Nathaniel in Port Denison

Hello again and welcome to the 30^th Orca Update.

Beachcombing in Shark Bay

At Port Denison, midway up the west coast of Australia, Kara hopped a bus for the ride down to Perth airport for 40 days of quality family time back in the States. I, meanwhile, would skulk around in the PD harbor for the duration, with only my twelve gallons of homebrew and 40 packages of ramen noondles for company. Well, that's what I thought, anyway. The Australian personality has a well-known weakness for beer, and twelve gallons of it gives off some sort of quasi-gravitational field which the locals found irresistable. Before long I knew all six people in town, and each day slid by in an unremarkable malaise of comfortable similarity, good waves, new friends, and sunny weather.

That all ended when Kara returned. She'd brought Nathaniel, her little brother, along; he said he wanted a taste of the sailing life and the fates certainly provided it. Perhaps we all got a little more than we bargained for.

Shallow water soloing

Lobster & rum cookout

The night their plane landed, an extremely violent cold front swept through Western Australia—they called it a once-in-a-decade storm. Power was knocked out to much of Perth, lightening flickered across the sky. White-out conditions prevailed in Port Denison, with gusts to 70 knots. Orca was ready for storm conditions with double mooring lines and extra chafe gear, but other boats weren't so lucky. Many broke loose from their moorings and at 3am one unmanned sloop went flying by Orca, pushed by the sustained pressure of 50 knot winds. With a dingy rescue rendered impossible by the 4-foot whitecaps rolling through the harbor I threw on my wetsuit and dove overboard, striking out to save the other boat before she crashed onto the rocks. Scrambling aboard, I searched frantically for an anchor, the engine start switch, or any other way to avert disaster—unsuccessfully. I braced for the crash as a resounding boom set the mast vibrating and and triggered an avalance of gear down below. The cabin lights flickered, electrics knocked loose by the impact. I leapt overboard and scrambled up the rocks to where a few other live-a-boards had gathered. With the boat pinned to the rocks by the wind and chop there was little to be done; in a testament to the strength and durability of fibreglass the boat ground against the rocks for 4 hours in gale force conditions before being towed off—still afloat. This gave me some much-needed confidence for what happened to Orca the next week.

We loaded Nathaniel, now with a healthy respect for Australian weather, aboard and set out for Shark Bay, 250 miles up the coast. The leftover slop and onshore conditions made for fast but miserable sailing. Nathaniel was confined to his bunk, groggy and nauseous. At night, the cloud cover and new moon left us in complete darkness, the horizonless sailing causing even Kara and I to feel varying degrees of seasickness. The shallow offshore reefs along this coastline bend the seas in strange ways, and occasionally the refracted swells combine beyond an unpredictable and uncomfortable motion into breaking crests—one of which plowed into us amidships and sent several gallons of seawater cascading below. Nathaniel groaned and buried his head in his now-wet bunk. Kara slogged her way down the companionway from the filled cockpit and I took the watch. I was huddling in the dubious protection of the dodger, a trickle of cold seawater running down my neck, when there was a horrendious crash. The bow lurched several feet upward and Orca was quickly inclined, bow pointing upward at an unnatural angle. She ran up onto the obstacle and there was a second thud under the keel, the stern briefly lifted before we settled back into the water normally. The whole incident was over in a second.

Outward bound with SV Shaddow

I lept to my feet, eyes on our wake but could see nothing in the darkness. Kara wrenched open the bilge covers and reported no ingress of water. As I grabbed the wheel to feel for feedback from the rudder—hopefully we still had one—I glanced over the side and a whale, huge and terrifying in the blackness, spouted along side us, nearly close enough to touch. As we sailed out from amongst the pod of whales, invisible in the murk, Nathaniel groaned and rolled over in his wet bunk.

We diverted to a nearby anchorage and the following morning we dove under the boat to inspect the hull. Despite a distinct whale-textured impression in the antifoul paint near the bow everything was fine. Since Orca's keel was already looking rather battered below from running onto that reef back in New Caledonia, we were able to file the whole thing away as a great experience for Nathaniel, who let out a small snore from his wet bunk. We went back to sea.

This one didn't survive The Whale

Two—dare we say it?--nice days of sailing brought us to Shark Bay, during which Nathaniel gained his sea legs and stood several challenging night watches. Inside the Bay, the water was clear, the sailing smooth, and the weather settled. While sealife was plentiful, the land was spookily devoid of life other than stunted brush, skeletons, shipwrecks, and ruins. Vultures circled the sand dunes and sharks prowled the shoreline. Nathaniel was game to spearfish amongst the sharks, but the 8-foot venomous seasnake that snuck up behind him was more than he could handle; I've rarely seen anyone swim quite that fast. We ate lobster, fish, and a giant clam cooked on an open beach fire. We speared squid in the shallows, trolled for tuna, and Nathaniel battled a sizable black-tip reef shark before tackling it in the cockpit.

