This is a draft copy of the journal I wrote covering my time in the Solomon Islands where I lived from early 2005 through to mid 2008.  In that time I found and partly re-fitted a beautiful ketch rigged yacht.  That yacht now resides in a marina in Fremantle where I have completed the re-fit and will enjoy sailing her in the way she was meant to be.

“It’s The Serenity”

Solomon Islands to Fremantle

“It’s The Serenity” is a 41 foot Formosan Ketch, William Garden designed and built in the mid 70’s on the island of Formosa.  I found her in a fairly dilapidated state back in 2003 when I went to the Solomons to repair a 30 foot game fishing and cruising catamaran called Lalae that had been banged up on its mooring outside the Pt Cruz Yacht Club in March of that year. Lalae was owned and operated by an ex RAN guy named Steve who had moved to the Solomons and was running a game fishing and cruising business through the islands.  We’d taken Lalae over to a ship yard called Avi Avi in the Florida Islands some 25nm across Iron Bottom Sound and slipped her for 2 weeks while we repaired the damage.  It was while there that I noticed this mast-less yacht, then named Taholi, tied up alongside a local trading boat.  Via a rickety plank off her stern to shore, I ventured on board a few times and other than noting that she was a beautiful bit of gear with potential, thought little more of it.  On leaving that place on Lalae , I took some departing snaps of this far away place that I thought I’d never see again.  But a seed had been planted.

Back in Perth I fell back into my normal routine but not before I had sorted thru the snaps I’d taken on the trip.  One of them was taken from the fly bridge of Lalae looking back at Avi Avi as we motored out of the inlet and there, hiding almost forlornly up against a local trading boat, was Taholi.  I cropped that photo to highlight just the yacht, enlarged it and stuck the print up on the side of my fridge.  Every evening when I came in from work that print was what greeted me and every evening it just got bigger and bigger.  The seed was growing.

Lalae on slipway at Avi Avi.

Then fate stepped in.  Steve, the owner of Lalae, contacted me with a request to come back and do some additional work on the hull that we had identified while we had her on the slip.  My mate Graham, who’d started this whole thing off with his call that initiated my initial trip to the Solomons, was to come over as well and I knew then that I was going to go for Taholi.  The return trip went well and the additional work on Lalae was completed in good time, leaving us with a few days to have a closer look at Taholi.  By this time she had been towed back to Honiara and was on a cradle in a yard by the sea some 5 km out of Honiara.  So I made contact with the owner, a locally based Australian timber trader named Kevin and arranged a more critical look at the boat.  This time I could take Graham with me to give his professional opinion.  Being a fibreglass boat specialist I could not have had a better consultant for the job.  His take was that she had good bones but needed a full re-fit.  I’d have to live over there and work on her full time if I was going to make this work.

So after some consideration I made Kevin an offer by phone as we were in a taxi on our way to the airport to fly back home.  He just laughed and said goodbye and I was somewhat crestfallen.  He didn’t even indicate a willingness to discuss anything further.  So we boarded our flight with me feeling quite glum and facing the boredom of working life back home. 

Now the flight from Honiara to Brisbane is just 3 hours with another 5 hours from Brisbane to Perth.  By the time we were half way thru the Brisbane to Perth leg I had set a strategy and knew that I just had to end up owning Taholi.   The strategy revolved around the waiting game and believing that Kevin would finally come to the realisation that he’d never get this boat finished himself and never find another idiot to take it on as and where it was.   It was a sound strategy and my patience prevailed, eventually striking an agreement with Kevin that bought me back to the Solomons in November of 2004 to close the deal.

Part of the deal was to return the boat to sound floating status and take her back to Avi Avi where I could live on board while re-fitting her.  The events leading to that December afternoon all seemed to happen so quickly and I now found myself sitting at the helm of my 41 foot mast-less potential ketch at a land backed wharf in the Solomon Islands.  On this humid tropical Friday afternoon in early December 2004, waiting for the boat to turn up for the tow, there was no turning back.

The tow back to Avi Avi was the beginning of an adventure in what became a series of unforgettable events that warranted a book in their own right and the seed that I had sewn back in August 2003 was about to show its full colour. 

The plan was to be towed over to Avi Avi behind another boat also owned by the guy I’d just bought Taholi from.  Kevin owned a converted Japanese long liner and traded throughout the Solomons buying timber that he bought back to his lumber yard in Honiara, milled it and packed the boards in containers to be shipped around the world.  We were due to leave the wharf near his timber yard at noon this particular day but as I was soon to learn, Solomon time is fairly flexible and that went from noon to 15:00 to 17:00 to “me no savvy”. 

Eventually, some time after dark, locals started to drift in to the now quite deserted wharf area with bags and boxes and kids, and quietly boarded the ship.  Finally, with this 100 ft boat groaning with locals we got underway in pitch dark.  Looking back on that very early event in my list of experiences of how things work in the Solomons, it is fairly clear to me that the crew had a bit of a scam going.  They deliberately waited until the boss had gone home at the end of the day’s work then took on paying passengers for the journey to other locations in the islands.  A lucrative deal for skipper and crew but highly dangerous for the hapless owner if something went wrong.

Anyway, by this time I had my own issues.  Here I was in my newly acquired boat being illegally towed behind an unlicensed boat full of unregistered passengers in total darkness with no steering and no lights.  Having no steering wheel, that being souvenired ages ago, I’d actually rigged up an emergency tiller directly on to the rudder post but that was at best, barely adequate.  Nevertheless I was underway and my nerves finally settled down as we struck out north for the Florida Islands some 24nm north of the industrial area of Honiara known as Renandi.

Going back in the water at Ranandi. Kevin’s other boat in background.

Part way across the occasion took on surreal proportions as the sky started to explode with lightning and I can clearly recall standing on the bow spit watching the water on both sides of the boat light up as we slid thru that flat calm sea.  At times I was able to guess where we were from brief glimpses at islands as they were highlighted by the impressive display.  What made it even more memorable was that while the lightning storm was extensive, I don’t recall any wind or rain, just hot dry air and the sound of static cracks as the discharges hit the water.

We finally eased in to the inlet that took us on to the Avi Avi shipyard and on stopping just off the office, I gratefully hooked on to an available mooring, collected my frozen supplies that had been stored in the towing ships freezer and released the tow rope.  Watching the ship continue on its journey I wondered where all of this would end as I sorted out where to sleep and, over a half frozen beer, pondered what tomorrow would bring.  As it turned out, this was the beginning of a series of unforgettable life’s experiences that so often led me to say “only in the Solomons”.  My meeting with the ship yard manager the next morning was the first of those.

Avi Avi office, Florida Islands 25nm north of Guadalcanal

What followed over the next few years does, as I have said, warrant a story in its own right but one ‘milestone’ stands out as significant. 

Raising the mast.

Any one who has engaged on a major project will tell you that certain milestones in that project carry more significance than others.  When I started this adventure, it was at a time in my life where I needed desperately to achieve something that indicated I was going forward, in the right direction so to speak, from a rather low period in my life.  When the time came to install the main mast on the boat for the first time I realized that there was more to this than just standing it up again.  For an individual task it didn’t really rate that high on the difficulty scale but it would be a major milestone in the project to get this boat in to sailing trim.

Back in Australia one would simply phone the local mobile crane company to set the date and time and the job would be completed inside 40 minutes with little of no fuss.  Couple of mates to hold lines and a competent crane driver with state of the art equipment that works.

It’s a bit different in the Solomon’s and even more so here at Avi Avi. even more remote.  I’d been restoring the spars in Avi Avi’s workshop over after a couple of weeks of concentrated work and was now ready to step the lovely white painted main mast.  Now Phil, the shipyard manager, and I had been discussing how to do this.  The mast is over 16m long and around 250kg with the first 1.6m sitting down inside the hull thru a small hole or chute in the deck.  It stepped directly on top of the keel so needed to be fed from nearly vertical so we needed a crane.  We had been waiting for a suitable ship to come in to the shipyard for maintenance so we could use its deck boom and a likely candidate, the Chanella, was due in soon.  We would draw the yacht up alongside the freighter, tie off securely and lower the mast in to place using the cargo gantry.  Getting the mast up on to the freighter would be no problem with plenty of willing hands available.

Sadly however, when the much anticipated Chanella, complete with deck boom arrived it was clear that the rope on the boom was in such poor condition that it was barely capable of holding up its own weight, let alone my precious mast.  Clearly a new plan was needed.  Such is the way of things over in the Solomons, the solution came in a round about way. 

I’d been back in Honiara on a supplies run and was returning to the island on board the somewhat third world ferry Nonano when I met up with Steve.  Steve was the only other expat passenger on an unusually empty passenger deck that afternoon as we limped back to Tulaghi with the familiar Nonano permanent 5deg list.  Steve was asking me how the re-fit was going and when I mentioned my dilemma he said, “Sassapi has got a crane.”  He then went on to tell me how he had dropped a motor in to a boat using their crane just a few months before and all I needed to do was talk to Dickie at the main Sassapi yard right where the ferry was to tie up.  Perhaps ‘dropped’ is an unfortunate turn of phrase here but I got the picture.

What luck…  There was a solution at hand and quite close to Avi Avi.  So as soon as Nonano docked and we gratefully acknowledged surviving yet another crossing in the decrepit converted Japanese long liner, I headed off to talk to Dickie.  It was with a guarded level of relief that when I finally got back to Avi Avi I was able to tell Phil that all was ready to step the mast and he acknowledged that the Sassapi crane… “would probably do the job”.

The plan was simple.  Finish off last minute tasks, lay the mast on to the deck of the yacht and motor around to Sassapi.  As Dickie had advised, I rang him two days before to re-confirm he was expecting me and he said that he would send the electrician down to the Sassapi crane dock, some distance around the point to make sure the crane was still working.  This made me feel fairly comfortable that things were finally, and rather unusually, going to plan. 

The evening before setting out for Sassapi, some 5 or so nautical miles away, we loaded the mast on to the deck of the boat using pillows and rolled up blankets to protect the nice new paint work.  We had a visit from Neil and Yolande who run the nearby SCUBA diving school as they were heading out with a boatload of divers to explore the nearby US WWII frigate the “Aaron Ward”.  They wished us well with camera’s snapping the scene that to the visiting divers must have seemed like something out of an adventure novel.

Next morning my trio of willing workers joined me and we motored out of the inlet and around the point toward Tulaghi and the Sassapi yards.  I cruised in close to the main shipyard so Dickie could see we were on schedule and hopefully send his boys down to meet me at the other jetty where the boom crane was.  Arriving there about 10am we were met by silence.  The rusty old boom crane stood as a silent sentinel to the deserted wharf.  Not at all discouraged I eased the boat up against the wharf and went about securing the boat hard up against the pylons so she wouldn’t drift sideways when the mast was swung in to position.

After waiting about 2 hours with no one but some curious local villagers watching us from the security of the copious palm trees, I decided that perhaps it wouldn’t be such a bad idea to walk back to the main yard and find out where the boys were.  So thru the steamy heat of the tropical rain forrest I confidently strode out along the 2km track that winds and climbs its way back to the main Sassapi ship yard facility.   There I found Dickie at his usual place in the shipyard office and he seemed somewhat surprised that that I was in fact waiting for him down at the crane jetty.  “It’s alright” he said. Hem finis lunch blong him, then send tree falla boys blong yard.  “Hem now”

So I trudged back along that 2km track, up and down hills and dodging puddles in that lovely tropical heat and rain and waited.

Eventually, ‘tree falla boys blong yard’ arrived and began walking around the crane, pushing random buttons on the control panel.  It became fairly obvious after about 3 circumnavigations that there was no power to the unit.  Then one bright spark remembered that this shed didn’t have Tulaghi power and they would need to start the genset.  Inside the shed.  The shed that they didn’t have keys for.  So they broadened their meanderings and included the shed as they conducted a search and destroy mission.  Following a reasonable amount of noise that included banging, hammering and screeching of tortured corrugated Iron one of them emerged from a door that materialized in the side of the shed and they all disappeared back inside.

I must admit I was quite surprised when from within the rather dilapidated shed I caught the sound of a genset bursting in to life and shortly after the boys re emerged with broad smiles on their faces.  Not for long however because it didn’t take very long to understand that the electrician had not in fact come down here to check the system and the crane was not going to be working today.  The boys told me they would return tomorrow and left me to ponder the next step.  It didn’t take long to decide that the best plan was to motor back toward the main shipyard and anchor off the small lodge that was there.  I’d been to the Vanita lodge more than a few times before and knew that at least I could buy a cold beer there.  So we slipped away from the wharf and quietly motored back toward Tulaghi village.  I bought some food for the boys and settled in to a few coldies myself.  Neil and Yolande motored past my anchorage on their way back from another dive and acknowledged that ‘Solomon Time’ had struck again.

The next morning we moved the boat back to the crane and there were the three boys waiting for us.  Hmm… promising… but they were doing just that., waiting.  It seems that the battery to the genset had been nicked overnight and they had sent someone off back to the main site to get another.  Again, Neil and Yolande called by to see how we were progressing, or not progressing, but I was optimistic.

About an hour later the genset burst in to life again and 30 minutes later the crane wheezed and groaned in to life.  By this time I was more than ready and wasted no time in setting up the slings for the lift.  We had to position the lift point on the mast to be just above the centre of gravity so it would lift the right way up but not that far because this crane didn’t have a lot of height.  But another issue soon emerged.  On lifting the mast off the wharf it was obvious that while the top was up and the bottom down, it was facing the wrong way.  And with this crane we didn’t have the ability to turn it about without lowering it back down and spinning it 180deg on its axis.  Not an easy task with 8 shrouds, spreaders, wires and halyards.  So with the mast precariously dangling 20’ above the wharf, I started the yacht’s engine and did a loop in the bay to return to the wharf facing the other way.  This only took a few minutes and I even stole a moment to take a photo of the jetty with my mast hanging from the crane before a backdrop of palm trees and rain forest.

Safely tied back on to the wharf we began to position the mast over the opening in the foredeck and gave the signal to lower away.  Now as I said, the crane wasn’t that big so we were not going to be able to lower it down on to the keel step inside the hull from the vertical.  Once we got the base of the 16m long mast thru the opening however we would be OK because we could then manhandle it to the vertical as it lowered away.  Getting it all the way thru that opening was however not as easy as it seemed.  It just wasn’t going to go thru, jamming on the side of the chute.  It was close but in the famous words of Maxwell Smart, secrete agent…”Close but no banana”

Then I had a moment of inspiration.  By that time we had quite an audience of locals who had come along to watch the circus and so I called out to them to come on board.  Once they got the idea they flocked to the side of the boat and I herded them up on to the bow.  One or two at a time we moved about 20 people up there with the front half of the boat burying itself lower in to the water each time.  Once the bow was low enough for the mast to finally slip in thru the mast chute, I herded them all back off again amid puzzled looks and laughing children.

After some arm waving and shouted instructions to the crane operator the protruding solid aluminium peg on the base of the mast slipped firmly in to the step and neatly entombed the coin that I had glued there earlier in the week.  While I’m not superstitious I didn’t want to mess with tradition.

Things happened fast after that.  I hammered pre prepared wedges around the mast where it entered the deck and we then tied off the holding ropes while I went around and screwed up each stay jack one at a time.  Happy that the mast was safe I then jumped on to the wharf to see from a distance how vertical the mast was and that’s when the significance of what I had just achieved hit me.  There was my boat with a main mast standing up all by itself for the first time since I had taken ownership.  I was so overcome by the sudden emotion of the moment that I had to turn away and wipe away the tears that had uncontrollably and voluminously welled up.  I’d done it. I had raised the mast.  The past 4 years of frustration, setbacks and painful memories of a broken marriage pored out from the soles of my bare feet and thru the open planks of the Sassapi wharf in to the Pacific Ocean to be washed away for ever.  And I rejoiced.

Fists clenched and arms held above my head I punched the air.  You little ripper.  That caused a few humorous glances.

All of the boys gathered around on the wharf in front of the boat, again with beaming faces, for another photo session and I then went about final tuning of screw jacks for wire tensions.

Right about then Neil and Yolande called by with their boat load of divers and the relief on my face must have said it all.  I was one very happy chappie at that moment and the camera’s came out again as they moved off toward the days second dive.

Following the mast stepping I only needed to call in to the shipyard on my way back to Avi Avi to settle the account.  Back at the office Dickie was there and he directed me to their financial manager who proudly presented me with a bill over twice what they had quoted.  I very quickly pointed out that the reason it had taken 4 times longer than it should have was because the alleged electrician who was alleged to have gone down to the crane wharf to set things up, had in fact allegedly shot thru to Honiara a few days before and had actually done nothing.  And the 3 boys that had got the crane going after a full day’s delay had mysteriously been joined by three more, according to the bill, to do a job that I was told would be done by 2.  And I pointed out, politely of course, that I had bough my own guys over from the slip yard as I had advised I would and had to pay them for two days work to do what should have only been 4 hours work.  And I had to feed them twice as much food.  So after some haggling I paid them the cash that I had budgeted and left rather satisfied that justice had prevailed.

