Land Ho Australia! We
followed the yellow brick road across the biggest puddle (Pacific Ocean) to the
Land of Oz. It only took a little over
two years with over 100 stops along the way.
We participated in the Port to Port (P2P) rally where you get reimbursed
for your customs/immigration fees. We
left Noumea, New Caledonia on October 17, 2012 (Danny Millard’s birthday) and
arrived at Bundaberg, Queensland, Australia on October 22, 2012, our 29th
wedding anniversary. Who would have ever
thought 29 years ago that we would be sailing to Australia?
We had a pretty benign passage of 789 nautical
miles. We timed our passage well – it
took us five days and two hours and fortunately we beat a nasty front that
arrived off the coast of Australia about 10 hours after our arrival. Unfortunately, two other sailboats were not
so fortunate with the timing of their arrival – Casulo’s hull cracked and after two unsuccessful helicopter evacuations, they fought five meter seas and 40 knots of wind for twelve hours; A Capella lost their autopilot and they had
to hand steer in the storm. We knew that
a front was coming so we maintained our speed the whole trip even if that meant
turning on the “iron” wind.
We had excellent weather (a little bumpy at the start), good
wind at the start somewhat offset by strong currents and then a lightening of
the wind toward the end of the passage.
It was amazing that four other larger sailboats left on the same day
within three hours of each other (Kite - USA, Lady of the Lowlands - Holland,
Hoke’lea - USA and Inspiration Lady - Canada) and we all arrived on the same
day within three hours of each other. Overall, we had a great passage except for the
last night of cruising which was a little hairy as we had to dodge freighters
and tankers all night in a very busy shipping channel off the coast of
Australia.
Read on for details of our passage are below.
Date/Time
|
Latitude
|
Longitude
|
Course
|
Wind
|
Speed
|
Comments
|
Oct 17/noon
|
22.21 South
|
166.13 East
|
249 True
|
23 kts SE
|
7 kts
|
Tail end of front - rough
|
Oct 17/7:15 p.m.
|
22.30 South
|
165.22 East
|
261 True
|
18 Kts SE
|
7 Kts
|
730 miles to go
|
Oct 18/7:15 a.m.
|
22.44 South
|
164.05 East
|
254 True
|
16 Kts SE
|
6.5 Kts
|
658 miles to go
|
Oct 18/noon
|
22.48 South
|
163.35 East
|
254 True
|
15 Kts SE
|
6.7 Kts
|
630 miles to go
|
Oct 18/7:15 p.m.
|
23.01 South
|
162.44 East
|
260 True
|
15 Kts SE
|
6.9 Kts
|
580 miles to go
|
Oct 19/7:15 a.m.
|
22.12 South
|
161. 27 East
|
260 True
|
14 Kts E/SE
|
7.3 Kts
|
509 miles to go
|
Oct 19/noon
|
23.22 South
|
160.53 East
|
260 True
|
10 Kts E/SE
|
6.7 Kts
|
475 miles to go
|
Oct 19/7:15 p.m.
|
23.41 South
|
160.00 East
|
260 True
|
10 Kts E/SE
|
7 Kts
|
425 miles to go
|
Oct 20/7:15 a.m.
|
23.40 South
|
158.39 East
|
258 True
|
8 Kts NE
|
6.9 Kts
|
350 miles to go
|
Oct 20/noon
|
23.45 South
|
158. 05 East
|
265 True
|
4 Kts NE
|
6.5 Kts
|
320 miles to go
|
Oct 20/7:15 p.m.
|
23.51 South
|
157.16 East
|
261 True
|
1 Kts NE
|
6.3 Kts
|
275 miles to go
|
Oct 21/7:15 a.m.
|
24.02 South
|
155.51 East
|
267 True
|
13 Kts NW
|
7.5 Kts
|
198 miles to go
|
Oct 21/noon
|
24.06 South
|
155.11 East
|
258 True
|
14 Kts NW
|
7.2 Kts
|
159 miles to go
|
Oct 21/7:15 p.m.
|
24.13 South
|
154.25 East
|
260 True
|
12 Kts NW
|
6.5 Kts
|
115 miles to go
|
Oct 22/7:15 a.m.
|
24.22 South
|
153.11 East
|
240 True
|
9 Kts N/NW
|
6.5 Kts
|
44 miles to go
|
Oct 22/noon
|
24.40 South
|
152.39 East
|
240 True
|
16 kts N
|
7.8 kts
|
10 miles to go
|