Time rushed by once we were safe in Shark Bay, and soon it was time to find a bus stop to send our guest home. Carnarvon boat harbor has no commercial value, and consequently the channel markers are in the wrong places and the entrance hasn't been dredged in years. Six feet of water, during spring high tide, is the most one can hope for and all boats run aground--several times—when entering. We bounced our way over the bar, packed up Nathaniel and sent him home. Six trips to the supermarket have topped up the larder and now we're off into the Indian Ocean.

Thanks!

John & Kara

Carnarvon, WA, Australia

Esperance

Someone, possibly myself (although now it seems like someone else must have made the decision), talked us into sailing under Austalia to reach the Indian Ocean. This is not a traditional sailing route; the ocean down there isn't traveled enough to merit a formal name. Its not the Pacific, nor the Tasman. Its not quite the Indian; perhaps it's the Southern Ocean or bordered by it. Maybe it's just a big storm-battered bay; 1,600 miles of hostile ocean and 2,100 miles of sand pounded flat by relentless swell. It was a morale-withering distance to cover with the southern summer closing down—four, maybe six weeks before the winter westerlies filled in.

Despite a forecast for brisk southerlies and big seas, once outside Hell's Gates the elements abandoned us to a confused chop and light air. Within hours we had an alarming increase in breeze from the East—the wind we didn't want funneling over the Bass Straight's contrary currents. The waves were building very quickly. By afternoon we'd taken in all sail except a scrap of mainsail and by sunset were intermittently overcanvassed. In the hole between waves the rig's howl was eerily subdued, Orca standing tall and upright in the shelter of the next looming swell. As each wave moved under us, the sail rose into the wind and when on the crest we'd be layed over, lee ports looking down into the sea. The Straight's notorious currents were having their say; the top third of each wave was steep and craggy with an unnatural hollow just beneath the white crest like a sunken black eye.

 

We were taking wave tops over the cabin, the boat in full submarine mode. We needed to reduce sail even further; Kara was quick to volunteer for the foredeck job. A marvel of poise under pressure, she efficiently brought us down to storm canvas despite the water on deck, waist deep at times. After that, we double-checked the steering vane and retired below to spend the night sitting on the floor, heads between our knees.

It was a rough start to this leg of our journey. We made it across the Bass Straight but were forced to pull into Portland, Victoria by morning to repair damage to the mainsail. Curious, we used the public library's internet to look up the weather records from the station nearest our position when we had our highest winds. We were shocked when Google revealed the closest island, New Year Island, had (1) recorded the month's lowest windspeed for that night and (2) supported the highest deadily snake population density on the planet.

We were glad to be done with the Straight.

Feeling well chastised and not a little humbled, we put to sea—still stubbornly headed west. We stopped on Kangaroo Island, where a salt named Glen took us aboard his timber crayfishing boat. He nursed our confidence back to life, fed us up (we were looking borderline malnourished at this point), placed his 'ute' at our disposal, and tipped us off about the broken shower at the campground—free unlimited hot water.

But Glen had another miracle in his hat. Like a magician, he roared off in his tinny and returned with no less than four young people! Each mythical creature had a barely detectable golden nimbus surrounding them, springing aboard light as blown sea foam. For the first time in months, we witnessed smiles of white, real teeth set in smooth tight skin and topped by real hair of varing non-grey shades. Unthinking, I grabbed the nearest elbow to steady the newcomers down the side deck while Kara, higher brain function still reeling, automatically offered to stow their canes, walkers, and antacid medications. The 20- and 30-somethings laughed us off, the dulcet sound of tinkling glass bells, and soon we were obliged to explain our shock. Thinking back, we listed all of the people under the age of 50 we'd met on boats. There was that singlehander back in in May of 2010. We'd heard rurmors of young couple in French Polynesia, also back in 2010, but hadn't able to find them. That was it.

The Big One

This is a well-recognized phenomenon and recieves heavy cocktail-hour discourse. The very oldest yachties claim it's part of a 50-year cycle—by year 2100 they fully expect to see youngsters at sea again. The rest of us are stumped. Despite an all-time low in boat prices, sailing is just not popular with the young crowd. Traveling is still hot—backpacking hostels are packed and campervans cluster around every public toilet. So why do they travel by air, bus, and train? Perhaps we found out several days later on our next crossing. 

The next stretch of coast is 500 miles of featureless whitesand beach backed by dessicated outback—not a single cove, harbor, or building. We put to sea with a checkered forecast—fair winds, a trough and cold front, fair winds. We perceived a potential advantage in the remnants of tropical cyclone Lua, which was forecast to join with the trough and counter the short period of westerlies. Orca departed into a pattern that was now becoming famillar; the Great Australian Bight is a place of weather extremes. One can expect either a light zephyr or full gale—there are no moderate windspeeds. We had the former during the first two days and the latter soon after. The change was fast: a mirror sea flooded by dark rushing textures, a roll of boiling purple clouds. Within six hours the swell was above the spreaders, Orca hove-to, bow to weather. Again huddling below, we felt our rise and fall, trapped in an elevator.