As we prepared to cast off from the main wharf a local Avi Avi worker who I recognized as one of the welders and his wife came on board with their newly borne baby for a lift back to their island and I dropped them off outside their village, Halavo, on my way around the point and on to my mooring.  It seems that in the Solomon’s, word gets around when ever a boat is heading from somewhere to somewhere else and you will inevitably have someone coming along for a free ride.

The crane that “should do the job”

Hive of activity at Sassapi and mast in mid air.

Back on the Avi Avi office verandah that evening for sunset drinks with Phil, It took no time at all to decide that the boat looked far better with a mast than without.  I had a couple of extra beers in the cooler so we could celebrate the milestone.

Stepping the mizzen was not going to be difficult by comparison and a few days later we man handled that in to place with ropes so I could accurately measure for new wire stays.  The final stepping of the mizzen would be delayed until after my next trip back home where I would get new ones fabricated.  I didn’t want to make any mistakes so temporarily stood the mast in place using ropes while I carefully took the measurements.  I did leave it up long enough to take some photo’s before the boys lugged it back to the shed and I got my first hint of what my beautiful lady would look fully rigged.

The next event that would rival the stepping of the mast for significance was going to be setting sails for the first time.  But that was to be some time off and Ideally, I would have someone else on board who knew how to sail.  As it happens, my brother’s son Mark was destined to visit me later in the year so I planned for that visit to raise the canvas.  Mark had done a number of trips on the sail training ship “The Leeuwin” and during his visit later in the year, we did in fact achieve that goal.

Leaving that story here for a later date, I’ll jump to June 2008.

My original dream to fix the boat up to a condition where I could run a cruising business throughout the Solomon Islands had changed somewhat.  April 18 2006 had bought riots, burning and looting back to Honiara and the incumbent political regime, despite the RAMSI presence, was showing no signs of improving the situation.  What’s more I was seriously missing my family and friends and by the end of 2007 knew my time in the Solomons was coming to an end.  I had met many guys with similar dreams who had come to the Solomons and succumbed to the life style, the sense of importance and the local girls.  They had basically stagnated there, many of them losing a small fortune and were now stuck and even if they wanted to leave had nowhere to go. 

There’s a saying in the Solomons that goes something like this.  “If you want to make a small fortune in the Solomons, bring in a bigger one.”

I was going to leave on my terms and with the boat now fully operational had decided to get her home to Fremantle where I could finish the fit out to a standard that I knew was not possible here in Honiara.  So while the plan had changed, there was still the desire to get the most out of where I was while still here but to get out soon. 

With the plan changed, I was on the verge of preparing the boat for the beginning of a long voyage when life took yet another turn.  I was sitting in the Pt Cruz Yacht Club early in March 2007 having the inevitable Sol Brew and chatting to Troy, an Aussi guy I’d met there and got on well with.  He was working for an engineering company who also ran a dive charter business.  Now while Troy had initially started working for them as a dive master he had recently been seconded to the engineering side of the business when their Operations Manager had left.  Now Troy didn’t want to be an Op’s Manager- he wanted to dive so was actively seeking someone to take on that job so he could go back to the water.  When he found out my background in electronic and electrical engineering as well as service management in IT his eyes lit up.  What followed went something like this…

Troy said, “Just wait there.  There’s someone I want you to meet” and disappeared for a while.  He then returned with his boss John, as he was introduced, who asked me a few questions then said. “do you want a job”

So I ended up as the Operations Manager for an engineering firm that sold, installed and serviced Cummins and Kubota gensets,  did the same with Daikin air conditioners and also did electrical contract work around town.  I worked for that company for 12 months in a job that had me travelling all over not only Honiara but the greater Solomons in boats, aeroplanes and helicopters.

Company Car at Avuavu. Weather coast Guadalcanal

Honiara from the air.

All too soon that year was over and the desire to get home was even stronger.  I’d had enough of the Solomons, the politics and sadly the lawlessness of so many of the people.  It was a year later than planned, I felt as though I was running out of time and so now finally, I was heading home.

May 2008 was the month of closing off unfinished tasks, saying goodbye to many friends and planning for the future.  I sailed in to Gizo from Honiara in June with Andrew, yet another itinerant Aussi who I had met in the Solomons, as my eager crew. 

Honiara to Gizo. June 2008

Andrew with Guadalcanal behind us

We sailed out of Pt Cruz on what was my first ever experience at cruising in this boat and I was experiencing more than just a few butterflies.  Neither of us were what you would call experienced cruisers but we were well equipped for this maiden voyage of It’s The Serenity.  Leaving Honiara was for me the end of an era, having been living in the country for the past three and a half years and for Andrew, it was his first time on a large yacht.

Andrew at the helm, learning fast.

Peava village.  Beautiful, clean and oh so quiet.

Beautiful Peava lagoon and It’s The Serenity safely at anchor.

Our run to Gizo was a good learning experience for both of us and the first lesson learnt was not to place too aggressive a timetable on a voyage.  We sailed nonstop for two nights, passing the Russel Island group on our way to the island of Ngattokai at the eastern end of Morovo Lagoon.  There we stopped for a break at a little village called Peava where the Seventh Day Adventist church has established a lodge.  Wilderness Lodge as it is called, sits on the shore of a beautiful lagoon fringed by white sand and palm trees and it is a popular stopping point for yachts cruising Morovo.  Sadly we only stayed for an overnight stop and would have liked to stay longer.  The water there, piped down from the surrounding hills, was so sweet tasting and fresh that it was a sacrilege to shower in it.  But we did, from a tap conveniently located by the shore at the dive shop that operates from the village.  Before leaving we gave the local dive shop guy some 2 stroke fuel for his outboard motor then eased out of the lagoon to resume our journey west.  Leaving the lagoon I spotted what I thought was a large log floating near the entrance.  It came as a bit of a surprise when it suddenly sprouted a tail and disappeared underwater.  A small whale we figured.

Over the three days we had been sailing toward Peava we had been trailing a line out the back with one of a selection of fancy lures I had to attract the fish.  To date it was fish three, Serenity nil.  Each day we had taken a hit and lost not only the fish but also the lure.  Over the next three days I intended to make good and so rigged up lure and trace number 4 as we cleared Ngattokai and pointed west again.   I wish I could say that I was successful but our success over the next three days is best summed up by a proverb that Andrew slightly modified to match the occasion.  “A lure a day keeps the fish away”  Cheeky bugger.

We approached Gizo at a time of day that I had dreaded.  We were faced with either sailing in to harbour in the dark or turning about to sail around in circles until daylight the next morning.  I’d never been through these waters before and was not happy but I did have a good chart lead to work from so made the decision to go on in.  We picked up the starting point for the lead in and pretty soon came up on reef and breaking waves that I was not happy with so turned back to sea and consulted the chart again.  We’d been in the right place, just a bit close to shore.  I even rang Phil back at Avi Avi and asked him for directions and he confirmed that what we were doing was right.  Still not happy I got on the VHF and managed to raise a local dive shop owner Danny Kennedy.  He could actually see us and gave us directions on getting into Gizo Harbour and so I started to feel a lot happier at this point.

Now I need to point out one problem that helps to explain what went wrong very soon thereafter.  My handheld VHF set had been stolen in Honiara and so I was using the big set mounted inside the cabin, and as it happens, directly above the engine.  When the engine is running it is very hard to hear clearly what is being said on the two way and this led us to near disaster.  Danny had directed us to follow the line of reef we had encountered before but to keep tracking just off it until we came across a channel marker.  Then, he had said something like, veer left and in to the harbour.  What I heard was, at the marker turn left, which I did and immediately ended up on the rocks.  Danny heard our plight as it unfolded and came out in a boat at 9:30 at night to tow us off.  After pulling the boat away from the hazard we followed him in to the harbour and a safe anchorage.  In hindsight, we would have been hard pressed to find anything in that harbour with so many lights all looking the same and so few channel markers actually standing.  Locals know the place like the back of their hands so don’t understand how confusing it can be to a newcomer.

We were in Gizo a few days later than we had planned but arrived safe and sound and luckily no worse for wear.  We visited the Solomon Air office to see what could be done about flights so that Andrew could get back to Honiara.  On a sat-phone call to Honiara when we were 2 days out we had discovered that his partner had already booked his return flight and he had now missed that plane.  We were casually informed that this happens all the time here and he was simply booked on the next available flight with no fuss at all.  So we settled in to exploring Gizo and fairly soon found the PT109 bar, complete with a mural of JFK’s motor torpedo boat covering one wall.  

The PT 109 Bar in Gizo.

While there I shouted Danny and his wife a meal at the Gizo hotel for helping us out of our arrival mishap.  It was a nice way to demonstrate my appreciation and it wasn’t the last time I dined at that establishment. 

Gizo and “It’s The Serenity” from The PT 109 Bar

It doesn’t take long to see all that Gizo has to offer and we filled our time with mundane tasks like laundry and carting fresh water and wondering what to order from the PT109 menu until Andrew’s flight was due.

Andrew heading to the island airstrip Nousatoupe

After bidding farewell to Andrew as he boarded the water taxi out to the airstrip island of Nousatoupe, I headed back to the mooring and prepared to solo across to the island of Vella Lavella and a little shipyard called Liapari.  But firstly however, I needed to buy my food supplies and some additional hardware for the task at hand.  Liapari is a working yard not a supply store and I therefore needed to be self sufficient.  If I forgot anything I would most likely be faced with a canoe ride and at least 2 days delay while I travelled back to Gizo and the fairly basic hardware supply stores there.  Much of what was required for the job I had bought in Honiara before leaving and it was stored on board for the journey.

Liapari is a small shipyard some 24nm from Gizo owned and operated by a Kiwi guy named Noel.  While he doesn’t actively encourage yachts in to his lagoon he maintains the only facility in the Solomon Islands that I knew of where a cruising yacht can be slipped and worked on.  When I sailed in to Noel’s lagoon for the first time I couldn’t help but wonder just how he had managed to keep this place such a secret. 

Liapari slip with It’s The Serenity in amongst the palm trees.

There were all types of boats in various states of repair either on a mooring at anchor or tied up to various wharves.  Off to one side I located the slipway nestled in amongst palm trees with its winch house, a typically Solomon Islands iron roofed shed, marking the top of the runway.  Dropping the anchor amongst the other moored boats I launched the rubber ducky and paddled ashore to find Noel.  He was in one of the workshops and confirmed that the slip was still available for me.  While I was a couple of days later than planned as often happens here, the barge that was due in about now and destined to be up on the slip for 6 months had been delayed yet again.  I could go up straight away.  So the next morning I moved the boat over to the slip and after a number of aborted attempts to haul her out of the water, finally ended up high and dry and ready to begin work.  It seems that the problem with this slip was when they hauled up a boat lighter than its designed load.  The wheels of the carriage kept leaving the tracks and they had to use chain blocks to drag it back on course.  Pretty much the same thing happened on the way back in and I know from an email I received just as I write this in October 2009 that the situation is still the same today.

Once up and chocked I wasted no time in water blasting the inevitable growth off the hull and fairly quickly threw myself into the list of jobs I had set.  It was fairly basic work in rubbing back old coatings, cutting out any spots of osmosis found and priming the hull for the final anti fouling coats.  During this time Noel drew my attention to the sorry state of the bearing for the propeller shaft (cutlass bearing) and had one of his staff turn up a new one.  While completing that unexpected task I also needed him to make me a pair of prop nuts to replace the one that just fell apart when I started to tighten it down after fitting the new bearing.  Somebody before me had obviously over tightened it to destruction.  Not the first time I had struck that phenomenon in the Sollies.

With all tasks completed we nursed the carriage back in to the water and I took the boat, now sporting her shiny new name vinyls, for a test run around the lagoon. 

A quick word about changing a ship’s name.  Contrary to superstition, it is not unlucky to change a ships name.  I did a lot of research, most of it at the bar of the PCYC, and found that the most accepted myth is that it will change the ships luck.  I figured that this ship had been a bit unlucky before I took ownership and I was changing her luck for the good so it was OK.  But I’m not superstitious…touch wood.

I was very pleased with the difference a smooth hull and clean rudder had made to her speed and responsiveness as I did circuits of the lagoon to properly bed in the new water lubricated bearing.  Back on a good mooring it was now time to focus on the next phase of the project which was to prepare for the journey across the Solomon and Coral seas to Australia.

It was about then on a Monday morning and moored in Liapari’s lagoon that I decided to make one more trip back home to Perth before leaving the Solomon’s for good in Serenity.  It was obvious that I wouldn’t get a better opportunity to leave my boat in a secure location while leaving it unattended for a week or two but the trick was getting back to Gizo.  From my Avi Avi experiences where getting a ride back to Honiara was very much a hit and miss affair I paddled ashore with no great expectations to talk to Noel about my newly hatched plan.  He confirmed that there were people who did make the run once a week and I could negotiate a deal with them but…as luck would have it… that very same day he was expecting a visit from the owners of the Gizo Hotel who happened to have a party boat at Liapari undergoing a full refit.  They were coming over for an inspection and combined it with a picnic for some of their staff so were in 2 boats.  There was plenty of room for me and my meagre travel bag and they were happy to give me a lift back.  Besides, on hearing my plans they’d probably figured I’d end up needing to book a room in their hotel anyway so why not.  So there I was, perched up in a 21’ banana boat skimming across the blue waters around Ghizo Island not 2 hours after deciding to see if I could get back to Australia.  We made the crossing inside 90 minutes and I ducked in to the Sol Air office just before they closed for the day to see if my luck was holding out.  This was a Monday afternoon and sadly they could only get me on the Thursday’s flight.  But, I was told, “if you go out to the airport with each departing flight you might be lucky to take the seat of a No-Show”.  That meant forking out for the water taxi on the very much hit and miss chance that I might get on an overbooked flight.  Having no other option I went back to the Gizo hotel and took up the offer of a discounted room for the night.

That evening providence again stepped in.  I was sitting upstairs at the Gizo Hotel in their bar that overlooks the main street and the harbour right on dusk when what was obviously a brand new landing barge docked.  While the name stirred something in my memory I was sure I hadn’t actually seen this barge before.  Then a familiar character bounded up the stairs in to the bar and everyone greeted a very happy ‘Cookie’.  Cookie was another of the many characters I had met in Honiara where he was working for the company providing shipping services to RAMSI and in particular, the justice department.   It turns out that he was skippering their new vessel, just built in Indonesia, back to Honiara to start service running supplies around the islands.  They’d struck some teething troubles on the passage and had deviated in to Gizo to pick up some fresh water ballast and other supplies.  He’d been at sea for over 2 weeks and was happy to be ashore here.  The decision to make for Gizo had nothing to do with the fact that his girlfriend lived there.  Anyway, after exchanging g’day’s and chatting for a while I asked him if he had room for a stowaway and he quickly said “no worries mate, so long as you don’t mind standing a few watches.”  So at 07:00 the next morning I was on board the LC Western Star as we motored out of Gizo Harbor bound for Honiara.

I stood two 4 hr watches on the run that took us back along a different path that I had previously sailed on my way in to Gizo and we docked at the Honiara wharf mid afternoon the next day.  I wasted no time in bidding my farewell to Cookie, thanking him for the lift and then headed off to the Sol Air office in town.  This time I had no issues with a flight and they were actually able to book me right thru to Perth the next day on a ticket cheaper than I had ever been able to obtain in the past.

Cookie at helm of LC Western Star.

Plumb Pudding Island.  AKA Kennedy Is.  This is where JFK and his crew came ashore when the PT109 was sunk during WW!!

So that Thursday I boarded the Sol Air flight out of Honiara, connected to the Perth flight with 10 minutes to spare and landed back home by 11pm.

Looking back on that series of events, I still marvel at how it turned out and all I could say at the time is…”it could only happen in the Solomons” 

My time in Perth was typically hectic as I bought treasures for the boat that couldn’t be obtained in the Solomons, caught up with friends and family and fought off the cold that more often than not triggered another Malaria attack within days of returning home.  All too soon I was back on the Brisbane flight, known as the redeye because of its midnight departure and then lined up at the check in counter of Brisbane International Airport, bleary eyed and trying to con the airline checkin clerk out of charging me for excess baggage.

