. Lee’s most recent one being a couple of weeks ago on a camping trip. Fast-moving, aggressive and known for their bad temper, browns are responsible for more deaths every year in Australia than any other group of snakes. The bottom line is, if bitten you have about an hour to get to a hospital if you want to live. Somebody please remind me why we are here? Here is a map of the safe areas of Australia.
Lee made Cindy’s day. I have mentioned previously in the blog how Cindy does all of the paperwork for clearance, visas, extensions, biosecurity, and so forth. She is very buttoned up when it comes to this. She rarely uses any of the social media sites or groups available to us for shortcuts since often times their information is outdated. Instead, she’ll spend some time on the government sites being sure to follow the rules and latest information. She puts in an awful lot of time into making sure everything is correct when we enter a country. Lee made a point of telling Cindy that she was one of the most proficient people he had encountered in all of his years as an agent. It was fantastic to see Cindy get recognition for all of her efforts.
Tugs turning a cargo ship on the Brisbane River
Once cleared in with all the authorities, the next morning we caught the 4am slack tide on the Brisbane River and headed to the marina that will be home for us over the next few months. Once tied up and checked in, we headed to the grocery store for some fresh fruits and veggies. I also purchased a SIM card.
Just before leaving New Caledonia, I ordered a couple of SIM cards online to be shipped to the marina ahead of us. Somehow they didn’t make it there. The post office said the package had a bad address. It didn’t. They also couldn’t tell me where it was. I tried to contact Vodafone for help. Ha! I should have known better.
We wound up stopping at a Vodafone store after contacting PayPal to cancel the previous order. The guy at the Vodafone store insisted on having a mobile number to open an account (an Australian mobile number – and not a landline of where we are staying). I politely let him know we didn’t have local mobile numbers and this is why we were in his store. If we did have numbers, we wouldn’t be there. He looked rather perplexed. I’m guessing he doesn’t deal much with people like us.
Once set up on the phone and some fresh groceries in the fridge, our next item was to pick up our rental car. We decided to rent a car for our entire stay here. This is an expensive luxury but after shopping around we found a place that specializes in this sort of rental and the rate wasn’t horrible. I’d been moving the date on the pick-up quite a bit because of our weather delay in New Caledonia. Luckily, the owner of the company is a boater and understands too well the impact weather can have on a passage.
So here we are. We are in Australia. We have food. We have phones. We have a car. And, we are ready to explore.