Kangaroo Island glass off

Until setting out across the Great Australian Bight, our sea-confidence had been built upon the myth that we were something, our boat significant. The waves and swell had been of comparable size and volume to our boat, we crested them bravely and purposefully, the bow neatly parting each. We could forecast the weather; computer modeling, satellite images, and real-time observations suggested predictability, cast the illusion of control. Now, for a second time in as many weeks we were besieged by forces outside our experience. Though these swells were not dangerous, steep or breaking like those in the Straight, they were bigger—we couldn't bear to look at them. Each had the footprint of a city block. Instead of slicing through, Orca labored up each swell and tumbled down the backside, weathering just one or two waves in 60 seconds. The temptation to stay below, pretending these swells didn't—couldn't—exist, was overpowering. We didn't talk about them, we didn't think about them. Maybe they would go away.

And they did. Orca took care of us, her sails and rudder balancing each other to keep the bow to winward without sailing forward. We hid below in denial. Twelve hours later, the sea was again smooth, broken only by disorganized patches, miles across, of strong wind. We got the boat moving, but the sailing was tough. Each blast of wind called for a different combination of sails; a three-hour watch might require six sail changes. All hands were called regularly, sleep was rare. Our eyes became sunken dark hollows. There was little time for cooking. 

Southern Ocean Winds put to good use

For nine days we pushed hard in these conditions toward the town of Esperance—the French word for hope. When we arrived, the people of Esperance recognized our battered countenances. They get a handful of boats from across the Bight each year; they were familliar with the symptoms. Within minutes they had Orca installed on a mooring, her crew showered and beered in the yacht club. We were whisked off to various member's houses every night for gourmet dinners. We were pampered and before long our eyes emerged from their caves and our ribs receeded. Human again.

Corella Cockatoos invade Orca

From Esperance it was an anticlimactic jump around Cape Leeuwin, the air very light, and up to Fremantle, Western Australia. The Fremantle Sailing Club is another traditional stop for battered Southern Ocean sailors for decades, and we were very excited to experience their legendary hospitality. Unfortunately when we arrived they turned us around and sent us to sea again. The Club's new policies require a minimum $10,000,000 boat insurance policy. The average marine insurance policy is voided by sailing more than 200 miles offshore or above 35 degrees south latitude, so we could see why the guest dock was empty. 

We're now in Port Denison, about 200 miles north of Fremantle in a sleepy little lobsterfishing village. The international airport is beckoning and Kara has a plane ticket to meet her new niece, Sparrow, in just a few days!

Orca Update 28, Part II

True to the forecast, it blew 30 from the North. We pushed the boat hard for 130 miles in the first 24 hours. With a trough moving in, the sky clouded over and a fog sprang up, the temperature dropping. We crossed into the 'roaring forties,' and pushed even harder to rack up a 145 mile day. At sunset, cold, damp, and tired we sighted land—sheer red granite cliffs, 500 feet high, spotted with orange lichen and stretching like castle battlements up into the fog. The charts were sketchy so we felt our way along. Finally the gap appeared like a missing tooth, giving access to the inland waterways of Tasmania. We ghosted through and a glittering emerald sea opened before us. A blast of warm melaluca-scented air heeled the boat, instantly turning our perpetual dampness to crackling salt crystals. The last tendrils of fog melted away in the dry breeze off the granite. It was the last time we'd face the hostile Southern Ocean for over a month.

Tasmania is a land of plenty. At our first anchorage we turned down a freshly-caught lobster dinner on one friendly sailboat because we'd already accepted an invitation aboard another (owning a vineyard tipped the balance in the latter's favor.) We also had a pile of fish aboard Orca we'd speared that morning—heavy going after the other meals. Kara pulled up the anchor to find a tangle of irritable octopus clinging to the anchor. We would have eaten him if we could have stomached the thought of more seafood. To be prepared for the future I checked the fishing guide and yes, they are very tasty, but, regrettably, as an unlicensed recreational fisherman Tasmanian state law imposes a limit of 450 pounds of octopus per person per day. The thought of eating a slimy mountain of octopus daily didn't help with the now-chronic seafood overload.

As we moved south through the inland waterways, we ran into all sorts of seafood trouble. First we OD'd on mussels, then raw oysters. We tried cooking the oysters but they wouldn't fit in any of our pots (“Tazzy oysters are too big to steam, you gotta put them on the barbie, mate!”). After a lively battle we landed our first red Arrow Squid. Kara found it to have an uncannily accurate surprise assault: a long-range jet of inky snot. With her face splattered in black mucus she grabbed the wrist-thick squid with both hands; the squid was game and grabbed Kara with all eight tentacles. During the ensuing battle, precision snot-shots went into the cabin, onto the sails, and then a particularly devastating vertical spout resulted in a fine rain of black goo over the entire boat. We wrestled the writhing mass into the pressure cooker and got the lid battened down. The pot stopped rattling and bouncing but when we naively cracked the lid, geysers of mucus erupted again. Kara had had enough; she lit the stove and calamari-ed him.