Returning to Honiara was on this occasion anti climatic because for me, there was no longer anything of interest there.  I went direct to the fast ferry booking office to buy a ticket to Gizo and slung my hammock at a friends place for the night.  The ferry left pretty much bang on time from the Honiara docks early next morning and I settled in to a 10 hr run that would take in about 3 stops along the way before landing in Gizo by about 17:00 that day.

So here I was again at the Gizo hotel, booked in to the same discounted room and waiting for the Liapari boat to come in next morning.  I’d found out before leaving Honiara that it had been arranged to collect a couple of people I knew from Honiara who were due in on the next mornings flight and I’d managed to hitch a ride back to Liapari with them.

Gary and Kathy were two Aussi’s working for the Australian company in Honiara that provided logistical support for the Regional Assistance Mission in the Solomons. (RAMSI)   I’d last seen them on my boat in Honiara when I threw my ‘go finis’ party and they’d been talking about this luxurious cabin cruiser for sale in, of all places, Liapari.  They’d mentioned their interest in this boat, named Siba and had asked me if, while I was there working on Serenity, I could have a look at it.  I had in fact already been on board for a look, taken some snaps and figured Siba was pretty nice…for a stink boat.

When the Liapari boat came in from the island the next morning I had all but finished my provision shopping and so joined them as they set out from shore to meet the plane.  Travelling on that same plane was the guy who Gary and Kathy were buying Siba from.  The plan was for him to take them through the boat’s systems, confirm money transfers back in Gizo then help them run her back to Honiara before he went on his way back to New Zealand.  I found out later that he had bought the boat in Hong Kong, lived aboard for some years cruising the regions then pointed it toward New Zealand where he planned to sell it for a fat profit.  Running to plan when he had arrived in Gizo he then hit a bit of a snag and ran out of time.  So he left the boat in Noel’s care at Liapari, flew off to New Zealand and advertised the boat ‘as is where is’ for a very attractive price.  So now this guy and Siba’s potential new owners were heading back to Liapari to close the deal and I was heading back there to close the last chapter in my Solomons experiences.  Or so I thought.

Back on board my yacht I was busily finishing off tasks by day and catching up with Gary and Kathy in the evenings.  It was a good time to be with friends and I soon discovered that Siba’s previous owner wasn’t very organised.  Troubles with dead batteries delayed starting the engines, a hydraulic steering fault lost further time and other minor problems you get when leaving a boat for some time dragged out the process.  Eventually, after a couple of trips back to Gizo to sort out money transfers, the previous owners time ran out completely and he hopped a plane for Honiara leaving Kathy and Gary to sort their own way back..

That evening I was invited to join Gary and Kathy for a barbeque on board Siba.  They wanted to look at my charts of the Solomons group in preparation for their run back to Honiara.  We cracked a few beers and then they started to tell me of the delays that had led to the now previous owner bailing out of town immediately the deposit money had hit his bank, leaving them slightly stranded.  It seems that neither of them had the confidence to take a 58’ twin engine luxury cabin cruiser on an extended voyage.  This led to the next surprise.  Would I like to skipper their new boat back to Honiara with them as crew, learning the ropes along the way. 

Ah…let me think about that for a few seconds., yeah sure, why not?

How could I refuse?  It was an opportunity too good to miss so again I had found a legitimate excuse to delay the final departure on board Serenity out of the Solomons.

I closed up Serenity the next morning and we set course for Noro where we were to fill up with fuel.  The helm on the boat was a little suspect where the previous owner’s attempt to sort out the hydraulic helm pump issue hadn’t worked too well so we were running on the auto pilot manual control facility for the duration.  Also one engine had a tendency to stall when pulled back to idle which had the tendency to be a bit exciting when manoeuvring close to shore but other than that, everything was pretty much OK when we headed out of Liapari. 

Gary took to the task like I expected he would and in no time we were enjoying the fabulous waters around the islands as we left Gizo behind on our way to Noro.  There we had planned to take on fuel and do some supply shopping before moving on fairly quickly.  I’d visited Noro before on the fast ferry only a week before and knew roughly where to find things.  Noro is a busy shipping port for this region with a good deep water inlet leading directly to a wharf big enough to take the largest of ships that operate in Solomon waters.

On cruising in to Noro I recognised the fuelling barge offloading diesel at the fuelling wharf and we rafted up alongside the tug boat Vulcan that always towed that barge around the Solomons.  I’d known the skipper Benny for a couple of years and we caught up on old times while Gary sorted out the purchase of 1000li with the fuelling wharf manager.  He allowed us to sneak in to refuel as soon as the barge was done with transferring its load to the wharf side tanks and we were topped up and out of there before the other waiting boat had the chance to notice what had happened.

On our way out we decided to motor right through the night with the plan next morning to stop at an island in the Russel’s owned by another guy I knew in Honiara.  It would be a good place to stop, have a swim, a sleep and a nice meal before heading in to Honiara.  Gary and Kathy wanted to make a bit of an entrance at the time when all of their work mates were at the yacht club having a few after work beers.  Not many people had an idea of just what they had bought.

“Siba” at Liapari just before setting out for Honiara

So we laid a course that followed the run I’d just done in the landing barge and settled in for the long night ahead.  It was while Gary and I were at the helm at about 2 in the morning that we witnessed something that I doubt I’ll ever get the chance to see again.  Off about a mile or so to the side of the boat we noticed a dull orange glow in the water.  Watching as we slowly motored by, the glow seemed to get bigger and behind it seemed to be dark clouds forming.  I first thought it was a moonrise but no moon came up through the dark clouds.  We thought about turning back in to it but before making that move the glow seemed to bulge momentarily then disappear.  I didn’t even think about grabbing my camera and we couldn’t hear anything above the steady note of Siba’s twin Detroit diesel engines so continued on, noting the spot with a GPS fix.  It was a few days later when we discovered that we had actually motored right by a subsea volcano at that very spot giving one of its not too frequent burps.  WOW!

At helm of Siba with The Russel Islands ahead

After quietly motoring in to the Russel Island group the next morning at around 10:00, we went ashore to explore, we met the locals, had a swim and then after a bit of a power nap and some food, hauled up the anchor and made for Pt Cruz.  Our timing was impeccable as we picked up the mooring out from the Pt Cruz Yacht Club and it wasn’t long before we were ferrying admiring friends on board for a look see.  This continued right thru until I caught a flight back to Gizo and on this occasion was able to hitch a ride back to Liapari that same day on their supply canoe.

This time I was truly ready to set sail and I left Liapari and that delightful lagoon satisfied that I was now really underway.  It all felt right and I even caught a small Spanish Mackerel on the way back that actually made it on board and in to the ice box.  I’d finally broken the jinx and never lost another lure after that.

Arriving back in Gizo early afternoon I started serious planning for the crossing to Australia.  Yet to get a crew confirmed I was about to put up notices at the local hospital, thinking that medical students on assignment for RAMSI might be interested, when I got a call from my friend Linda.  I’d shared a house with her for the 12 months I’d worked in Honiara for the engineering firm immediately before sailing off to Gizo.  It was that job that had delayed my departure for 12 months, intending as I was to sail away in 2007.  Linda had changed her mind about not sailing with me and felt she was up to the task.  What’s more she needed to get away from Honiara for a while and this would be a good break.  I didn’t have much doubt about her tenacity and spirit and was only slightly unsure about her agility on a pitching deck.  But Linda had travelled the 24nm across Iron Bottom Sound with me every other weekend in my open aluminium dingy for the past 12 months and what was more important, she had confidence in me.  So after giving her time to sort out a few last minute tasks Linda flew in to Gizo and we made final plans to sail out for McKay in Queensland Australia.

One final footnote.  I decided to motor across to Nousatoupe in my rubber duckie to meet Linda off the flight and follow the water taxi back.  Half way back I ran out of fuel and ended up getting a tow for the last 2 miles back to town.  Oops, not a good start.

Gizo to Louisiaes Run 27/9/08. 

The trip started out really well.  The day before our scheduled departure, at around 6pm, a heavy rain came thru Gizo and from the new Biminis cover, we were able to top up the main water tank and collect another 50li of beautiful rain water in sundry containers including the solar shower.  It meant leaving on the trip with 400li of clean sweet tasting drinking water.  Way more than enough for 2 people under any eventuation.  One unfortunate snag was with the anchor winch or capstan.  The motor had burned out a few days prior so I was faced with manually hauling in the anchors when they needed to come up.  It would build up the arm muscles anyway.

We motored out of Gizo August 17 at 08:30, putting sails up once we cleared the reefs and obstacles along our track.  Sailing in good weather with slight following breezes we made 100nm in the first 24 hrs.

On that first day we hooked a small Mahi Mahi but I lost it at the landing stage.  That was about 4pm and given the experiences I’d had on the way in to Gizo from Honiara where I’d lost six fish including the lures without getting anything on board, had started to think I’d never land a decent pelagic.  Then inside an hour we hooked another, slightly bigger one, and I landed that successfully.  We had a beautiful tea that night with plenty left over in the refrigerator.  By now that was working a treat with 2 big blocks of ice bought the day before to assist the system.  That ice lasted nearly 8 days and as it happened, longer than the fridge.

We sailed thru the night and in to the second day, registering with the cruising yacht network, Sheila Net, (8161 Khz on HF) at 9am. (8am EST)  These contacts turned out to be a highlight of every morning.  This voyage was shaping up nicely and those first few days eased Linda into cruising in the best possible way.  It just seemed to be getting better as we sailed thru that day with dolphins visiting us just on sunset.  Still making good progress we again continued thru the night standing 2 hr watches.

Just after dawn on 19^th however the weather started to turn bad.  We were getting a steady increase in wind strength and the seas started to become quite rough with swells on the build.  I had gone below to stow some loose items and don the wet weather gear and was just coming up the steps when there was a bit of a gust, stronger than the rest and the boat seemed to lurch.  At that moment the back stay broke at the main mast head and the heavy wire, complete with the HF aerial and its fittings came down over the shade canopy. 

It took me a couple of moments to realise what had actually happened and I was a bit stunned to recognise that which had flashed a couple of cm’s past my head was one of the insulators that allows the main mast back stay to double as the antenna wire for the HF radio.  It was now on the deck by my feet instead of being where it normally is, half way up the stay.  Luckily the mast was still OK, held up by the mizzen and we were able to drop sails immediately and considered our options.  Not many and the weather was rapidly deteriorating.

We had a bit of a chat about it and decided that we would continue to the Louisiades and find the nearest safe anchorage as soon as possible.  The original plan was to come in to Talgula island through a break in the reef on the southern side of that island and head up into a good anchorage that I had been told about by a yachtie friend when he was last in Honiara.  That would prove to be too difficult now so another destination was needed.  I rigged up a replacement for the back stay using the mainsail halyard and also rigged a HF antenna wire using another spare line.

We then started the motor, I put out a small amount of head sail and we motored SW on Auto Pilot thru mounting seas that at times gave us 4m breaking waves and water crashing over the bow.  It was becoming quite uncomfortable and the boat took a real beating over the next 8 hrs, not to mention the very tired crew.  We continued on thru the day making about 2kts toward the as yet not visible landfall of the Louisiades with rain, strong winds and turbulent seas.  As if we hadn’t had enough, at around 4 in the afternoon the auto pilot display head, mounted at the steering station, started to behave irrationally.- Random messages on the display and beeping as it flicked in and out of Auto mode. Clearly the sea crashing in was taking its toll on the electronics.  I shut down the pilot and manual steered until dark.  Since the auto pilot system controls the Rudder Angle Indicator, and that was now off, I had no idea which way the rudder was pointing.  After thinking about it for a while, I disconnected the cable connector for the ailing display from the autopilot control unit and switched it back on.  That seemed to work OK giving me back rudder angle display, a vital instrument that allowed me to steer us in the right direction after dark.  The point is since you need to put quite a bit of input into the wheel to avoid broaching in big seas, you need to know where the rudder is at all times to avoid getting hung up on full port or stb’d lock.  After sorting that little issue I was happy again and confident that we could ride out the rough stuff.

Still not fully confident in running the motor for long periods I turned it off, manual steering for about 5 hours as the weather kept getting worse and finally, in desperate need for a sleep, we rigged up a sea anchor using the canvas bucket.  That allowed us to drift with the sea and wind until the rope broke losing the canvas bucket.  So I rigged another using some spare canvas and a stronger rope and we drifted thru the night, hunkering on deck until the weather became far too inclement then going below at about midnight, into the mayhem of a cabin littered with debris, for a sort of dry sleep.  We had to wedge ourselves on the floor between the side of the master cabin bunk and the partition to the head just so we wouldn’t be tossed around like rag dolls.  Coming up on deck next morning we could see the Louisiades in clear sight.  That was the morning of our 4^th day out and the best result we could have hoped for under the circumstances.

Consulting the chart, we decided to make for Rossel Island and then made the Sheila Net at 9am schedule to report in and request assistance on anchorage suggestions from anyone who might have good local knowledge of these waters.  We were lucky and got help from a yacht at anchor right there at Rossell Island (Maranatha from Lake Macquarie) and following his advice given over the HF radio, made for his location in Trion Bay under motor.  By this time it was about 10am on the 20^th.

The track he had given would have us enter a lagoon from the far western end and come back in to the anchorage between 2 long arms of reef that form a sort of guard of honour into the bay.  That was 20nm west from where we were, then a backtrack of 20nm to get into the bay, despite the fact that at around noon, the anchorage was just 6.5nm as the crow flies, directly south from our position.  I recalled looking at the charts when plotting the journey and was sure I had noted a break in the northern reef line of that island.  I fired up the laptop and nav software and sure enough, found a safe, albeit narrow, opening in the reef that looked promising and not far away.  Navigating to the spot, called Boat Passage, it looked clear so we committed to carefully going through. 

(Looking back at the chart later, it shows that we passed within 4 miles of Relief Opening and a gap between the eastern extremity of the northern reef and the NW point of the island.  A passage that would have been oh so inviting at the time but the waters in there are uncharted.  With the prevailing conditions that day, I think we took the correct option.) 

We passed thru Boat Passage without a problem and once inside the lagoon headed back east toward Trion Bay and relief.  Then just as we were congratulating ourselves for having cut 5 hours off the expected trip, things went sour again.

As we turned into the lagoon we hit a very strong current and were now pushing directly in to the wind.  It slowed us down considerably and it was then that the engine started to lose power.  It basically was hunting between 2000rpm and idle and we were making about 1.5 kts as I attempted to get away from the reef.  Not a good place to be in these conditions with a motor that was not behaving and very limited sailing ability.  That was the one time I started to seriously get a little nervous.

I knew that we had no option but to stop as soon as possible and fix the engine problem.  I had decided it could only be fuel and on investigating, noted that the fuel filter, with barely 25hrs work, clearly looked like being the culprit.  My thought was that we should continue to head for mid channel, giving us as much distance from the reef as possible while the engine was still working and I would get everything ready to fix the problem.  I’d pretty much removed the covers and grabbed the necessary tools and filter when the engine chose to completely quit and although Linda suggested a sea anchor, I was concerned for how much time that would give me to fix the engine before being in danger of hitting the reef so dropped the anchor instead.  Wrong decision as it happens.

The filter was replaced, fuel system bled and the engine fired OK in record time for me.  It was a fast fix luckily and with engine going again we got ready to continue on, believing we could still make it to the mooring before dark, but on trying to lift the anchor, I found it was firmly stuck. 

With me on the bow shouting motor control and steering instructions to Linda we eventually got the anchor moving and then with the rope wrapped around a winch on the main mast, (the capstan still being out of service) Linda and I together managed to make headway with hauling what was now a very heavy dead weight, off the bottom.   We eventually winched the rope in all the way to the start of the chain but obviously we had hauled up a lump of something heavy and firmly stuck on the pick that would be way too much for us to bring on board.  Also the conditions prevailing made it unwise for me to dive down the 30’ of chain to try and attach a rope to the tip of the pick so we might dislodge the unwanted lump of something.  We still had the strong head winds as well as a current against us, threatening to blow as back on to the reef and also failing visibility so I tied the anchor rope off where it was and continued doggedly on.

We continued the journey with this dead weight hanging off the bow making handling of the boat very sluggish, traversing from way point to way point at around 1.5kts until we got to within about 12nm of our goal.  By now it was totally dark, we were exhausted, there was no hope of reaching the anchorage in reasonable time and I was concerned about the motor.  So we dropped the loaded pick back to the bottom in about 25m of water and stayed there right thru the night.  Linda did a wonderful job cooking a roast chicken dinner complete with a chilled white wine and things didn’t seem so bad after all. 

