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We reached Townsville at the end of May. The passage was our third longest to date and we were pleased that it was a good one. It divided into three parts; the first and third parts were fast down wind passages with winds of 20-30 knots while during the middle section we had head winds of about 15 knots. Our new rig with the second furling system worked well. The only problems we had were in power generation. We couldn't get our duogen to charge the batteries and the generator also stopped charging them about half way across. Fortunately our engine alternator was well up to the task. On arrival the Australian Customs and Quarantine were very pleasant and efficient and we were cleared for entry in about 2 hours.
We were absolutely delighted to find local sailors David and Ann waiting on the quay to welcome us! We last saw them in England in 1970 before they emigrated to Australia. Last year they discovered we were making this trip and have been following our progress.
There is a shortage of skilled boat workers in Australia and it has been very difficult to arrange repairs. It turned out that the cause of the generator failure was a leaking seawater pump which allowed seawater into the wiring. The generator had to be sent to Brisbane for repair and then forwarded to Darwin for refitting there.
We have felt very much at home in Queensland. The winter weather has however not been anything like England. The sun has been out most of the time and the daytime temperature is usually around 25-27°C. We have tried to see something of the area although we will not have time to explore the Great Barrier Reef properly. Here are some of the animals we have seen.
Koala Kangaroo A wild Cassawary (they are endangerd)
Platypus ( seen in the wild) A very placid Wombat Crocodile feeding
We enjoyed touring the Atherton Tablelands where we found some very pretty scenery and plantations of sugar cane, banana, tea and teak. Herberton was formerly a tin mining town before the tin finally ran out in the 1980s.
Cane sugar is brought from the fields by train A restored tin mining village A typical outback hotel
Milau Milau falls Lake Eacham
Life on board
We sailed to Darwin with only a brief stop at Dunk Island and Lizard Island. The passage was good although arduous as we had to concentrate hard to miss large numbers of reefs and ships taking the route inside the Great Barrier Reef. We were sorry not to have had longer but we needed to push on to give ourselves time in Darwin to complete the paperwork for entry into Indonesia and to have our generator reinstalled.
Idyllic Lizard Island beach A lizard of over 1 metre in length Tapestry anchored with twin poles