By this time we'd sailed nearly 150 miles without leaving the protection of the inland waterways, but that was about to end. To reach the ultimate in remote sailing destinations requires a 60-mile dash around the bottom of Tasmania. Forbidding grey stone cliffs stand watch over the clash of ocean currents boiling under a cloud of sea-birds. Enough trust in the charts sends you sailing right at the stone wall, weaving between frothing spires of solid rock. Its not until a half mile from the cliffs that another crack in Tasmania's defenses reveals itself: hidden behind a razor's edge of stone and a natural dogleg is the entrance to Port Davey.

Around the bend, the incessant Southern Ocean swells vanish. Craggy peaks of white stone thrust harshly from green meadows of peat. A few stunted trees and ragged melaluca bushes nestle in easterly-facing hollows for protection from winter's fierce westerly gales. A red-tinged waterfall mists gracefully into the harbor. We pulled beneath it and tied off to the cliff to let the clean freshwater dissolve the salt crystals and fill the water tanks.

The streams and rivers are tinted red by the abundance of tannin-rich grasses in the surrounding tundra. In the harbor, a layer of bloody freshwater lies like a shroud over the intruding salt, blocking out light even at shallow depths. Without photosynthesis, the ecosystem in the harbor falls into the realm of the deep-sea species. What's down in the inky waters? The poor lighting, remote location, and uniqueness of the environment means that nobody's entirely sure—new species are discovered regularly. On the Orca, there was a an unusual lack of aquatic activity; it wasn't just the chilly temperature that made the dark waters seem unwelcoming.

The land, at first glance, seems lifeless but the rock and low scrub supports an array of strange and rare species. Die-hard birdwatchers occasionally charter light aircraft to Port Davey in search of the critically-endangered Orange Bellied Parrot. Just twenty-one adults remain in the wild, breeding around the edges of the moorlands (we caught a glimpse of a juvenile). Some claim the Tasmanian Tiger still hunts swans, wombats, and kangaroos in the isolated river valleys. The last known Tiger specimen died in captivity in 1936, but unconfirmed sightings by Park Rangers and bush-walkers continue to trickle in. In the last decade $3 million in reward has been offered for a confirmed sighting, giving rise to a new breed of enterprising camera-toting tourists. Not many make it to Port Davey. Experienced Tiger trackers are easy to spot; they travel fast and light, carry no water and hike for days along the Port Davey ridge-lines. Their secret? A 6' length of garden hose. A bizarre species of freshwater crayfish lives under the spongy peat in a network of burrows—even at the tops of the tallest mountains. Their holes in the saturated soil are filled with fresh water like a sandy hole at the beach; thirsty bushmen snake their hoses down to the subterranean chambers and suck the water out.

Of course, there were plenty of poisonous things too. After several encounters Kara started tucking her pants into her socks, her shirt into her pants, and there was talk of duct-tape for the arms and neck. She never went ashore without pulling on her sea boots—even to go hiking. After a particularly close call with a highly venomous red-bellied blacksnake we decided it was time to get out of the bush. We traveled nintey-five miles up the west coast to Macquarie Harbor.

Here the land is much flatter and the state has managed a road to support a small tourist economy, but the lifeblood resides with the commercial lobster fishermen who use the harbor as home base. These legendary skippers and crew work the sheer cliffs on the exposed west coast of Tasmania, maneuvering battered steel boats into gulleys and cracks along the vertical coast in horrendous swell to lodge traps on submarine ledges and rocky outcrops—but that's once they leave the harbor. The only exit from Macquarie Harbor is the aptly named Hell's Gates, flanked by two granite spires fitted with small white lighthouses. In the narrow passage, the current flows out to sea at between 3 and 10 knots, depending on the flow of rivers emptying into the harbor. The sea-floor shoals rapidly to 10 feet, intensifying the current and causing the Southern Ocean swells to break heavily. In January of 1998 a coalition of lobster fishermen placed a Waverider buoy outside Hell's Gates to report waves height in an effort to make crossing the bar safer. Within weeks the buoy recorded 60-foot seas, the biggest swell ever recorded in Australia waters. Later, the buoy was ripped from its moorings after recording 75-foot seas in the early stages of another winter storm. We asked why anyone would risk lobster fishing on the west coast of Tasmania; the answer was that a deckhand averages $150,000 per month of take-home pay—if they survive.

We waited a leisurely four days for the swell to subside. Finally, the waves died to average heights, the buoy reporting in with a maximum reading of 'just' nine meters. We were going back across the Bass Straight and into the Great Australian Bight.

Orca Update 28 Part I

Hello world!

Its been a while, but we're back to civilization with some stories to tell.

We left Port Stevens and sailed past the main tourist attraction; the brochure called it 'the world's largest single dynamic sand mass'--really just another big sand bar. After a night at sea we pulled into Sydney Harbor and were astonished to find the seas inside the harbor were twice as rough as they were out in the Tasman. The number of mega yachts, ferries, jet-boats, tour boats and sailboats was beyond belief; the wakes from each of them bouncing endlessly off the cliffs and concrete sea walls combining into strange lurching waves that had us ocean sailors looking a bit green about the gills.