Next morning, Thursday 21^st, I topped the oil in the engine, fixed the autopilot which I discovered had taken salt spray as I’d expected, and cleared the bilge pump which had clogged.  I checked in with Sheila Net again and started to turn my mind on to ways to get the anchor back up and cleared of the lump of coral or whatever it was stuck there.  It was about that time that the anchor rope broke which immediately solved the worry of how to get it up again.  The worrysome thing was then how fast we were drifting toward the reef in such a short time so we put pedal to the metal and headed with 5kt haste towards the anchorage in Trion bay.  At least we were now just starting to get the turning tide in our favour.

We made it to what looked like an ideal anchorage by 2 o’clock that afternoon and after some stooging around dropped the second anchor in 4 meters of water and settled in for a much needed rest before attending to the boat’s ills.  However the spot we chose was not ideal.  The wind coming over the back of the island would hit us either direct on or from the complete reverse direction in buffeting squalls or ‘bullets’ with moments of zero wind in between.  We were anchored in wind rotor conditions it seems.  Add to that a really strange current that was swirling through there and the anchor just kept dragging.  That night I spent most of it up on deck moving the boat back to safety on one occasion at around 4am when I found we had only 1.5m of water under the keel.

Next morning we studied the bay with hopes of finding a better spot but on exploring ended up more or less back where we started.  I decided to wait until the occupants of Maranatha, unoccupied when we arrived, came back from a trip to the other side of the island to have a chat about anchoring, repairs to the boat and the best course of action re getting to civilisation.

Phil and Pam are a retired couple who have been sailing these waters in their 42’ Roberts for 7 years.  I met them Saturday morning after their return late Friday afternoon from a visit in a banana boat to another village south of Trion bay.  Phil has good first hand knowledge of these waters and we discussed different routes out once the repairs were done that would be easy sailing for the first 3 days then direct to Cairns once the weather on the east coast of Australia settled down.  It was clear now that our original goal of MacKay was too much to ask of the boat in its present condition.  From Sheila Net we heard how they were battening down for some bad weather with another low hot on the first one’s heels.  Damn, we’d be here for a while it seemed.

Phil also suggested that the local who was watching their yacht while they were away might be a good person to send up the mast to attach the jury rigged back stay and he agreed when asked, pointing out that he would wait however, until the wind died.  I went back to Serenity a whole lot more confident that we had another light at the end of the tunnel.  Hopefully this one wouldn’t be the ubiquitous freight train bearing down.  We’d had too many setbacks and I just needed to be underway again.  If we lost too much more time, it might start to become an issue with available onboard supplies.

All in all we spent about 7 nights in Trion bay waiting for the weather to ease, listening to strong wing warnings on the HF set and watching the clouds as they came in to view over the hills above the bay.  We used that time to relax, do some maintenance and read a lot.  We even had one surreal moment as we watched a couple of episodes on DVD of Trailer Park Boys on my laptop while trading 2 min noodles and fishing gear with the locals for fresh produce to supplement our diet.

One unfortunate incident had occurred during this time that had the potential to be a bit of a nuisance down the track.  I had decided to fire up the genset to provide mains power for something and while cranking over the starter could smell something burning.  Not a good thing on a boat.  Thinking it was related to the starting process I was looking under the hatch when I noted that the smell was coming from behind me and in following my nose found it was at the GPS unit mounted at the helm.  The power cable was melting with volumes of smoke emanating from where it plugs into the back of the unit.  After burning my fingers a few times I managed to get the thing unplugged after Linda produced a pair of pliers, seemingly from mid air, and the meltdown stopped.  Again the dreaded salt air and moisture had done its damage and presented me with yet another problem to fix.  Once again, putting the problem aside for a day or 2 allowed me to come up with a good fix and that lasted us right thru to Cairns.  Might have to look in to why the circuit protector didn’t trip however.

Maranatha at anchor in Trion Bay, Rossel Islands. PNG

Linda relaxing while we wait out the weather

When the wind finally started to ease, the local guy we had spoken to earlier was hoisted up the mast in the Bosuns Chair to fit the rig that I had fabricated as a temporary back stay.  That being completed to my satisfaction we prepped the boat for the next leg, leaving as soon as I had successfully untangled the anchor chain from the bombie that it had wrapped itself around.  That was 10:30 am on Thursday 28 August and we headed out thru the lagoon toward the next stop.

Our first target after leaving Rossel Island was a place called Rambusso Creek on the north shore of Talgula island and on the way out through that 20nm of reef I caught a nice Spanish Mackerel.  Things were looking up and even the wind and rain that met us as we came out thru the opening at the end of the reef didn’t dampen the enthusiasm.  We made the waypoint adjacent to the narrow break in the reef at Ram Ck and waited out a rain squall for better visibility before venturing thru.  This place looked like a better anchorage than Trion Bay and I found a spot in 5m of water where the anchor seemed to bight OK.

Again the expected visit from locals allowed us to trade and I had a heap more fillets of fish than we could use so traded those for more fresh fruit and vege’s.  That night we turned in at a reasonable hour and I slept well until that ever reliable 6^th sense woke me at around 4am.  Up on deck I recognised 2 things.  We weren’t where we had initially dropped anchor and we were now moving.  Bugger.

I quickly started the engine, hauled up the dragging pick and headed back in total darkness to where we had been.  Sadly, in the confusion of near zero visibility, I misjudged boat speed as we came up on the spot on GPS and we grounded.  I tried backing off but ended up stuck fast so stopped before damaging something and contemplated what to do next.  It was a falling tide so we had to somehow secure the boat for the cycle through to high water again.

As dusk progressed to morning light, the locals we had met the day before paddled out to offer help and they quickly went off to cut poles from the bush to make props.  They’d seen it all before.  While they were away I used a spare main mast halyard to run a line from mast top to the adjacent mangrove trees to keep the strain against the prevailing wind.  Then the locals came back with long poles and we propped them between the rocks on the bottom and the sides of the boat to hold us upright.  This done we were left with nothing else to do but keep an eye on water levels and poles and await the change of tide.  It was obvious we would be here another day.  Oh well, make the most of it and be patient.  During this time I had mentioned to one of the boys that I had fishing line and tackle that I would trade for fresh produce and wouldn’t mind a chicken if one was available.  1 hour later this guy arrived back to the boat in his dugout canoe/outrigger with a live chook.  We did the trade but asked if he would mind doing the deed on the poor unfortunate creature.  So he happily stuck it with his knife to end its misery quickly then whipped off its head and allowed it to flop around the bottom of his dugout while its nervous system came to the realisation that it was no longer supporting a live ‘cockarakel’.

The advantages of being captain was that I could delegate the plucking to the crew and wasted no time breaking out in the “I’m not a pheasant plucker but a pheasant plucker’s son and I’ll go on plucking pheasants…etc”  You gotta laugh.

The tide turned around 1pm that day and by 6pm I was able to tell that we would float free with little or no evidence of the grounding.  This became the reality about 30mins later and by 7pm were anchored in 8m of water some 50m away from the grounding and over better holding bottom.  This time with a second rope attached ashore.

We said our goodbyes next morning and the only down note of the whole affair was that I had to do some diplomatic negotiations to get back my good diving mask that had been souvenired by one of the kids who was with the locals during the morning episode.  The little mongrel had decided to pick his own reward for helping but we sailed out with my mask safely back on board and only a little miffed.

Next stop was to be Grass Island.  Wanum Island to the locals, and to get there we went thru a break in the surrounding reef called Snake passage.  Aptly named for the 5 sharp bends over the 3 or 4nm you travel as you negotiate this passage.  It is a 55m deep rent in the reef, only 100m wide in most instances and for me the highlight of our time in the Louisiades so far.  On a calm no wind day you would be able to park along side the reef like it was a wharf and step from your boat, in 55m of water, on to the reef as if stepping out of a car and on to the pavement.  Sadly the wind conditions made me reluctant to leave the helm to get a better position on the deck for taking good photo’s.  I would have loved to park alongside the reef and drop over the side with my dive gear.

We had to motor a lot of the time on this stage with just the headsail half set for assistance.  It was still fairly windy but very flat waters due to the surrounding reefs and islands so things were quite comfortable.  We passed by a large outrigger canoe that was anchored over a reef and was flying the international ‘diver below’ flag and there was plenty of interesting things to observe as we cruised thru the reefs and islands here.  However coming up thru the passage that was to take us to the Grass Is anchorage we had another one of those unexpected incidents with the boat.  I was sitting in my captain’s chair enjoying the cruising when something out the corner of my eye made me start.

“Oi, what the hell was that…..eh, where’s the bloody barbeque gone?…..”

The barby, a nice little stainless steel gas barbeque come mini oven kettle type thing, had simply ripped itself off the davits where it had been for the last 6 months, mounting and all, and disappeared into 45m of water.  Gone without a trace and what made it really annoying, it took my stubby holder with it.  Bugger.  Where was I going to hang my beer tonight while jigging for squid on the next anchorage.

Never the less we made the anchorage at Grass Is. by around 15:30 and had time to relax and make things shipshape before 5pm cocktail hour.  We’d been rationing our beer and wine supply to last thru the trip and 5pm cocktail hour became the treat for successfully making another 24 hrs towards our goal. 

Sitting up on the aft deck while at anchor in a quiet bay of a tropical island and with a cold tinnie and some cheese and biscuits to watch the sunset, it just doesn’t get much better.

That was a good anchorage at Grass Island and both of us had a full nights sleep.  Our fresh food was holding out and we had the leftovers of the chook that we had acquired the day before.  And the weather was getting better and better with sunshine now being the norm thru the day.  What’s more, good sunlight time meant more time for the solar panels to charge the batteries.  We’d had precious little up till then.

Our last anchorage in the Louisiades was planned to be either Bobo Eina or Bagaman Island and we chose Bagaman when we reached the area for its better protected bay, again getting in around 15:30.  It was even warm enough by now to make the salt water bucket shower enjoyable.  After another good night’s sleep we finally prepared to head out for the Coral Sea crossing on Thrusday 2 September.

Visitors with vege’s for sale. Note this pic taken when barbeque still there.

Wanum Island in the Louisiades Archipeligo

Louisiades to Cairns 2 September 2008

We left the comfortable anchorage at Bagaman Island and worked our way through the islands and passages that lead us out over relatively shallow water to the edge of the drop off.  I had deliberately delayed the departure for open sea to first check in with Sheila Net so we had coverage at all times with someone out there noting our progress.  Weather was good and we felt justifiably confident that we had ideally judged our departure.

I should point out here that up to now I had been phoning my brother Alan in Manjimup WA on the sat phone every second day or so with progress reports and he was plotting our passage on a map and emailing that to a fairly extensive d-list of family and friends.  More people than I had realised were following our journey I later discovered.

The Coral Sea crossing was a good one.  10 to 15 kt S.E. breeze, constant but not too strong and we made about 85nm in the first 24 hrs.  On that first night out it got a bit exciting between 1am and 4am as we had to dodge 5 very large purseiner’s who were paying more attention to their sonar than was comfortable but they finally disappeared for good over the horizon just after 4am and never bothered us again.  You get hit by one of those and you wouldn’t stand a chance out there.

I made contact with the Sheila Net every morning and enjoyed the communications with the network controllers as they followed and noted our slow progress towards Cairns.  It seems we had picked the change in the weather better than most in the region since 2 days after we left more and more boats had decided to leave their anchorages and continue their journeys on the strength of our reports.

The only down side to the Coral Sea crossing thus far was a mistake that I made in reefing the main sail that resulted in 2 rips in the dacron as the wind freshened.  Nevertheless I had determined that I would nurse the boat home with reefed main and jib so was content with the 3.5kts average we were making.

There was one moment of confusion on about the 3^rd day out when I had all but convinced myself that I had lost the ability to set the sails correctly.  No matter what I did I could not get the boat balanced and sailing hands free towards Cairns.  Up till then it was all going well but this morning, chaos.

I was sitting there admonishing myself when I thought that perhaps it wasn’t me.  Checking through all the systems I finally found the problem.  The bolts holding the tiller arm on to the rudder post, all below deck, had fallen off at some stage.  So while the wheel was turning with apparently the same back pressure and the rudder angle indicator was indicating all’s OK, the rudder was just flopping around independently.  The nuts had simply vibrated loose over time and fallen off.  So I found some locking nuts and inside 20mins we were back in business again.

As I said previously I had been phoning Alan every second day on the sat phone with progress reports but on about the 3^rd day out that too started to play up.  It became fairly obvious that moisture had found its way into the key panel and I was getting random hash (#) key entries without touching the keyboard.  The ensuing loud tone in the earphone prevented any meaningful communications.  During the next Sheila Net schedule the following morning I asked if someone near an email terminal might email Alan with a short message advising him.  Our friends on Maranatha offered to do so using their on board sail mail via HF radio that night and I later heard that Alan had received that email on schedule from the Louisiades Archipelligo in the middle of the South Pacific ocean. 

As it happens, I had a bit of a think about the issue thru the day, as often was the case on this trip, and came up with a plan.  I was reluctant to pull the phone to bits, not having the right tools and still in a fairly hostile environment for sensitive electronic components so put the idea to the test that evening.  Fortunately it worked to a fashion and I was able to get reasonable service out of the phone for a few more calls after that.  The annoying thing about it all was that the phone worked perfectly right up until we reached the 200nm limit which took us inside Australian waters.  With the plan I was on, once crossing inside that 200 mile limit the cost of making calls on the sat phone was going to drop significantly and I had intended to take full advantage of that saving by holding back on calls as much as possible until that time.  Foiled again by that Murphy fella.

I had been judging our progress and was quite pleased that by our rate we should make Cairns around 2pm Monday 8^th September.  But good old Murphy hadn’t finished with us and around midnight Sunday night the wind simply dropped away to nothing.  We floundered around making 1.5 knots at best, drifting cross track until next morning when I did a final engine check and fired up to motor the rest of the way in.  Perhaps we would still make it.  Just 50nm to go and we could now clearly see the ranges that are the backdrop for Cairns.

I was picking out tour boats on the reef and landmarks and beginning to have a really good feeling that we would still make it when again we were thwarted.  The fuel problems that showed up coming in to Rossel island came back.  Again I had to shut down the engine and go back in to fix mode but with more to diagnose here.  It was obvious that I had bought a batch of badly contaminated fuel back in the Solomons and as the main tank approached empty, the problems began to escalate as contaminated fuel permeated thru the system.

I ended up draining the last of the fuel come muck out of the main (port) tank and switching over to the starboard tank which still had around 150li of its 200li capacity left.  Then after changing fuel filters yet again I ran on that stb’d tank with the fuel return going back into the port tank as we motored for 2 more hrs.  (These marine diesels deliver way more fuel to the engine than they need and return up to 80% of that back into the tank.)  This I figured would pump filtered fuel back into the now fairly clean port tank and I could switch back to that port tank after about 100li of fuel had been through the system and pumped back in to it.  Thus effectively running the last miles into Cairns on double filtered fuel.  This ended up working but not without having to use up the last of the fuel filters I had on board.  That was 4 fuel filters in about 35hrs of motoring.

All of this happened in full sight of our destination and after contacting Australian Customs on the VHF mid afternoon, it became clear that we were not going to be walking on Australian soil that day.

But it was not an issue to me as we motored down the Cairns river and anchored across the entrance to the Marlin Marina in Cairns at 5:15 PM on Monday 8^th September 2008.   I can not describe the emotions that I was experiencing at that moment.  I had deliberately stashed away a half a bottle of duty free Glenmorange scotch whiskey (we’d run out of beer and wine) and so after toasting our successful arrival, I fired up the genset for an hour to re-charge the mobile phone and went thru the address book, dialling every number I could to talk to the world.  I was doing really well until connecting with my sister Vicki.   As soon as she said “thank god you made it, now don’t go doing that again” the emotion of what we had achieved completely overcame me and I handed the phone to Linda so I could gather myself together again.  We had a bit of a laugh at that. 

Sipping on the last of the Scotch, it was quite surreal sitting there at anchor with the bright colourful lights of Cairns just across the way after spending so much time amongst leaf hut houses, no cars and dugout canoes pulling up alongside the boat.  I even put on the radio to listen to the ABC news.  But only for a moment.

It was a bit of an anti climax in not being able to actually come ashore Monday night and Linda was clearly a bit disappointed but right on 8:30 next morning we were directed to move in to the Marina and on to a jetty to start the arrival formalities.

Customs, immigration and quarantine paperwork were all completed by 11:15 Tuesday morning and we were free to walk around on dry land at last.  The Marina had contacted us thru the morning with our designated pen number so by mid day that day we were in our allocated pen and left to our own devices.

Waiting for Custome clearance in Cairns

“It’s The Seernity”  at Marlin Marina immediately after clearance.

