JUNE 19, 2005

Journal Entry Mar14-Local Fauna Mar26-Feast or Famine April2 - Anchors Away April30-New Caledonia May9-Coochie Island May15-Vanuatu&Dolphins May31-Rugby,Anchor Angst June19-The Mad Mile Journal Page 1

June 3 - 17, 2005

     We spent two weeks at anchor on the Mooloolah River at the town of Mooloolaba in Queensland - this beats our previous record of ten days as the longest time spent in one location. We felt like we had been dropped into an episode of "Lifestyles of the Rich and Famous" - the river and surrounding area are lined with multimillion dollar homes - most of which have big expensive boats tied up to their floating berth. There are river boat cruises that happen about every hour during the day and which cruised by us and the thirty other boats anchored in the river. As the cruise boats passed by quite close to us, we could hear the commentator talking about the homes of the "pop stars and TV stars". Apparently this is the most expensive real estate in Queensland.

     Busy and crowded anchorages are not "our cup of tea" but this was our only choice as we do not like being in marinas. We needed to do laundry and stock up on provisions, both of which were readily available by dinghy ride and short walks. We also wanted to watch the second State of Origin rugby league game on June 15, 2005 and knew that the likelihood of finding a sports bar at our next stop in The Great Sandy Strait was very slim.

     Our stay was made enjoyable by our making the acquaintance of a New Zealand couple who have been living aboard for just over one year. They live on a beautiful 47 foot sailing vessel with a fully enclosed centre cockpit - a very dry cockpit on passage-making. We spent quite a bit of time with Mark and Amanda and they were very generous with their experiences of traveling to Fiji, New Caledonia, and Vanuatu in their first year. It is Mark and Amanda's dream to circumnavigate, although they readily admit that it is taking some time to actually get going. They plan on spending a South Pacific winter in the Louisiads (part of Papua New Guinea) and then back to Australia for the summer and then "over the top" of Australia and onward around the world. It is our hope that we meet again when they are back in Australia this summer.

     While in Mooloolaba, we worked on several boat projects. We have designed an improvement for the cockpit - we want to make clear plastic side panels that will be zippered and snapped into place. These side panels will make the cockpit very dry during rain storms and passage making. We have now purchased everything that we need and plan on completing that project in the next couple of months. As moving to Australia and getting settled on the boat proved to be more expensive than we anticipated, we agreed several weeks ago that we would not make any big purchases or big changes to the boat until we had lived aboard for a year. However, making side panels significantly improves our comfort aboard and, after discussion of pros and cons, we decided to spend the money now.

     Another boat project that needed to be done was for Paul to go to the top of the mast and inspect the masthead light, which we suspected was not working correctly. Sure enough, the light bulb was defective and needed to be replaced. Another warranty item to add to the long list of items that have mostly been addressed. From Paul's point of view it's quite fun going up the mast. The view is great and the ride is made easy by the electric windlass that Mary uses to get him up there. This was also a good time for Paul to slowly inspect the rigging, getting familiar with how things should look when they are new and fully functional.

     On Thursday, June 16, 2005, the weather forecast for the next day was favourable for a coastal hop of 55 miles north to The Great Sandy Strait so we made plans to leave the next morning at 5 a.m. We checked the tide charts for the time of high tide at the Wide Bay Bar and calculated the time of our departure from Mooloolaba so that we could cross Wide Bay Bar just before high tide. If we missed the opportune time to cross, we knew that we would have to anchor at Double Island Point, not the most protected anchorage, and wait until the next day.

June 18, 2005

     Tonight we are safe and sound in a perfectly calm and well protected anchorage south of the great Fraser Island. We will write more about this island in the coming weeks as we get to see more of it. It's apparently the largest sand island in the world.

     It's how we got here that is the story for today. Words and photographs will never be able to describe the true experience. At 5:00 a.m. Friday morning we finally left the safe anchorage of Mooloolaba heading for the southern entrance to Hervey Bay. This entrance is guarded by sand bars on which the ocean swells continuously break in huge curling breakers. How huge? Well, Friday when we arrived at 2:00 in the afternoon, after a great day of ocean sailing, the coast guard said they were 10 feet tall. When we first saw the breakers across the bar, we immediately turned to one another with pale faces and said, "I'm not going in there. Not today." And so we didn't. Apparently the ocean swell was larger than usual and therefore the breakers were larger than usual. Except they have been this size for the last WEEK or so. When we were 10 miles away, we could see the spray in the air above these massive waves.