We anchored off the opera house for the New Year's fireworks. The show was as spectacular as only a booming mining economy could make it—no expense spared. Half dozen simultaneous displays surrounded the

harbor in addition to the rockets and geysers of fire launched from the bridges and skyscrapers in the city. A stunt pilot wove his plane through the masts of the anchored boats, and a parade of decorated tall ships circled the harbor.

In the morning, we washed the ash off our decks and solar panels and put to sea, relieved to be out in the relatively smooth waters of the Tasman again. Exactly 200 miles south, we pulled into the little town of Eden, the last town on the East coast. Aside from a small fishing fleet and the requisite freighter dock for loading lumber and ore, the town had little to offer tourists except a stranger-than-fiction whaling history.

In the 18^th century, while whaling ships hunted deep offshore waters, an industry of land based whaling sprung up. A few hardy and enterprising souls would camp out on a likely looking bluff and watch for whales; upon spotting a pod they would rush down into their rowboats and row like mad out to intercept, pincushion the whales with harpoons, tow the carcass back to shore to be rendered and stored until a trading ship came. It was very dangerous and intensely laborious. However, in Eden, the resident killer-whale (his name was Old Tom), saw that h

e and the humans were working toward a common goal. Once teamed up, a routine emerged and it was life on easy street for both of them. The big orca would wait offshore while the whalers drank rum and played cards on the beach. When Old Tom spotted some likely victims passing offshore, he'd rush into the beach and alert the sleepy whalers by splashing and slapping his tail just off the sand. The crews would pile into their rowboats and toss Old Tom a line; the killer whale would take the lines in his mouth and tow the boats out to the sperm whales at high speed. Then Tom would herd the whales up to the boats, harrying them from below to keep them at the surface in easy harpoon range. Under assault from above and below, the sperm whales would quickly expire. The whalers, in a show of trust and gratitude, would cut the carcass loose for Old Tom, who would take it down to the bottom to have his way with it while the whalers returned to the beach for a nap. After a few hours, Old Tom would return the carcass to them,

usually sans tongue (apparently a delicacy). Legend has it that the routine continued for many years until Old Tom's teeth became so worn down from pulling ropes that he could no longer eat;

ironically, he died of starvation. If you go into the Eden whaling museum, they have a complete Orca skeleton, which, they claim, is Old Tom's. Looking closely, you can see that his front teeth are quite sharp--but behind either cheek the teeth are worn down to little more than nubs.

We'd heard great things about Tasmania; in the back of our minds it had always been there—a remote and mysterious place where there were still harbors, mountains and streams wild and untamed. After much debate and several bottles of fortifying home-brew, we decided to go for it. We waited two weeks in Eden, the last stop on the east coast before crossing the notorious Bass Straight to Tazzy.

The Bass Straight has a fearsome reputation. The western entrance is exposed to the Southern Ocean; the closest land to windward of the prevailing westerlies is Cape Horn, South America. The Eastern entrance opens into the Tasman, which has a nasty reputation in its own right. The bottom shoals to an average of less than 200 feet, intensifying open ocean currents and causing unnaturally steep breaking seas. The wind funnels between the two land masses, reaching supernatural velocities. In addition there's a scattering of over one hundred islands and rocky outcrops throughout the Straight, and their names tell their own stories: Skull Rock, Black Pyramid, Devil's Tower, Cape Barren, Starvation Cove. There's a long history of shipwreck and tragedy, the most recent in 1998 when a fleet of 114 sailboats in the Sydney-Hobart Yacht Race were slammed by hurricane force westerlies. 67 turned around and limped back to the mainland, a handful were abandoned and 6 people died.

Our goal, of course, was to have about 10 knots of northerlies, sunshine, and balmy weather for the entire 200-mile crossing. There were a dozen other adventurous boats with the same goal, collectively over a century of Bass Straight sailing experience. Impromptu weather meetings sprang up twice daily—over gallons coffee in the morning and then gallons of beer in the evening. Some of the more aggressive boats got anxious and went for it despite unfavorable weather, the older experienced hands urged caution—there was always a story to back up the advice. “I was hove-to for three days in the Straight back in '93; couldn't go out on deck—breaking waves over us from stem to stern. Rocks all around, whirlpools.” Finally, a forecast for two days of 20-30 knots from the north. Us remaining boats had a last weather conference aboard a 50' aluminum ex-race boat, one bulkhead peppered with Sydney-Hobart racing plaques, trophies. It was a pretty serious boat; a few nuts and bolts were protruding from bulkheads below, each as thick as your average broomstick. The cockpit was protected by a shatterproof windshield salvaged from a 18-wheel Mac Truck. The skipper gave a few last words of advice. “I've been across the Straight dozens of times, and I've learned a few things. Go as fast as you can. This is not a pleasure cruise, the weather will turn—it always does. Don't trust the forecast, get across and get the hell out of there. I crewed in the '98 race, the bad one. The weather turned bad in an instant, the forecast hugely underestimated the situation.” There was a moment of loaded silence, then we asked the question that had to be asked. How bad was it? “Hard to say,” she said. “The wind sensors were washed off the top of the mast pretty early on. Their last reading was 92 knots.”