There’s always something to laugh about at the end of a journey and this was no exception.  We’d been chatting on Sheila Net to a yacht also heading in to Cairns over the final few days of the crossing.  They were a father and son team who had bought the boat in San Diego and were bringing it home to Cairns, their home, across the Pacific.  During a storm they’d hit on that voyage across the Pacific they were forced to stay below for quite a few days without being able to safely come on deck it seemed and their arrival was eagerly awaited by friends and family.  Unbeknown to us there was quite a contingent of those family and friends as well as press, awaiting their arrival.  They had been a few days behind us but travelling faster and with us waiting out Monday night at anchor, were due in that very morning.  So when Linda and I motored in to the marina there were crowds cheering loudly and camera’s rolling as our rather ‘bandaged up’ yacht slipped by before they realised their mistake.  I loved it.  I knew immediately what was going down but that didn’t stop me giving the ‘Royalty Salute’, rotating right hand with benign smile while we headed toward the formalities dock.  To add insult to injury, we’d beaten them to the immigration, customs and quarantine people by 30 minutes so the second boat had a bit of a wait before they could invite their reception committee on board.

As the final icing on the cake, I had a phone call from my brother Alan to say he and his wife Bernie were flying in from Perth to pay a visit and they arrived from the opposite side of the country on Wednesday afternoon.  A great way to finish a memorable trip and all that was left now was to pick up the pieces, fix that which was broken and plan the next leg of the journey back home.  

Through the following days we settled somewhat into seeing the sights and getting our land legs back.  You often raised a few eyebrows as you suddenly staggered off a perfectly flat solid path for no obvious reason but people around the marina area were used to seeing that.  Linda had to fly back to Honiara, Alan and Berna back to Perth and I was left to my own devices while I found a place to leave the boat.  Motoring up river a few miles to the Cairns Cruising Yacht Squadron I had Serenity hauled out of the water and secured on the hardstand.  There she would stay until I came back the next year to complete the dream of getting her to Fremantle.  I used the time to get work started on a number of projects thru the down season before booking a flight to Perth to begin looking for somewhere to live, a car and a job.  After spending so much time in the tropics I wasn’t expecting it to be easy.

One of the jobs that I was kicking off before heading home was on the main mast and that had to come out.  I’d been in contact with a rigger who was to do the work and we’d arranged to get a crane in one morning to lift out the 200kg, 15m long spar.  On the prescribed morning he turned up early to check things out and in taking a look at ominous clouds made the decision to delay the lift a few days.  Explaining he pointed to the incoming weather and said that when those sort of clouds gathered in that area we were in for some lightning.  Always willing to take locals advice I was happy to delay and saw him drive off as I climbed in to the forward hatch to sort out some gear stored there.  About 2 minutes later the whole interior of the cabin lit up with a flash of fluorescent blue and I caught the smell of ozone.  Then I could hear a loud crackling from the chain that I had recently tied the boat down with.  It was clear the boat had been struck by lightning and I dropped everything and bolted.  Straight out the back pausing only long enough to switch the batteries off I was down the ladder and in the slip yard office in seconds.

What had happened I later found out from eye witnesses.

Lightning was indeed around and one discharge had taken the top out of a palm tree about 100m away from the boat.  The lightning bolt had then travelled horizontally toward my boat and hit the chain holding my boat down to earth.  The crackling noise I had heard was probably the wet chain discharging to ground.  I rang the rigger after that and when he answered I asked him if he had seen the lightning over this way.  To which he said, being a man of few words…

”That was you was it? Hmm, good call.”

This seemed like a good time to head home to Perth.

One event that I was heading home for at this time was my oldest daughters wedding and I had amused Linda by practising my ‘father of the bride’ speech while at the helm on the recent crossing.  Being back in Perth for Gemma’s wedding for me was not negotiable and I must admit I cut a dashing figure in my dinner suit, a far cry from boardies, tattered tee shirt and bare feet, as I proudly walked her down the aisle.

Following the wedding I went back to Cairns to close up the boat for the cyclone season and this was to be the last visit before the Australian waters part of the voyage the following year.  On that second visit I was able to check on the progress of work commissioned, pack up gear not needed for shipping back to Perth and I even managed to fit in a SCUBA dive on the Great Barrier Reef with a good friend of mine who had come up from Sydney to hang out for a while and see the boat.

All too soon the Perth flight came around and as it happens, I was embarking on yet another venture with a business opportunity that had come up out of the blue just 2 weeks before on my way back to Cairns.  It seems that nothing was ever going to be mundane in my life from now on.

Cairns to Seisia via the Great Barrier Reef. June 2009

As it had always been my intention to complete the entire Solomons to Fremantle journey with me at the helm, I set about planning the journey in March 09 and while all works commissioned were progressing well, I needed a crew.  As before I didn’t believe I’d have any trouble and set about putting out feelers.  First step was to set a schedule, albeit somewhat open, and post it on my web site.  Then canvas the mates network, some of them might be able to sail a leg or two.  Well, within one day I had a call from one of my fishing mates Murray who asked if his dad could be my crew.  Murray’s mum had suddenly passed away after a massive stroke this last Christmas day and his dad Jim was understandably in a big hole.  After talking it through I decided to go with it and had my base crew for the entire journey.

Jim was 79 years old and would turn 80 on this voyage.  He was keen as mustard to go and wasted no time telling me of his sailing and navigating experiences and skills.  While I was apprehensive to take on someone of this age I reasoned that the boat was set up for single handed sailing and while I wouldn’t normally do that, could sail as if I was single handed but with company.

So Jim and I flew in to Cairns and began to prepare It’s The Serenity for the trek.

As you would well know, time always runs short when you have your boat up on the hardstand being prepped for a long voyage and finally lock in the tammy lifter for that big moment.

With the 2^nd coat of antifouling completed the evening before, we were picked up the next morning at high tide and lowered in the water at the Cairns Cruising Yacht Squadron wharf in Late May 2009.  First time in the water since October 08 and despite being totally convinced everything was AOK, I went below immediately she hit the water to triple check the bilges.  Water rushing in has a sound of its own and I soon found the new ‘thru the hull fitting’ minus its stopcock in the head.  As with all good yachties I have stored alongside each thru the hull fitting a wooden cone shaped plug designed to bang into the potential hole made by a broken off stopcock.  Water inundation stopped in seconds and then the grope around to find the new stopcock where I’d left it alongside the fitting.  Oh dear.

So we motored to the Marlin Marina and found our short term pen.  There I took delivery of my new self furling headsail.  This one was around 110% and was cut to take better advantage of the Formosans existing rig setup without modifying spreaders and stays.  A great investment as it turned out.  We spent the next few days provisioning and like in most marina’s, met up with other cruising yachties who were heading off to somewhere exotic.  Departure day finally came and I’d booked in to the fuelling jetty nice and early to take on 400li of diesel to press up the tanks.  Now I’m not a suspicious type but it was a Friday and we were starting a voyage.  At 0645 I turned the key in the ignition of the Volvo Penta diesel and the resulting clicking noise wasn’t what I had expected.  As luck would have it, the start battery, one of 2, had a broken earth clamp at the terminal and that was impacting either batteries’ ability to crank.  Fixing that cost us our booking time at the fuelling jetty and we lost half a day waiting for a new slot.

We finally did get on to the fuelling jetty mid morning and on pushing away had a bit of difficulty with the tide and breeze.  As I backed away from the rather tight location the current from the tidal outflow swung the bow a bit too fast for me to counter and the nice new side stay took out a surveillance camera that was stupidly hanging out over the water.  I later heard from another yachtie I caught up with in Darwin who was on his boat Bingo in the marina at the time.  He saw the funny side when, over a beer at the Darwin Sailing Club, he explained what he had heard.  He said he heard me shouting “Jim fend off, Jim fend off” then this big “TWANNNNNNGG“ like a very loud guitar string and then me saying quite loudly… “oh dear, what in the world happened then”   Or words to that effect.

As you can imagine, I just wanted to get out of Cairns and under way and this was not a good start.  I felt sick in the stomach from the incident and it took me days to get over it.  I had to draw on yet another Jimmy Buffett line of inspiration.  ‘Breathe in, breathe out, move on’ to do just that.

Port Douglas

Our first run was from Cairns to Port Douglas.  Only a short hop and one that we motored since we had a booking with the rigger to tune the new main mast gear he’d just installed.  I didn’t want to load up the rigging just yet and now wanted to check the one that I had temporarily made into a ‘G’ string.   Wanting to ease in to the boat again after 8 months, my thinking was it would be sensible to make the first leg real short.  Port Douglas is a very nice little tourist town with a tired but still good marina.  It was while motoring in to the Mirage Marina with barely 250 yards to go that I re-discovered the minor issue with port and starboard fuel tanks.  In short, I had forgotten that the fuel return went back in to the port tank regardless of what tank I drew from.  I’d used that to my advantage coming in to Cairns but with so much happening since then, it was not top of mind.  I had run from Cairns on the starboard tank which had run out of fuel while filling the other one up to nearly overflow.

So, after dropping the anchor mid channel and explaining ourselves to several tourist paddle boats chugging by, I had started to replace the fuel filter when the penny dropped.  My first thoughts had been contaminated fuel left over in the tank from my Solomon Island days.  Confirming the level of fuel in the port tank, more than we started out with, I swapped tanks, bled the system of air bubbles which took all of 3 minutes and we thankfully motored in to the booked pen while we still had daylight.  So much for sneaking quietly in to port.  As it happens this was a Friday night and the pub on the board walk at the marina was in full swing.  We could hear the music from the live band mixed with the sound of happy voices echoing out across the water and in between songs, hear other music from up town venues.  Man this place was pumping.

Jim at helm on way to Port Douglas.

Port Douglas marina

While in Douglas I found the one and only chandlery and bought a second comfy chair which I installed alongside my sofa like skippers chair.  Another advantage of a short first leg.  The dekkie needed a nice chair as well but perhaps not too nice.

The rigger came and went and we set sail from Port Douglas with Cooktown in our sights.  Before leaving Perth I’d bought a cruising guide for Cairns to Darwin and this little book was invaluable as we plotted our way up inside the Great Barrier Reef.  Staying with the shipping channels and only travelling by day, we were able to average just over 50nm per day.  Each evening I would consult the guide to find an anchorage that was within our daylight range and the guide gave a good wrap to.  I also re-established the daily 08:00 schedule with the Sheilanet as we had done on the Solomons to Cairns run.  This enabled us to report our progress on a daily basis and hear cruising yachts do the same from all around the Pacific region.  Again it became one of the highlights of every day and another highlight was sunset drinkies, a routine Linda and I always looked forward to.  Ease in to the evening anchorage bay or island, secure so we were fast, break out a cold beer and cheese and bikkies and watch the sun set.  Often to the tune of Jimmy Buffet singing “It’s Been A Lovely Cruise”   (We continued that tradition throughout the journey with the longest leg being a 20 can trip)

Cooktown

Cooktown draws its name from Captain Cook who beached his ship Endeavour there in 1770 to repair the hull, holed on the reef off Cape Tribulation.  We managed to pass by that cape on our way up without hitting the bottom.  Until we came in to Cooktown harbor that is.  The entry past the town’s fishing boat jetty is quite narrow and the deep water as I cleverly discovered is over to the left as you come in.  My guide didn’t make this quite so clear and boats anchored all around gave me false bravado as I headed off between 2 yachts to what looked like a clear spot.  Local fishermen having a beer on a boat tied to the jetty threw me a line as I was paddling the rubber ducky to shore to tie of a drag line and that’s when I recognized one of them.  I’d struck up a conversation with him way back when I had first put my boat up on the hardstand the year before in Cairns.  He had a beautiful 100 year old sloop sat up alongside mine and we had developed a good rapport.  Realising that we had indeed met before, that rapport spread to the other guys and Jim eventually had to drag me back to the boat to sort out our mooring before too many more beers went down and darkness engulfed us.  Actually, on thinking back to that evening and that fishing boat there were a couple of very nice looking ladies on board.  Typical north Queenslanders, sun tanned, freckled faces, blonde, …but I digress.

One minor incident worth mentioning occurred prior to reaching Cooktown.  While there is no real substitute to hard copy up to date charts, to cover the entire journey would require dozens.  Storage, cataloguing and wear and tear in the tropics make it attractive to look at alternative nav aids.  I have my Tosh laptop with nav software using C-map and have added a 12 channel USB connected GPS module.  Very good.  Also had the cruising guide and strip charts of the entire run up the inside of the reef that I’d printed out prior to sailing.  So I considered I was well prepared.  These strip charts were kept in one of those folders with clear plastic leaves for each loose page slipped in and it became my day book.  Each evening I would re-plot the next day’s co-ordinates using the Tosh laptop and enter the lat and long points in to the day book along with the strip charts.  Then I’d input them to the boats GPS/SONAR unit as way points.  The point of this story is that the screen on the laptop decided to die just a day out of Cooktown.  I managed to get the plots done for the next day while it was going thru its last throes and then it finally clagged.  I did have a small hiking GPS as backup and of course a good compass and my eyes.  So, on getting in to Cooktown I purchased a PC flat panel 19” external display that drew very little power from the inverter (required to run it) and that made me realize just how bad the Tosh display had deteriorated over the years I’d had it without me noticing.  On checking parts price and availability, the replacement display for the Tosh was not economically viable and in Cooktown, impractical to get hold of anyway.  I also bought myself a hand held GPS plotter with more C-map charts just as additional backup.  Had I thought this through properly before leaving Cairns I would have bought a screen there and mounted it at the nav desk with inverter and signal cables in ready reach.  The new screen was so bright and convenient and also conserved battery power on the laptop.  I wish I’d done it from the outset.  I wouldn’t hesitate to incorporate the biggest external flat panel display I could in to a nav desk with a laptop docking system.  As a bonus, DVD movies come to life on the bigger screen with the audio patched thru the boats sound system.  Not that we had time to watch movies mind you.  But I digress.

Cooktown North

From Cooktown the trip just got better and better.  Transiting freighters, tug boats and fishing trawlers were plenty but not an issue.  Unlike the purseiners in the Coral Sea, they monitored VHF16 and always gave us respect, when they could see us.  So keeping to the stbd side of the shipping channels and thinking skinny was the go.  We were regularly over flown by coast watch aircraft and it was always a hoot to be buzzed at 500feet by a twin turbo prop dash-8 then chat to the pilot as they asked you the standard questions, always in a very polite manner.  “Who are you, what was your last port of call and what will be your next port of call?”  Then they would sign off by wishing us good tail winds and following seas.  Monitoring VHF16 at these moments allowed us to find out who else was out there and nearby, even if not within our 14nm horizon.

During this run up the inside of the reef we often did have following seas and tail winds.  In fact on one occasion while surfing down a sizable swell we clocked somewhere around 9.8kts ground speed on the GPS.  On those days we made our average 52nm in plenty of time to anchor for the night and explore before dark.   We maintained good time all the way up the reef and were quite surprised at the number of times we actually sailed in to cell phone service.  Lizard Island, Lockhart River and more as we ran up the east side of the peninsula. 

Seisia

Rounding the tip of Cape York Peninsula wasn’t quite as challenging as the Horn but for us none the less, a triumphant moment.  It meant we could change tack and start heading west for a while.   Seisia is a small community just past the tip as you start to head down the western side that has a port servicing the surrounding island communities.  Included in these are Thursday Island, Wednesday Island and probably Tuesday Island etc and other small islands that exist in the Torres Straits.  We negotiated the narrow passage in to the port without problem and I was quite proud of my achievement of not hitting the bottom again until I saw a large freighter come in through the exact same tight passage the next day.  Sunset drinkies on arrival evening extended to a couple of cans each as we congratulated ourselves for reaching the tip.

Sesia harbour and that freighter

Seisia offered good provisioning, fuel and ice.  More than I had expected when we first planned that stop.  And a sports club with live music and happy people on a Saturday night.  Here we go again.  We spent some good days there in the warm tropical conditions and prepared for the next stage that would be our first taste of sailing 7/24.  This was as far north as our journey would take us, from now on it was west and south.  We were justifiably confident as we looked toward striking out across the Gulf of Carpentaria and again met up with other cruising yachties who were heading in the same direction.

  The graceful lines of “It’s The Serenity” sailing in to port always drew admiring looks and it never took long before people come alongside for a closer look or asked if we were off the beautiful ketch out there. 

Someone stole the wind

Gove would be our next stop and as Linda and I had already discovered, you will need to go a long way to find a better all weather sea boat.  What started out being great just kept getting better.