    Just last month, a 40' catamaran with an experienced skipper pitch poled (that means, "tipped head over heels; end over end"). The boat and crew were badly beat up but all survived. The very morning that we arrived, a small fishing boat capsized and unfortunately, the fisherman wasn't so lucky. With all of this in our minds and the frightening visual, it was enough to send us high tailing it out of there. But where to go next was the decision. To carry on further north on the outside of Fraser Island would mean a sail of over 100 miles. Tacked on top of the 55 that we had just completed, that would have been a tough over-nighter. The alternative was for us to head 10 miles south to a semi-protected bay open to the 7 foot ocean swells called Double Island Point, which we did.

     It was a tough night for us. The wind was almost non-existent but being lifted and dropped 7 feet every 10 seconds all night long is awfully hard on the stomach. When Mary turned and looked at Paul with a smiling, green face at 6:00 a.m. her words were, "You really know how to show a girl a good time." There were at least 6 other sail boats anchored with us that night, all hoping that the ocean swell would slack during the night and the breakers would look a little more forgiving - which they did. A LITTLE. Our plan was to get up close, watch how others crossed, then decide if we felt confident enough to try. We had to sit around bobbing at anchor until 12:30 in the afternoon. There was no point in getting to the entrance early. One has to wait until very near high tide, the point in time when the breakers are least. After contacting the coast guard, we were informed that several vessels had safely crossed the bar earlier (many much smaller boats than ours) and so we were pretty determined that we should be able to do it as well. The secret to such a bar crossing is to get in sync with the pattern of waves. There are usually 2 or three big ones that can cause you trouble followed by 6 or 7 that are benign. And so, when we arrived at the bar, we spent time watching the wave pattern. We also had an opportunity to watch another sailboat (again smaller than us) enter quite successfully without having a breaking wave land on them. With our new-found courage, we cautiously got into position on the lead light, waited for the second big breaker to pass under us before Paul gunned both engines - it was our expectation that the third would pass under us before we got up a full head of steam. Well, we were in for a surprise. Our boat accelerates too fast and the third breaker just grew and grew BEHIND us. The decision to go had been made, and it was too late to do anything but surf the thing in. What a ride! Paul was way too busy steering the boat in the right direction to even think of looking down at the speedo. He only looked back once, for an instant, just before it broke, and all he could see was a wall of water, higher than our canopy. It broke directly over the dinghy, (which is hanging from the stern davits and angled forward on its side, so as to not fill with water) nudging it forward a bit and dumped a truck-load of salty water in the cockpit and onto Mary as she was standing trying to take pictures. We can now say that we know what it is like to be pooped by a wave. Fortunately, we had the forethought to have all of our hatches securely closed, as well as the saloon door. We also were wearing our life vests, a requirement of all bar crossings. We didn't take any water aboard except in the cockpit.

      In retrospect, we know that Paul gunned the engines one wave too soon. Patience isn't one of his virtues, and he probably should have backed off on the throttle once we started to surf down that wave. We could have buried the bows, but in the end we didn't. It is great news for us to now know that our bows have the buoyancy necessary to keep her afloat. After crossing the bar, the worst (read "frightening") was over, and all that was left was what is known as "the mad mile", where the water is just a boiling cauldron that throws you around every which way. This is more uncomfortable than dangerous.

    At dinner, a few hours later, tucked safely away in our new little anchorage, we reviewed today's experiences, our fears, our actions, our emotions. Although surfing waves with a 40 foot cat, our home, is not an experience we want to repeat, we both agree that we handled the situation well and found new confidence in ourselves and in Bella Via.

     For those of you who believe that our new life is only about having fun in the idyllic South Pacific - THIS WAS DEFINITELY NOT FUN!! The past two days were exhilarating but quite stressful and we are looking forward to a few days of relaxation. The weather report is calling for strong winds out of the northwest and maybe rain. We are tucked into a good spot and should be comfortable.