On that note, we left.

Orca Update 27

Merry Christmas!

It still scares the crap out of us to row ashore and see a 5-foot monitor lizard lope across the beach. Even the metropolitan reptiles are huge; walk down the street to check the surf and you're likely to see a 3-pound skink slither off the path. Luckily we havent stumbled upon any death adders, Sydney funnel-web spiders, or box jellyfish—yet.
At the rum distillery in Bundaberg, we picked up another unsuspecting vistior/victim from Monterey, Brian, and set off down a the coast. The southern Queensland coast is a fascinating place—for sand enthusiasts. We ran down the Great Sandy Straight, a shallow estuary behind 'the world's largest sand island'. The 'world's tallest sand dune' loomed unimposingly in the distance. Moreton Bay is about the same size as Monterey Bay, but is full of sand—the average depth is a sandy 6 feet. From Moreton, we went 10 miles up the Brisbane river and found the world's roughest proteced anchorage (river-ferrys send 3 foot-waves bouncing endlessly off concrete riverbanks). We also discovered perhaps the world's dirtyest river when we stepped off the dingy into the waist-high ferry wake shorebreak. The water seemed unnaturally viscious as a used condom swirled languidly around my ankles. A plaque on the riverbank blamed ancient aboriginies for the poor water quality (yes, it really did).
All sarcasm aside, we did meet some of the world's nicest people in Brisbane (they seemed to be the world's best-dressed as well). There's a city-run mooring field in the middle of downtown where a close-knit liveaboard community is happy to pay the world's cheapest downtown riverfront housing costs. For $10 a night we tied up and went from boat-to-boat watching fireworks and the city lights, hitting the pub with our new Ausie friends. We put a thouroughly unwashed, unshaven, and un-laundered Brian on the train later that week. He was all smiles at goodbye but Kara thought she detected a hint of relief in his sigh when he left us on the sidewalk. Despite close quarters, Brian can now claim status as the only Orca-visitor to have survived the full duration of his trip aboard.
Our Brisbane contacts Dr. Bruce and Francis took us home and cleaned us up, prescribing four days of hot showers, wonderful food, and a big fluffy bed at the Gold Coast. After the full surf-tour we stopped at the petting zoo where Kara fell in love. Adorable little kangaroos peeked from mom's pouch, big liquid brown eyes staring up, pert doofus ears, head cocked just so, little paws reaching, waiting to be scratched beneath the chin, pink little toungue flickering around your fingers...
That night, back on the water, we had dinner aboard Australian sailboat: steak, yummy! Kara gobbled the rare treat with gusto, mumbling compliments to the chef around a mouthful of greasy meat. Our host was pleased, "Oh good, I'm so glad you like kangaroo steak, many Americans don't."
A single tear ran down Kara's cheek as she pushed her plate away.

We were off down the coast again, into yet another 40 miles of sandy inland waterway. Working the tide, we made Bum's Bay for Thanksgiving. Kara made her now traditional and somewhat infamous stove-top pressure cooker turkey mystery log surprise, which might be described as something approaching a thigh-thick, (possibly) turkey sausage. Its probably available in your local supermarket if you dig down at the unlit back corner of the last freezer in the aisle. Despite such adversity, we proclamed the feast a sucess and put to sea again. We landed in Iluka, at the mouth of the Clarence river. Downtown consisted of a corner grocery store, a bakery, a single doctor, and a combined pub/liquor store. The life-blood of the village was commercial fishing; every evening the throb of big diesels filled the anchorage as the fleet of colorful trawlers put to sea. When the weather was foul, the crews filed into the pub where each crusy salt ordered his usual and mumbled about global climate change and how it was back in the day.
And the weather was bad, 30-40 knot southerly winds and awe-inspiring thunderstorms. We were trapped in port for 3 weeks by contrary winds and big breakers across the rivermouth. The saving grace of the place was a wave in the protected lee of the northern rivermouth jetty, where a side-wash A-frame peak blew offshore most days. At double-overhead and above the wave was a nearly unsurfable beast, bodyboarders carrying the day in hideous wide-open sand sucking barrels marching down the beach. At more managable size, a few of us surfers were able to hold our own by sheer force of will.
Finally, the wind is set to change and the sun to emerge. We're hoping to make Sydney in time for Christmas and the famous New Year's fireworks display. With a 2-knot boost from the East Australian Current we might still make it!

G'day Everyone!