Our run up the reef from Cairns had taken in Port Douglas, Hope Island, Cooktown, Cape Flattery, Lizard Island, Ninian Bay, Stokes Bay in the Flinders Group, Fife Island, Lockhart River, Cape Grenville (Clerke Island) Bushy Islet and finally Pioneer Bay in Albany Island before rounding the tip of the cape.  All one day runs, anchoring overnight, sometimes for just the one night and sometimes more. Pioneer bay in Albany Island warrants special mention.  While the cruising guide gave it a good wrap we must have struck the place on a bad hair day.  While motoring in and finding the anchorage it looked fine but things went from good to bad very quickly.  Swirling current and bullets of wind from over the back of the island ensured a sleepless night.  At one stage in the wee small hours I was up setting a second anchor and just in time.  My good silver rope sand anchor line was down to one strand and we weren’t that far from the shore line, a tad difficult to judge in pitch dark.  And when we went to retrieve the danforth next morning we had a heck of a struggle just to get it moving.  When we finally did get it off the bottom it was bent out of shape beyond recognition and beyond help.  It had obviously dragged considerably despite the 10m of chain between anchor and rope.  That incident made me re-consider anchor rope out to depth of water ratio.  I think we worked on a minimum of 7:1 from then on.

Seisia to Gove

Reaching Seisia had bought us to the end of bay hopping and after that, our first nonstop long run across open water for this voyage.  I’ve heard of people who were fine cruising up a coast but who lost the plot a bit when they found themselves completely out of sight of land.  For me, the further away from land I am, the happier I am.  I find my stress levels move in reverse proportion to the depth of water we’re in.  I wasn’t sure about Jim but as it transpired, I needn’t have worried.  Jim’s eyesight wasn’t that good.  In fact I often wondered if he knew what was happening around him at all and had to chuckle a few times throughout the voyage at little incidents that occurred.  And a few that didn’t warrant chuckles.  I’ll unfold those as they approach.

We planned to sail straight across the Gulf of Carpentaria to Gove taking the shortest rout since I did have a time limit on the voyage.  I was not interested in going up thru the Thursday Island group and the Torres Straits for a number of reasons but the main one was the tidal flows there.  It looks like you can get upwards of a 3kt flow in each direction and would need to time your run to get through.  Fine if you have the time and inclination to visit lots of islands but oh so slow if your sumlog says you are doing 6kts but the island you are trying to pass is going forward.

From Sesia, the first obstacle if you like to call it that are Red Banks, a large area of shoals at the western end of the Endeavour Strait.  Perhaps Captain Cook ran aground there as well but we didn’t.  It’s a somewhat strange feeling to be completely out of sight of land, seemingly out on the open ocean and have only a couple of metres under your keel.  The cruising guide advised entering this area at high tide in daylight and posting a lookout.  The charts showed plenty of shallows and it looked like a maze but in reality we sailed on thru via only about 3 waypoints before the bottom fell away.  Passing thru those waters I think the shallowest we encountered was 7m and crossing the entire gulf it never got deeper than 42m.

Crossing the gulf was very uneventful.  Not a lot of activity except for customs coast watch fly overs.  They became so frequent that I started to log them.  I think we ended up with 3 on this part of the voyage and one air force Orion P 3 bomber.  He didn’t get as low as the others who seemed to enjoy zooming in at wave top height to get your attention then peeling off while you went to turn on the 2 way.

The crossing took us 4 full days and 3 nights and up until the evening of the last night’s sailing we had fair SSE breezes.  This was our first experience with setting watches and after a bit of adjusting settled on 2 hr spells from 20:00 hrs to 06:00.  On that last night the breeze completely fell away and we motored that 4th day from mid morning to anchor in beautiful Gove harbor at 17:30.  The log book shows that along the way I repaired the auto pilot, port winch, sumlog sender and anchor capstain that had a slipping clutch.  The things we do to amuse ourselves when sailing 24/7.  I also noted that Gove harbour did not have good ground handling and I do remember moving around a bit to find better holding dirt under keel.  Here we met up again with a cruising couple we’d met in Cooktown and, having arrived here a few days before us confirmed that they too had zero wind on their approach to the western side of the gulf.

Gove has a massive alumina plant and port facilities to load huge bulk carriers 2 and 3 at a time.  Sadly however, such was the state of affairs with the GFC (global financial crisis) in full swing, the place was showing signs of having seen better times and in the town, some 15km from the bay where we were anchored, it was tragic to see the full impact of the crisis on this particular once thriving place.

Nevertheless, the yacht club was far enough away from all of that and sunset drinkies amongst the tropical plants while gazing out over the bay and the 70 or so yachts out there, Jim counted them, was pretty special.  Meals really nice as well as inexpensive, beer cold and showers hot.-What more could one ask for as one planned the next leg, Gove to Darwin.

Gove to Darwin

As was the case with many stopovers on our journey, it was easy to succumb to ‘let’s just stay another day’ and creative avoidance to moving on took many forms.  Hot showers, laundry facilities and links to the outside world through satellite TV didn’t make it any easier.

The plan for the Gove Darwin trip was to take in the Cadell Passage at the western end of the Wessel Islands group.  I’d seen this on the charts, had a good look at Google Earth and studied the cruising guide.  As much as I would have liked to cruise the Wessels, Cadell passage offered a considerable short cut through to the Arafura Sea.  Also, on studying the charts, I’d decided to go north around the outside of Melville and Bathurst Islands because I was nervous about negotiating all the shoals in Van Diemen Gulf while sailing through the night.  It meant adding another couple of days to the passage and so cutting thru Cadell would help make that time up at the start of the leg.  Yeah right

We hauled anchor and motored out of Gove harbor toward promised fair breezes and I took the opportunity to try out the recently repaired auto pilot.  I had replaced the old quadrant, chain and pulley steering system with hydraulic long before leaving the Solomon’s and despite peoples’ prophecies on loss of feel etc, was very happy with it.  Anyway, we were comfortably right on schedule as we headed out of the harbor when suddenly the autopilot hydraulic pump went berserk banging the helm hard to one side without warning.  I was about to start verbalising the virtues of my autopilot diagnostic skills when Jim pointed out the rather large bulk carrier not 100m off to starb’d and that we were now heading around to meet.  It seems the autopilot compass took a liking to that mass of ferrous metal and headed us off in that direction.

That first day out of Gove had plenty of highlights.  We were buzzed again by customs coast watch, this time in their snazzy new helicopter as we sailed thru islands and across bays that tempted us to stop and look.  We also marvelled at fascinating geological features where you could see layers of rock in the side of a cliff face, having been exposed when great chunks of the cliff had broken off and fallen in to the sea probably millions of years ago.  Surface soil at the top giving way to large blocks of solid rock about 2 or 3 meters cubed then down to what looked like layers of volcanic ash before a jumble of rocks at the water line.  I wished then that I’d taken more notice in geology lessons.

Gove Harbour with alumina plant in background

Interesting geological formations just out of Gove

Cadell Passage

We had planned the first night to anchor at Alger Island at the eastern end of Cadell Passage.  That would allow us to arrive at the shallow end of the Cadell Passage at high tide, as advised by the trusty cruising guide.  Unfortunately we didn’t get there until dusk and I ended up fluffing around till well after dark before I was satisfied we had a good hold on the bottom.  Even then, we dragged anchor yet again thru the night so a restful sleep was not had.  Perhaps that contributed to what became the lowest ebb of the entire voyage.

Arriving at eastern end Cadell Passage right on schedule next morning we motored with just a headsail set and enjoyed good hull speed as we found and cleared the shallow part of the channel.  Guided by the book we continued in to the passage and spent the next few hours searching ahead for the sandbank markers that the guide and my charts indicated should be there.  Not so as it happens and we found out the hard way.  It had become pretty obvious that the markers were no more and so I decided that the safe option was to keep to the outer edge of the curves of the passage where moving water would make the channel deepest.  By this time the tide had turned and was in full ebb. 

We hit the sandbar mid afternoon with a glancing blow and then stopped dead in the water.  It had come up in the murky waters from nowhere like a cliff face on the SONAR and despite working the motor in reverse and forward for a while, lost the race against the falling tide as the engine started to overheat and produce much smoke.  Things happened pretty quickly after that.  I launched the rubber ducky and dropped an anchor off in deep water with a spare halyard from the main mast attached.  This allowed me to bring a winch in to play in an attempt to keep the gunnel’s out of the water and try and stop the boat from falling completely on her side.  We also fired off a call for help on VHF16 and were astounded to get a response.  I thought we were a long way away from anywhere but not so.   About an hour later a small boat came alongside and they didn’t need to be Rhodes Scholars to see just how gut-wrenched I was.  We introduced ourselves and the guy in charge, Youngie to his mates, summed up the situation pretty quickly.  By that stage the masts were about 60deg to the water and getting worse.  Youngie took one look at the situation and then what happened next left me gobsmacked.

After congratulating us for having done all we could under the circumstances, he dragged out his bloody mobile phone and made a call.  Way out there in the middle of nowhere here we were perched up on the edge of my stranded pride and joy feeling like I’d let Jim and me and my family & friends down and he was on his phone calmly organising additional anchors and ropes to keep us safe.  Then they disappeared for about an hour and came back with the promised gear.  By this time you could walk along the port side the boat without getting your feet wet.  As it happens, we were lucky to have swiped the side of the sand bank, not hit it at a sharper angle.

So that’s how I came to be sleeping on the side of the aft cabin roof at midnight with lines coming from the tips of the masts stopping the boat from falling right over and waiting for the tide to come back in.  When the tide finally started coming back around I simply kept strain on the lines as we winched the boat back up until water again took the load of the hull.  We finally drifted free of the sand at about 2am and pulled ourselves over to one of the anchors that had been set in deeper water.  By then Youngie and his mates had returned to make sure we were off OK.  Fair dinkum this guy was an absolute saint and he invited us to visit him and his wife the next day at the settlement on Elcho Island which we were on the southern side of and not that far away as the crow flies.

It turns out that Youngie’s wife was one of the Northern Territory Police contingent stationed at the community which was made up of about 5,000 aboriginals.  The same aboriginals I suspect that nicked all the channel markers.  It was she who first logged our call for help when it came thru and I met her after they came out to greet us when we anchored off the beach at Elcho Island.  Youngie took me to the shopping area where I could get more oil for the engine and I had a hot shower at their house.  Then he gave us some supplies and a big box of ice to supplement my supply since the fridge had again stopped.  Youngie and his lady and their 2 year old daughter then came out to the boat for coffee and cakes which was the only way they would let us say thank you for their help.  I think one thing that helped us through that particular episode was that we had all the regulation SOLAS gear on board and more.  We weren’t fly by nighters on a wing and a prayer.  And we had done everything right in those first critical moments after realizing we were stuck fast.  Had we simply given up to what at the time might have seemed inevitable I think it would have ended up differently.

On closing off that incident, while we were having coffee and cakes on the boat in that anchorage off Elcho Island we were visited by customs coast watch again.  But this time it was an inflatable runabout off one of their coastal patrol boats anchored some 5 miles off the bay.  The customs and navy guys came over for a look-see and after asking the obligatory questions and satisfying themselves that we were who we said we were, were happy to chat about fishing, whales we’d seen and interesting stuff like that.  It was then one of my favorite sayings again popped in to my mind as it had done a hundred times before.

“Mate I wouldn’t be dead for quids.”

One of the Customs patrol boats that we encountered.

We sailed out of Elcho Island and back on track after the unscheduled 2 day stopover and started to make good speed with easy cruising.  Over the next 24 hours the breeze picked up steadily and it was mid afternoon the following afternoon that the next ‘event of note’ occurred.

I think the words of an email sent to friends sums it up nicely.  I was explaining what had happened on one occasion with another coast watch overfly…

On one of the 500 feet over flys, we were surfing down the face of swells in a rough following sea with 30kt tail wind. In the confusion of grabbing the 2way we lost concentration for about 2 seconds and the boat jibed.  Doing 7kts in a 41foot, 15 tonne yacht down wind and suddenly jibing aint good. But to top it off we were in gale force winds and with the swell under the stern at that moment we then broached. Holy mackerel (or words to that effect) I said as the port gunnel
 rail disappeared under water, but we still weren't finished. As she recovered from the broach the headsail, being half reefed, filled with wind and immediately pointed us up in to the wind.
 So one moment we were sailing due west and in the blink of an eye we'd done a complete about face. Can you imagine the surprise of the pilot as he looked in his rear view window at the yacht he just buzzed from head on. It had about faced and was chasing him up.  So, since we were facing the wind, I started the motor to hold us up in that direction and dropped the main sail. Up to then I had wanted to do so but wasn't game to turn to wind. Having dropped the main sail, we turned 180deg back on course and still ran at 6kts with only the headsail, half reefed. We had a good laugh at that and continued on. That day we sat up all night steering until the wind dropped.

Following our little pirouette mid ocean the rest of the journey was relatively uneventful.  It was about his part of the journey that whale activity started to pick up.  We’d encountered plenty of dolphins, the odd shark and a surprising number of sea snakes sunning themselves on the surface since leaving Cairns.  But now groups of whales started to show up.  There is nothing more majestic than a huge whale tail arching out of the water and then disappearing below the surface seemingly with barely a splash.  Or massive lumps of black and white lard hurling themselves bodily out of the water and twisting on to their side or even their back before crashing into the water with a sound like a block of flats (that’s Australian for apartments) collapsing.  The sad thing was that my digital camera has this annoying delay from pressing the button to capturing the image and I have plenty of snaps of disturbed water where a whale once was.  But, we had whales around us for the rest of the journey so opportunities were plenty to finally get that great photo. 

The last days of this leg were spent getting around Melville and Bathurst Islands before turning south toward Darwin and I was a bit surprised as we approached that city at the lack of sea traffic.  As the capital city of Australia’s biggest territory (as opposed to state) Darwin is a pretty big town and a busy port.  Also, we were only a week away from the Ambon yacht rally which was starting from Darwin so I’d expected a lot of boats out on the water as we came in down the shipping lane.  Not so and I was relieved when on trying out the cell phone, got signal.  Darwin must be out there somewhere.  So what do you do after 8 full days at sea and your cell phone shows 4 bars.  Call home of course.  So I called my brother Alan who lives in the south west corner of Western Australia and started to carefully pick my way forward, standing on the bow spit as I explained where we were and how it seemed weird that there was no evidence of a busy city.  It was then that I got my first glimpse of Darwin’s skyline and Alan had to caution me not to fall over board so exuberant was my reaction.

“Crikey, buildings, Darwin, can’t wait, never been there before, you little beauty.”

Darwin

We sailed in to Fannie Bay and anchored off the Darwin Sailing Club in 8m of water and in amongst over 100 other yachts of all shapes and sizes.  I needed to break out the outboard motor for the rubber ducky so far were we from the shore.  Grabbing the shower kit, a clean change of clothes and a pocket full of dollars we headed in and as we left the boat, marvelled at one of our neighbours.  A 30m dark blue yacht with a mast half as tall as anything else around her, flying Italian colours anchored not 50m away.  Perhaps they were marvelling at their new neighbour.  A white Formosan CT41 ketch with two Aussies in need of a hot shower and a shave.  I think not. 

Darwin was yet another place that was difficult to leave.  Sunsets from the sailing club had to be seen to be believed.  Even the most basic of cameras could capture a beautiful photo worth enlarging.  Palm trees by the shore, hundreds of masts in the orange light and mirror like water stretching to the horizon with multiple layers of clouds reflecting magnificent hues down to the ocean surface.  And Darwin Sailing Club was the place to be.  Within 30 seconds of walking in to the club after my much welcomed clean up I heard my name called out.  Being on the way to the bar at speed it took a few paces to arrest my momentum and was surprised and pleased to recognize the American guy we’d met way back at Marlin Marina in Cairns.  I’d given him some anti-slip agent to mix in with the paint he was putting on to his deck at the time and now he had seen me come in.   It was he who had heard our brush with the surveillance camera while leaving the fuelling dock back at Cairns.  Brian had sailed his sloop ‘Bingo’ in a few days before with a crew that included of a couple of French girls he’d found there.  Backpackers who were after an adventure.  If you are in need of crew anywhere north of the Whitsundays in Queensland you never have to wait long before word gets out.  Where the heck were they when I was chasing crew.  Here’s Brian with his 2 French girls in exotic Darwin and I had a near sighted octogenarian with short term memory loss and swollen feet.  But that’s grossly unfair to Jim.  He was OK.

Jim and I settled in quite nicely to the Darwin Sailing Club and the next day I headed off to the airport to collect my sister Vicki who flew up to spend some time with us.  She was originally to sail the next leg out of Darwin with us but the two days lost thru the Cadell Passage incident made it too tight for her schedule.  So we partied at the club each night instead, met nice people, visited the sights and went for a sail in the bay one day on the way to the fuelling jetty.  At least Vicki got to experience how Serenity sailed and she observed first hand the difficulties I had experienced when coming in to and leaving fuelling jetties.  We’d gone for a bit of a sail on the way to find a re-fuelling facility and on easing carefully up against the jetty set about fixing lines that could be adjusted with the tidal swing.  While on that jetty I wanted to get the fridge looked at as well since that had ceased to function on the way up the reef.  All up we were on that jetty for 4 hours and when we were ready to go I allocated tasks to Vicki and Jim to make sure we got away OK without clipping barbeques or solar panels.  These expensive items overhang the stern a little and are thus somewhat vulnerable.