By October we were ready to leave New Caledonia, but the inevitable surprise weather system shut down the trades and left us with four days of light wind—time to get into all sorts of trouble! Easily distracted by a favorable surf forecast, we set out from Noumea and sailed a dozen miles out to sea in search of the outer reef. We let the anchor go behind a reef in the middle of nowhere at Passe Dumbea. An excellent left; Cloudbreak with a heavy west bowl and a steep takeoff way up the reef.

The following day we ran 30 miles down the lagoon to Passe St. Vincent where civilization fades away. In the binoculars we could see a pair of local skiffs anchored near a suspicious bend in the reef. As we drew near a set rose up, draining off the reef and grinding around the corner in geysers of spray. Two local surfers sat wide, a respectful distance from the impact zone. I pulled Orca along side wearing my friendliest smile and asked permission to surf with them. They frowned and began a rapid flow of French, deciding whether to chase me off. The tide of the argument turned when Kara appeard on deck in her skimpiest bikini, and soon the locals were all smiles and thumbs-up. Anchoring was a challenge, depths rising precipitiously from 300 feet to 3—which explains why the wave appears out of nowhere. With Kara jockeying the throttle, I siezed an anchor and dove the coral cliff amongst delicate colored fronds of pristine sea life to wedge the grapnel under a respectably sized brain coral. The surf wasn't more than 8' faces, but very challenging, and the conditions were perfect. It was also quite shallow; all three of us ended up in standing on the reef in ankle deep water at least once during the session. After the tide switch, we moved around the corner and Kara had a delightful surf: long, clean, overhead and peeling.

We stayed too long. After our second session, the sun was already dipping toward the horizion and we were still 10 miles from the island at a very exposed anchorage. In this remote region of New Cal the charts were spotty at best and at night, the clearest water in the world won't help you see an uncharted reef. We'd nearly made it back to the mainland when the depth sounder bounced from 200 feet to 3. Orca went tearing onto a reef, plowing a swath through fragile coral formations before grinding to a halt. With the tide turning and twilight nearly gone, we were stuck fast; engine and sails were no use. Coils of line and our trusty grapnel went into the dingy, which Kara rowed out into deep water. Running the line back to winches on Orca, we brought the rode to guitar-string tension. Over the next hour, Orca slowly slid off the reef, an inch at a time with each swell, untill finally we reach four foot depths and we were afloat again. Thick fiberglass is amazingly tough; damage to the hull was minor; antifoul scoured away but only a few scratches through the underlying gelcoat.

With the hull still mostly intact and trades returning, we were off to Australia. The lowlight of the passage was day five with 30-40 knot winds, 20 foot seas, and a spirit-sapping drizzle-fog. In the vicinity, the Great Barrier Reef compresses the ubiquitous coastal cargoship traffic into a two-way corridor 5 miles across. Lost in the troughs of the swell, fog, and drizzle we could see almost nothing; the situation was like the old videogame Frogger, where the player's frog tries to cross the four lane freeway in heavy traffic by jumping foward and back between lanes. I always seemed to lose, my frog pulped. We sailed forward, backward, left and right dodging 300 foot freighters and supertankers, spray pounding from their bows, flying the length of the ship and blanketing the wheelhouses. The Sagitarius Leader came so close enough that we could clearly see their selection of huge radar arrays: none spinning, all turned off. No response on VHF either. If they don't even have radar on in busy traffic, thick fog, and big swell, no wonder freighters never see poor little Orca! To improve our spirits, a big wave broke over the transom, rolled over the cockpit, and slammed up against the companion way. We'd left the hatch cracked for some air, and the South Pacific came firehosing in and drenched the cabin. One of our radios was knocked out; we scrambled to douse it in denatured alchohol to flush out the seawater.

Safely to the Bundaberg rivermouth, we cleared customs and watched kangaroos on the riverbanks. After spending the requisite small fortune at the local chandlery, we've continued up the shallow river with the high tide and are anchored just off the famous rum distillery, where steam billows from tall chimneys and, when the wind turns, the air smells of brown sugar and yeast.

Bonjour!

With the Parents off to the States, it was time to take our leave of Whangamata and sail 200 miles North to Opua and the Customs/Immigration office. But, our very last boat project (ha!) was to inspect and re-seal the huge machine screws securing Orca's rigging to the hull; the ensuing quest quickly took a entertaining turn. To spin the shafts without stripping the head, we needed to find an exceptionally large flat-headed screwdriver; the one I already had was impressive but innefective—the blade had broken off. Uncle Dave and I drove to ten different stores. At each, I whipped out my well-endowed but now impotent driver and, attempting to keep a straight face, told them I needed it bigger. At every shop, the clerk deadpaned either "That sounds like a personal problem," or, "I saw a commercial for just that issue on late night television". Eventually, we ascertained that we already had the biggest in Auckland, and, after much thought, were able to circumvent the dysfunctional tool.

We were feeling pretty happy about inspecting those screws when, a week later, we found ourselves beating to the north across the NZ's notorious Colville channel in gusts to 50 knots. Ducking into Port Fitzroy on Great Barrier Island, we were shivering cold, damp, hungry, and salty. We pulled into Smokehouse Bay where there's a public wood-fired bath. The ingenious arrangement was plumbed to a freshwater spring and consisted of a small cabin, insulated hot water cylinder warmed via a heat-exchanger in the wood burning stove. We chopped driftwood with the provided axe and soon the blazing fire produced 50 steaming gallons in the chipped porcelin bathtub. Since we were deep in the off-season, the island was deserted; even the fish had their guard down; we concluded our stay with a dinner of snapper, kawai, oysters, cockles, and mussles.

Fully revitalized, we felt ready to tackle the Customs officials. If you recall, they had jumped us through many hoops when entering the country—the most oustanding was the $5,000 deposit to rescue Orca from customs impound. They had been attentativly beaurocratic, proffering many papers for numerous legally binding signatures when taking our money—but now, having been good little sailors by leaving the country on time, we were entitled to a refund. Naturally, the sympathetic officials in Opua said that they may or may not be able to return the money depending on what the upper-level paperwork looked like that was filed by nameless, faceless Senior New Zealand Customs Officials, and submitted to the equally nebulious Senior Banking Officials, of which the Regular Old Customs Officials—our friends and allies—had no control over. Our buddies would do their best but they were very sorry because, furthermore, the Regular Old Customs Officials were not permitted to submit preliminary paperwork on the situation until ten days after Orca had sailed away, putting lil' old Kara and John well out into the Pacific where we'd be powerless to object to any funny business on the international banking scene.

We were escorted by an albatross and a handfull of dolphins on a fast but uncomfortable passage to New Caledonia, little more than a French mining outpost. The only city, Noumea, is shrouded in multicolored smoke billowing from the smelters. The mountains, once covered in regal pines and ancient kauri trees, have been stripped of vegetation, slashed by roads, torn by strip mines. Each gash and gouge bleeds deep red earth into the ocean as the naked topsoil sloughs from nearly every hillside.

Despite this, New Caledonia is a delightful place. The climate melds the best of all worlds—warm water, turqoise lagoons, tropical reefs, and palm trees somehow coexist with cool dry air, tall scrub covered mountans, and endless sunshine. The island claims the world's second most extensive tropical reef system—the largest is Australia's Great Barrier Reef, where we're heading next—and a magnificient variety of terrestrial and marine life. We sailed miles up the Baie du Prony, a network of desert fjords, hotsprings, and cool mountain streams. Then out into the motu-strewn lagoon where there are entire atolls snared in reef. The lagoon is large enough to be a playground for whales and measures 50 ocean miles across in places, some of the islands along the fringing reef ridiculiously tiny and remote. We stopped at several.

On one, the ringing whitesand beach was completely devoid of human footprints but the sand was scored with hundreds of sinous grooves leading from the water into the bush. We wandered up into the scrub and stumbled to a horrified halt as the leaves around our feet rustled with dry scrapes and slow rustles. Red-and-black and white-and-black coral snakes were everywhere. Like a horror movie, each way we turned revealed a snarl of snakes--under rocks, passing over a root, draped around branch, dangling from a rock ledge, or coiled beneath a log. We both squealed like little girls and tiptoed back to sand. The snakes are highly venemous but classified as "non-agressive"; we might have found out just how non-agressive they really were if we'd stepped on one. Kara had nightmares about sea snakes climbing up the anchor chain and dropping into her bunk that night. We slept stuffy with all ports closed.

A small limestone island we anchored at had a posh resort, completely abandoned. We wandered the deserted buildings being retaken by the jungle, unnerved by the sight of abandoned luggage, TV's, stereos, computers, boats, a forlorn german shepard left behind and delighted to see humans once more. The Mary Celeste of four-star resorts. The dog had survived for months by drinking rainwater caught in the swimming pool and plunging off the docks into the lagoon to catch fish like a pelican.

By this time, we were really wondering if our NZ customs money had come in, so we sailed out to the Ile of Pines where a hotel was rurmored to have internet access. Of course, the money had not arrived in our bank account (and was long overdue by this time). We called our liason at the customs office, but her voicemail said she would be vacationing in Dubai for the next 3 weeks. We called a different customs officer; also out of the office. We called the 24/7 NZ customs 800 number hotline many times across two days to hear endless ringing. At this point, we seriously began to wonder if the entire NZ customs beaurocracy was on holiday, courtesy of the Orca deposit. We eventually found real people and, after a few hours of Skype, we had it all sorted out.

As for us, we're faced with the difficult decision to either sail down to Australia, where we will no-doubt be sucked into a second beaurocratic vortex, or to stay in the tropics through the summer cyclone season and face the possibility of a naturally occuring, but equally inconvienient, meterological vortex. Given the choice of being at the mercy of 200 knot hurricane-force winds or Australian Customs/Immigration/Health/Quarrantine/Agriculture/Termite inspections, fees and proceedures, we choose the latter, but just.

Untill next time,

John & Kara

SV Orca

Ile des Pines, Nouvelle Caledonia