Darwin Harbour sunset

Darwin fuelling jetty.

I’d gone to great lengths to explain how we were going to do this and even repeated the story a couple of times, ending with “now are you sure you’re happy with being able to manage that.  Watch what we are doing and cast off at the right time”.  Jim was sure so I started the engine and with Jim tending the bow and Vicki aft, I began to ease away.  The stern pulled away nicely just like I planned and when the time was right I then eased the boat in to forward to pull away from the jetty.  Strangely the bow swung back in so I stopped, backed up and tried again.  The same thing happened and I was just about to back off again when I noticed we were still tied to the bloody jetty up forward.  I couldn’t help myself and sung out…”sometime today would be good Jim” as the boat again ricocheted off the still fast mooring rope.  I said a few other unprintable choice expletives as frustration got the better of me while Jim tried to let go the mooring line that was preventing us from leaving the wharf.  Vicki could see that I was stewing on yet another fuelling jetty stuff-up and after a while said to Jim. ”you stuffed that one up Jim”  I don’t think Jim realised what had happened nor why I was more than a little miffed.  It was becoming evident that Jims eyesight was a lot worse than he had let on and he was consequently unaware of most that was going on around him most of the time.  The hardest thing for me to come to grips with was that Jim would often indicate that he fully understood what we were about to do and was on top of things, then would completely switch off.

Nevertheless we got away from the Darwin fuelling jetty with tanks full of fuel, full load of fresh water and a newly fixed fridge and Vicki had a chuckle at my choice of words when we had bounced back to the jetty.  All in all it was a good result as we headed back to Fanny Bay and the Sailing Club with those oh so fabulous sunsets.

Now not having ever been to Hawaii I can’t say this with authority but Darwin suggested to me what that place might be like and it is on my list of places to visit over the next 5 years.  In the mean time however, Broome was our next destination and after bidding farewell to Vicki as she boarded her flight back south into the cold and wet, we set about planning the next leg.- Darwin to Broome.  And Katelyn, my youngest daughter, was to meet us there. 

Darwin to Broome. 11 July – 20 July 2009

We sailed out of Darwin harbor on Saturday July 11 in the hope that we would make Broome by the 18^th which was when my youngest daughter Katelyn was due to arrive and join us on a leg.   This was to be her first time out in the big wide world by herself and while Broome is a very civilized town and popular tourist destination, I didn’t want her to be there on her own for too long.

On our last run in the rubber ducky back to the boat before our departure I stopped by to chat to an American couple in a beautifully presented and maintained ketch of the same make and model as “It’s The Serenity”.  The only other one we had encountered since leaving Cairns and the similar ketch Kalida that we had last seen at the Marlin Marina.  For the life of me I can’t recall the name on the transom of this beautiful example.  They were flying the stars and stripes, they’d had the boat for 15 years, (or was it 18) and the port of registry was Fort somewhere or other but that’s all I can recall.  The boat was just magnificent and it further strengthened my resolve to get Serenity up to the standard that I had observed since reaching Cairns.

The run west north west out of Port Darwin was fairly easy and I took the opportunity to play around with some new fittings I had bought for polling out the headsail.  So much of our sailing thus far had been down wind and I had always struggled to set the long heavy pole single handed.  I had a track system installed on the front of the main mast in Cairns for the pole which was meant to solve both the setting issues and of course storage when not in use.  The first time we tried poling with this setup however it became clear that it needed some tuning and I had been experimenting with theories throughout the voyage.  Of course you can play around with theories on paper as much as you like but there is no substitute for trial and error and so it was with my poling attempts.  Darwin Sailing Club had a great chandlery and so I could finally put my theories to the sword.  The end result of my latest modifications however was very pleasing and we actually managed on two occasions to put it to the test before we lost our tail winds completely.  Something to do with Murphy’s Law I expect.  Or was it Sod’s law?  Not to be beaten, the loss of tail winds bought on the head winds so the re-shaped mizzen and short storm jib started to pay their way.  For a short while anyway.

After rounding Cox Peninsula we headed out across Joseph Bonaparte Gulf toward Cape Londondary.  I’d long ago been warned of the hazards of cutting the corner at this cape so gave it a wide berth as we lined up for the long south westerly run down the West Australian Kimberley coast. 

While the run down to Broome started with reasonable winds it was evident that the breeze was swinging more on the nose and weakening the further south we pushed.  The bonus however was in the whale activity which was increasing and on one occasion I counted 5 separate sightings within our visual horizon at one time.   On the way down this bit of coast we had one of those humorous incidents that’s worth re telling here.  You could almost describe it as an example of the butterfly effect.

Australia has 4 time zones from east to west, 5 on occasion when some states observe daylight saving while others don’t.  As I said previously, we were running 2 hour watches through the night and I was using my cell phone as an alarm clock.  I’d set the alarm for 2 hours sleep then turn the phone off when I woke for my watch.  This worked well and conserved batteries.

This one morning I jumped out of my bunk to the 02:00 alarm, turned off the phone and went up to the helm to relieve Jim.  While confirming position and track, slightly left of centre, I noted that the local time field on the GPS showed 03:30.  That can’t be right.  If it was right I’d slept in for one and a half hours it seemed.  It took a while to confirm that I had in fact slept in and after chastising Jim for not waking me, pondered the question as to how it happened.  I’d never done that before.  One possible answer of course was simple but given where we were, way out in the middle of the ocean, unlikely.  The phone could have picked up signal and automatically flipped its clock from Northern Territory time to Western Australian time, 90 minutes behind, while I slept.  Ducking back down below to turn the phone back on confirmed that theory and it was then that the phone started madly beeping with incoming SMS messages.  8 of them.  So I spent the next 30 minutes reading and answering SMS’s while signal was still available.  It came as a bit of a surprise you might imagine when back came an answer at 4 o’clock in the morning.  Someone else is awake at this hour. 

So what do you do at 4 in the morning when you are out in the middle of the ocean, you have signal and one of your friends is awake.  That’s how I came to be talking to my friend Denise who had just completed a shift at the West Australian Fire and Emergency Services operations centre.  She answers emergency calls for the fire brigade and allocates resources where required.  Anyway, there I was at the helm of It’s The Serenity in pitch dark and happily chatting to Denise when a whale surfaced right alongside me and blew its lungs.  It scared the you know what out of me and without thinking I blurted out “what the hell was that, it’s a bloody whale”  That’s when we lost the signal.

Well you can imagine what was going thru Denise’s thoughts right then.  “Oh my goodness, he’s been eaten by a whale.”  Or words to that effect…It took a good few seconds of frantic button pushing once a couple of bars re-appeared long enough to re-connect and assure Den that we were OK.  That window of opportunity for cell phone signal was completely unexpected and a phenomena because we were it seemed, a long way out to sea at the time.  Had I not slept in I would have been heading back to my bunk at 4am after another boring 2 hour watch.  Double checking the charts later, it had been Cape Levique where the signal came from and we hadn’t really passed that close to it.  Apparently one thing that the West Aussie government had spent money on while I was living in the Solomon Islands was mobile telephone infrastructure for remote communities in the outback.

That whale incident was not the last time we came close to these magnificent creatures but we never once felt threatened by their presence.  You hear stories about yachts that have run in to whales or even been sunk by one but from my experience out there, I am starting to believe that they know where you are long before you know they are out there and either avoid you completely or come a bit closer to simply to have a look.

Our run down the coast began to slow from that time as we lost our breeze and I found myself doing time and fuel consumption calculations over and over to work out when we could safely start to motor.  I worked on averaging 5li per hour and always tried to have plenty in reserve for the unexpected but felt I’d left us a bit short on this occasion.  We eventually motored for 2 days in to Broome and when we were barely 5 hours out a nasty front came through with dead calm rapidly giving way to howling winds bang on the nose and very rough seas.  Somebody up there doesn’t want us to get in to Broome without a fight so we dragged out the wet weather gear and I double checked my fuel reserves and navigation yet again as visibility diminished.  We came in to Broome Harbor and found our way to the designated anchorage off town beach on instrument approach at around 9pm.  By that time the front had passed us by and this combined with the protection of the bay gave us calm water to anchor in.  Good holding for a change and sunset drinkies, 4 hours late this night, tasted oh so good.  This had been a 20 can trip, 10 sunsets, and the beer, cheese and bikkies were running low.  While toasting another successfully completed leg of our journey I contacted Katelyn on the cell phone and we arranged to meet up next morning for breakfast.  Couldn’t come soon enough.

When daylight greeted us next morning I was amazed to see what we had come thru the night before.  Mooring buoys and floating lines all around and we hadn’t hit one of them.  We were ideally situated over good dirt and far enough from shore to survive the huge tides that can occur there.  Broome can have up to 30’ tidal swing and I’ve seen photos of pearling luggers sitting on the mud at low tide alongside jetties with staircases disappearing up above their superstructures.

Broome is a very popular destination for tourists, especially caravaners, but from a cruising yacht perspective, it is very user unfriendly.  Notwithstanding the lack of a designated cruising yacht mooring area & 30’ tides making it a challenge to build a marina dedicated to smaller craft, here was the only place we encountered where getting fuel was a real issue.    It shouldn’t be difficult mind you.  There are plenty of places in Australia where lock systems exist.  But in their infinite wisdom, the Broome tourist industry people don’t seem to think it beneficial to cater for yachties.  This flows on to fuelling.  There is not even a fuelling barge service available.  You have only 2 alternatives.  Hire a car or taxi to meet you on shore and ferry you with suitable containers to a service station.  Then run out in the rubber ducky to where you are anchored and transfer the fuel in to the tanks.  You have to time this to the tides of course and if you are like me with a requirement of 400li, you can imagine the effort required.

The only other alternative is to line up to use the system they have in place for the shipping industry there.  First pay for a permit to come alongside their wharf.  Then pay another fee to be allowed to take on fuel at their wharf.  Then pay the fuel company a callout fee, despite the fact it is mid week and in business hours, then of course pay the cost per litre for what you buy.  They basically have you over a barrel in Broome if you are a cruising yachtie who needs fuel and they don’t care.  It’s a very narrow minded attitude but while the shops and pubs and restaurants are filled with tourists who fly in or drive in they feel that there is no real benefit in spending dollars on catering for those few who sail in there.  You might detect a little negativity here.  Broome has fantastic potential with its location at the southern end of the famous Kimberley Coast.  They are just missing the point.

So anyway, we did have a great stopover in Broome and once again the time to move on came around oh so quickly.  Katelyn and I did a provisions run at one of a number of good shopping centers and ferried the supplies out to the boat after having to trudge across a kilometer of sand to where I’d first dragged the dinghy.  I had misjudged the tides, leaving it until afternoon to head back to the boat and it was dark when we finally loaded the last of our stores onboard.  We’d been a little edgy as daylight was fading because there had been a crocodile sighting the day before and a sign had appeared right where we stepped off from the high water mark to warn people of the danger.  We hadn’t even weighed anchor and Katelyn already had her first story to tell her mates when she got home.

The next morning we again tackled a fuelling jetty after me parting out with what I considered to be bureaucratic red tape cash and again stuffed it up but this time it was all my doing.  I came in at the wrong angle the first time so had to go around again.  The second time I was too fast in miss judging the tidal flow and by this time had half the workers on the wharf watching and sniggering.  That was all I needed and just kept getting it wrong.  Finally one of them threw us a line and we secured without further problem.   Fortunately, on leaving we eased away perfectly and I breathed a sigh of relief.  Finally got it right!

We sailed out of Broome on the 23^rd of July with Exmouth as our next destination and while this wasn’t Katelyns first time on the boat at sea, she and my son Brenton had motored across Ironbottom Sound in the Solomons some years before, it was the first time under sail for her.

Broome to Exmouth and beyond.

This was our first time with more than just the two of us on board.  Serenity is well suited to cruising with more on board than we’d been running with and she can accommodate 4 in comfort and up to 7 when required.  Onboard fridge and freezer space is good and a water tank holding 350li is reasonable.  The trip from Broome was probably as good as I would have hoped for Katelyn’s first experience of open water sailing.  After sailing for so long we’d become fairly good at estimating how long this would take.  We figured on 6 days for the 515nm run and it took us 6 days.  Sailing through the nights again only this time the 2 hours on were separated by 4 hours off.  Plenty of whales again, plenty of strong wind and a fair amount of nil wind.

During this leg we sailed thru the oil and gas fields that are prevalent in this area and while I knew there was a fair bit going on out there, I was surprised at just how much there was.  It was almost eerie at night.  Oil rigs lit up like cities, crude carriers nuzzling up to delivery heads sticking up from the ocean like a lone hazard marker and all around us, orange glows on the horizon that look like a perennial moonrise.

Each time I came to the end of my watch I’d make sure our horizon was clear of shipping or oil field hazards.  It is well recorded by solo sailors that from first spotting an oncoming ship to being in a situation where you must take avoiding action is barely 20 minutes.  The times up the inside of the Barrier Reef endorsed this point and I was just a tad nervous about Jim’s eyesight.  So if I had seen lights on our horizon toward the end of my watch, I would stay up until the hazard had cleared.

On one occasion I came up on deck in the wee small hours to relieve Jim and asked how we had travelled.  He reported that all was well but he’d been watching a ship that was now stationary some miles ahead of us.  He’d been “closely watching it” as it passed and on this track we’d clear it by some distance.  On taking over the helm I was a bit curious about this ‘ship’.  It looked more like a block of flats than a boat.  But it was definitely stationary and it was close to our track so it was only a matter of time before we would be near enough to see want it actually was.  What it turned out to be was a rig.  With multiple legs firmly planted in the ocean floor.  Checking back on the Lowrance track taken, it seems Jim had been watching this thing a bit too closely, sailed right around it and had started to come back on it when I came up from my sleep.  I hadn’t been the first time Jim had momentarily drifted off to sleep at the helm and way out in the middle of nowhere it usually didn’t matter.  At night ones distance perception can be challenged and it reminded me of an incident back in 2008 in the Solomon Islands, fairly early in the voyage. 

We’d left the Russel Island group astern and were on course to Gizo, passing Mary Island to Starboard.  It was some time after midnight and I’d been closely watching a 200’ purseiner whose helmsman was clearly paying more attention to his fish finder than his path.  He’d come up from astern, was running on a parallel course to us a bit too close for my liking and a fair bit faster.  I was trying to judge his path when I was relieved to note that he was bearing off so I relaxed a bit.  Then we jibed.  In watching him I had not been closely monitoring our own track and ended up doing an unintentional 180 away from him.  Easy to do out there in the middle of the night when the only reference point you have is a ships lights and that ship is underway.

The incident with the rig off the coast as we headed south from Broome made me realize that I needed to ease up on Jim a bit.  It had become clear that he needed his sleep more than he would admit to and he had a tendency to over tax his capabilities.  Fortunately Katelyn took to sailing so well that she handled 2 hour watches like a pro.  So we both got to have more sleep for a few nights.

From the rig we tracked west of Barrow Island and on down to Exmouth past the Murion Islands.  Again the last day was without wind.  Not good for us but great for the local fishing enthusiasts that chase the Spanish Mackerel that team in these waters.  I’d caught many ‘Spaniards’ in my time and rate that fish as among the best tasting I’ve had.  Anyway, we passed plenty of small recreational boats heading toward the Murions as we headed south in to the gulf.

Exmouth is a fishing town close to the tip of a peninsula sticking out into the Indian Ocean.  Back in the 70’s, the Americans built a Very Low Frequency radio facility on this peninsula.  At the height of the cold war, this would be used to spread the warning of a pending strike by the Russians.  Popular opinion among engineers involved in the building of this facility back then was that any early warning of a strike was only good for an hour or two before a Russian missile took the place out.  There are about 13 large towers that support the aerial arrays and they can be seen from way out to sea so the Russians could hardly miss.  These things stand out long before anything else along that bit of coast becomes clear and we amused ourselves trying to count them as they first came in to view. 

Coming in to Exmouth we again lost all wind and again had to motor to make sure we made it before dusk.  For a while now I’d been a bit concerned about the starter motor on the engine.  It sounded like the battery was not delivering good crank amps and was now rapidly deteriorating.  So it was time to get that solved and Exmouth would have the means.  Also, on so many of our down wind runs, the prop shaft, not tethered like many are when under sail, had started to vibrate a bit too much when free spinning.  This would be a good time to re-check the bearing as well.  At risk of digressing again, this was still the one I’d had turned up last year at Liapari and I can clearly remember the manager of the Liapari shipyard handing me the new bearing and saying “this should get you back to Australia.”  I had done plenty of miles since then and was now pushing my luck.

Motoring in to Exmouth marina was without incident and we eased in to our allocated pen with plenty of daylight spare.  Another big advantage of cell phones is you can often phone ahead to the WA government’s Department of Transport that manages public access marinas up the coast and sort out a pen or mooring on the way in.  Exmouth Marina is a fairly recent development with good facilities for cruising yachties.  Town centre is a bit of a distance away but the taxi service is reasonable and not expensive.  What’s more, somebody had forgotten to tell these people about the GFC and along with the marina was a spectacular canal development nearing completion and a 5 star resort hotel just opened.

Here we would sort out maintenance tasks on the boat, bid farewell to Katelyn who needed to get back for work and take some time off to see the sights.  In fact, one reason I had been pushing the pace a bit was to be here at this exact time for a very good reason.  On so many years gone by I had been driving to Coral Bay, some 150Km south of Exmouth, with my fishing mates for our annual fishing trip.  We’d tow our boats up there, it would take 13 hours, and stay for one week at a rented house in the settlement.  By day we’d go out thru the fantastic Ningaloo Reef waters and catch Spaniards, Norwest Schnapper and Coral Trout and at night sip a few beers and have a lot of laughs as we ribbed each other about who did what and why.

Kate in Exmouth telling her friends she was still alive and well

Sunset drinks in Exmouth

This time coincided with the 2009 Coral Bay trip and while I’d hoped to have actually sailed in to Coral Bay by now, well Mauds Landing to be more accurate, we were close enough to hire a car and get down there to see the guys before they headed back to Perth.  Also, Jim’s son Murray would be there and as Jim had turned 80 on this last leg, it was a good chance for him to catch up with one of his family and recognize this milestone in his long life.

So we hired a car, visited Coral Bay and the fishing mates, ordered a new cutlass bearing, bought a new start battery and generally tried to avoid talking about the fact that our journey was nearing its end.

I had one more task on the journey that I was determined to complete and the next leg, Exmouth to Geraldton, the penultimate leg, was when that goal would be realized.

Exmouth to Geraldton. 6 August to 13 August 2009

Our departure from Exmouth was delayed for a few days while we waited for the items that I had ordered to turn up.  Katelyn had flown out a few days after we had arrived, we’d rested up, seen the sights and visited the fishing mates in Coral Bay.  Now we were cooling our heels waiting on the post for the cutlass bearing and a new C-map chip to give me backup charts for the handheld plotter.

I’d installed the new start battery for the Volvo and that seemed to start OK when we first tested it and again when we finally got underway on the morning of Thursday the 6^th.  It really didn’t take long to encounter our first whales and on this occasion, not more than 2 miles off the coast.  There was a small boat near them recording the display with a fairly professional looking video camera and they peeled off to capture us as we sailed by.  I took the opportunity to take some pic’s and I have one of the guy on the small boat taking a shot of us taking a shot of them taking a shot of us.  This could go on for ever.

Our departure from Exmouth was significant in a few areas.  We were leaving the warm weather, we were facing winter patterns that threatened us with lousy conditions the further south we sailed and we were traversing familiar waters for the first time.  All in all, a good reason to press on without delay.

The number of sunset drinkies at sea remaining were rapidly heading toward single figures and it didn’t leave us many opportunities to observe this mythical green flash we’d been told about.  We’d been told this story by our American friend on Bingo while having a few beers way back at the Darwin Sailing Club.  He swore that if you had a perfect day where there were no clouds and no haze on the horizon at sunset and you watched real careful, you’d see this green flash just as the sun dipped below the horizon.  Well I’m here to tell you folks, we had plenty of near perfect evenings with near perfect sun dips and nary a green flash was seen.  Not any sort of flash.  It just started to go dark.  So I was beginning to think our American mate Brian was having a bit of a lend of us.  But it was a good story and it gave us something to amuse us as we toasted yet another successful days sailing.  As it happens, typing in ‘green flash’ on Google does in fact confirm that it does exist but we were never witness to it.

On some of the glassier evenings through this leg the ever present whales seemed to be getting friskier and I watched one monster easily as big as Serenity come completely out of the water less than a mile off.  The noise they made when crashing back in to the water was huge and we often heard these thunderous reports, as I said before like a block of flats collapsing, long before the whales could be seen.

Being this far down the WA coast, the customs coast watch aircraft no longer over flew our position and I kind of missed their occasional visits.  However, this wasn’t to be the last of low flying aircraft.

While in Darwin, I’d been on the phone to my nephew who is a pilot with the company that operates the search and rescue service out of Perth.  I’d been telling him about the number of times we’d been flown over.  He made the passing comment when we were ending the call that he’d ‘ruffle our sails as we passed by Shark Bay.  He is the training captain for that company and it seems that Shark Bay is at the northern end of their training area.  Anyway, it was around 09:20 one morning and I was below cooking a late breakfast when Jim sung out that another aircraft was about to buzz us. 

“It’s The Serenity” from about 500ft

I poked my head up from the galley and immediately recognized the red and white SAR twin Dornier aircraft.  Turning on VHF16 I was hoping that I might recognize the voice but not so.  Nevertheless we had the usual chat and I confirmed that they had indeed come from Perth and yes, they would give my regards to their training captain. 

It seems that all they were told is to expect a yacht somewhere off Shark Bay and go and find it.  It was a good feeling to experience first hand just how good these guys are at finding a tiny yacht in a huge ocean with the barest of information.  Some time later when back in Perth, I went out to their hangar at Perth Airport, met the pilot who over flew us and was given a conducted tour of the aircraft and its onboard systems.  The photo’s that they had taken on that fly over weren’t too bad either.

What made that fly over even more incredible was that we were 60nm off the coast on our way to realize my final goal of the journey.  At that time we were just over a day away from sailing over the top of the final resting place of HMAS Sydney II.  The mystery of what had really happened to the Sydney way back in November 1941 was never going to be solved unless they found both her and the German raider the Kormoran.  This finally happened in March 2008 when David Mearnes’ team found first the Kormoran and then, 5 days later the Sydney.

Sydney went down with all 645 crew on the 19^th November 1941 after a short but fierce battle with Kormoran just 85nm off the coast of Western Australia.  Both ships limped away from the battle severely damaged and Sydney’s bow broke off just before midnight sending her immediately to the bottom with not one crew member surviving.  She was finally found on 16^th March 2008 in 2,468m of water and now we were going to sail over her and pay our respects.  Both my father and my father in law were sailors during the war and I know that my dad had crewed in merchant ships that sailed these waters taking US Marines north and POW’s back south.  So on Tuesday 11 August 2009 we sailed thru those waters and had a very special sunset drinkies over the remains of HMAS Sydney II.

85 nautical miles off shore and I decide to take photo of right foot.

After passing the Sydney site we turned in toward land and Geraldton and found ourselves in the unusual position of needing to slow down so we wouldn’t arrive there too early.  The typical Indian Ocean swells were now beginning to roll in as well so I didn’t want to be negotiating the narrow channel in to port in the dark.  Thursday afternoon, three days after visiting Sydney, we picked up the first of the northern extremity channel marks and navigated our way to the Batavia Coast marina.  This was no mean feat in Serenity as the entrance runs north south, right angles to the swell and is quite narrow.  The usual boulder walls that form the break waters were oh so close as we rocked and rolled our way thru the shallow entrance in to the marina and it’s always at this time that I keep everything crossed that the motor didn’t cut out.

We tied up at the end of the first pier we came to while sorting out formalities and then went to look for a decent pen.  This was by far the shabbiest jetty system we had encountered on the entire journey and I ended up losing some of the nice new paint job on the hull before we finally managed to move to a more suitable pen.

One interesting event occurred within an hour of arriving in Geraldton.  I received a phone call from one of the partners in the company that I have the WA agency for.  He was ringing to find out where I was and if I might be in a position to attend a business meeting in Perth the next week.  We’d bid for some business in an up coming Liquid Natural Gas project that was the biggest of its kind to date and were scheduled to give our final technical presentation the following week.  The timing couldn’t have been better and so it looked like Serenity would be in Geraldton a bit longer than planned while I travelled down to Perth in a bus to prepare for and make that meeting.  Interestingly, the project is to be located on Barrow Island and we had sailed right past that spot in the ocean as we ran from Broome to Exmouth.   The decision on who has won that bit of business is very near.

So we were in Geraldton.  Only 200nm from our final destination but with what is the most unfriendly bit of coast you can imagine ahead of us.  This time more than any other we would need to watch the weather forecast closely and plan our departure carefully.  There’s not many bolt holes between Geraldton and Perth but a lot of nasty coast and nastier seas.

We were nearly there.  Just 200 nautical miles to go and there was no way I was going to mess up on this final, oh so short leg.

Our stay in Geraldton was fairly eventful.  My trip back to Perth for the business meeting took up a week and during that time the starter motor finally clagged out.  It was that all along, not the battery and Jim had fortunately discovered that when firing up the engine to give it a run while I was in Perth.  We visited the HMAS Sydney memorial high on a hill overlooking the ocean.  I bought a copy of David Mearnes beautiful book on finding the Sydney and I bought more bits from yet another chandlery.

The delay also meant that my brother could join us for this last leg.  He and his wife had been touring the outback of Australia in their 4WD while we were sailing down the coast and we had often talked sat phone to sat phone with him way out in the middle of the desert and us way out to sea.  Now they were back from that trek and he was keen to join me, Jim and my son Brenton who also showed an interest in sailing the last leg.

Geraldton to Perth Arriving 4 September

I think that the following email I wrote to friends and family on arriving in Fremantle sums up the journey nicely…

5 September 2009

Hello everyone. 

Well, we did it.  At 1215 yesterday afternoon we motored in to the RPYC annexe and tied up on the visitors jetty.  After the initial (aborted)attempt to sail that last 212 nautical miles from Geraldton, this time it couldn't have been better.
The replacement part went on without a hitch and the engine fired and ran as well as it ever has... Better in fact

A brief re-cap first.  We'd sailed out the previous Thursday with 4 of us on board.  Me, Jim, my son Brenton and my brother Alan.  Thru to Thursday night it went OK but in to Friday we struck stronger than expected winds that were bang on the nose meaning we had to either tack regularly or motor with small headsail set.  We did the latter but it eventually became evident that things would get worse before they improved.  Also Brenton had become so badly seasick that he was curled up on a bunk with one arm wrapped around the plastic container he'd been throwing up in for the previous 24 hrs and didn't move.  Alan was marginally better and managed some 2hr watches thru the night. (Closer to the rail for those occasional spits)  To top it all off, it was raining quite heavily most of the time and so damned cold that I was beginning to suffer hypothermia.  It turns out my trendy wet weather gear wasn't so good afterall.  Oh so cold it reminded me of the polar bear joke.  You see, there was this baby polar bear.... never mind!
So we decided the only sensible thing to do was turn back.  Immediately on turning back we of course had a strong tail wind and were scooting along with sail and motor.  Then as Alan and I were swapping over on the helm at 2am Sat morning, he commented on a different noise coming from the engine.  On waking up properly it was clear to me we had an issue so I shut the motor down immediately and investigated.  One collapsed water circulation pump.-  Bugger!

We sailed on towards Geraldton with half headsail only but still making over 4kts and once close enough to get reliable mobile phone service, contacted the local Sea Search and Rescue people to request assistance getting back in to harbor.  We would get there under our own sail no problem but once getting back there, would be unable to negotiate the channel and marina without a motor.  They came out to meet us and followed along behind until we arrived back to the narrow channel that takes you in to Geraldton Harbor.  So that's how at around 10am Saturday morning they gently nudged us alongside the fueling wharf in the fishing boat harbor.  One of the guys gave me the number of a local marine engineer to contact and the end result was a near new water pump delivered to the boat on Tuesday morning.  Just great luck there.

One bit of humor coming out of the ordeal.  Once we had established contact with the SAR guys and knew the schedule I went below and told Brenton that we were 3 hours away from dry land and asked was there anything I could do to make him more comfortable.  He eased his head out from under his arm, still clutching the bucket, opened one eye and in true Brenton style quietly said..."just get me off this boat"   Needless to say he was off the boat immediately we were alongside and was smiling again after just 5 minutes on solid ground.  Young and healthy he recovered very fast.  Both he and Alan had commitments in Perth after the weekend so they hopped on a bus on Sunday and were back there by mid afternoon.

So, back to getting away a second time.  I checked the forecast Tuesday afternoon and also chatted on the phone with Alan and we agreed that we had a 3 day window of opportunity to reach Perth before the conditions blew out again.
The coast from Geraldton doesn't allow for many bolt holes so the strategy was to get as far as we could sailing 7/24 Wednesday and Thursday and decide weather to hold up at a place called Two Rocks 35nm north of Fremantle or push on once we reached that point.

Having committed that strategy in to my navigation day book we pulled out of the Geraldton fishing boat harbor bang on 10am last Wednesday. 
After plugging thru the first 15nm of crappy coastal conditions prevalent near Geraldton and putting some distance between us and the coast things just got better and better and we found ourselves averaging over 5kts toward destination.  There is a southward moving current (The Leewin Current) about 10 miles off the coast and I set course along that. It gave us over a knot assistance all the way.
It meant I was constantly revising our ETA for both Two Rocks (if needed) or Freo.  As it happens, we sailed past the waypoint for Two Rocks at around 02:30 Friday morning and still making good speed and direction knew we would be in Fremantle in plenty of time.
You can imagine the excitement when on coming up from my sleep after the 4am to 6am watch Friday I could see the city of Perth skyline on the horizon.  It was about then we saw our last whale for the journey.
It wasn't until I picked out Rottnest Island to the south west and could recognise familiar landmarks on shore that I allowed myself to believe we were going to get in ahead of the rather conservative schedule I had previously advised.

A little later I managed to contact a friend who lives in Swanbourne and she popped over to an elevated point at the beach to see if we were visible.  Looking out from Cottesloe, Pam confirmed that she could see the boat, shining white with the morning sun, on the horizon.  I was rapt and it was then I knew we'd really made it.

Friday turned in to a beautiful sunny, warm, clear blue sky day.  
While we were tying up, my mate Graham, another of the friends I was able to contact, arrived at the wharf and helped us tie off.  I think he was keen to be there when Serenity made it to Fremantle because it was his phone call that in a round about way, set this whole thing in motion way back in 2003. 
Once secure I dragged out the champers and we toasted the arrival of It's The Serenity to Fremantle.  Over 6,000 nautical miles since leaving Avi Avi ship yard on the island of Nggela Sule, 25nm north of Honiara, Guadalcanal in the Solomon Islands.

Then the party really got going.  People kept arriving with bubbly and food and I even managed to dig some finger food out of the ships fridge.  Both my sister Vicki and Alan arrived, having come up from the country just to help celebrate and navigated to the boat by following the party sounds.  We consumed heaps of bubbly, took lots of photo's, told stories and never stopped smiling.  What a fabulous way to finish off a most amazing adventure.

A big thank you to everyone who has been following our journey and it was always very special knowing people were interested in where we were and how we were travelling.  It sure gave me the boost I needed on those occasional moments when I wondered what the hell I was doing out here.

The future is set for Serenity.  Masts out in Fremantle next week and motor her up river to the main campus of RPYC.  Out of the water on the hardstand for clean up and tart up, including the replacement of the diesel engine with an electric drive system and then fingers crossed that the pen I have been on the waiting list for these past 3 years will come up.  Then back to Fremantle annexe and local cruising when ever the weather is right and crew is willing.

One quick note to Linda who is on this list but reading the message in her home in Canada.  The storm we hit coming in to The Louisiades Archipeligo last year was the biggie so I knew without doubt that the boat could take anything after that one.

Regards to all.  Keith.

 

Welcome home party in full swing.

The party was indeed a great way to end the trip.  Vicki had presented me with a beautiful photo she had taken of Serenity at anchor off the Darwin Sailing Club.  She had enlarged it and had it mounted in a nice frame and that now proudly adorns the wall above my desk in the office.  We kicked on that night after everyone else had headed off and stayed the night at a B & B in Fremantle.  Breakfast with Alan and Vicki next morning closed a chapter in my life that I’ll never forget and neve want to.  It proved beyond doubt that there’s still adventures to be found in life no matter how old you are.  Just ask Jim.

So that ends this part of “It’s The Serenity’s” voyages.  She is now up on the hard stand at the Royal Perth Yacht Club in the Swan River and my weekends are booked for the foreseeable future.

The end…  For a while.

Where it all began