The Passage

We had a week in the marina at the Southport Yacht Club and in the end only left a day later than the original date of the 14th May. During this week, we finished off jobs only to find new ones pop up. Our Iridium Go stopped working, which is our satellite hotspot and vital for us to keep communications whilst at sea. This meant it had to go back to the US for a warranty claim. With only 2 days to departure, it was a mad scramble to source, buy and have it on the Gold Coast in time for us to depart with the rally. Rob, from ClientSatMail was fantastic and came through with the goods. See our tracking page for details on the Predictwind page. You’ll notice we only start tracking out at sea and not at Southport because the Iridium wasn’t set up correctly.
SYC was struggling to find berths for everyone, so the end of ‘D’ arm which is normally a superyacht berth became home for the week for 4 catamarans squeezed closely together. They are now what we call ‘The D Arm Family’. Frank and Maryanne on Barbarossa, Greg and Jennie on Leilani B and James (and crew) on Adelade. Drinks, laughs and support aplenty.
Fiona arrived Friday and we hired a car to pick her up and do last minute jobs. One of which was to stop at Vinnies to see what we could find for the arrival party theme of Gilligan’s Island. Once aboard it was time for her briefings, training, safety precautions and to meal prep for the passage. We called the Ecopot into use and slow cooked chicken curry and beef casserole along with spag bog to freeze and reheat at sea. Lauren and Ryan dropped off the last of our mail and stayed for dinner at the Southport Surf Club.
Monday was set for all boat crews to be processed by Customs and Border Control. The rally had organised for them to come to the SYC and do us all together which went like a dream. Then a briefing on the passage by John Hembrow, Down Under Rally (DUR) Organiser, which gave us all the departure details for Tuesday the 15th May. It was going to be a wild ride to start with – 25 knots and 3 metre seas!! The forecast then was for good sailing straight through to New Caledonia. If we didn’t leave then, then next weather window would not be for another week.
So, an early night and 7am Tuesday we all headed out the Gold Coast Seaway – after the fire!!! We had decided to prepare our first night’s dinner that morning, then put in eco pot so that it would be nice and warm later that night. All good, except ‘someone’ put the whole Ecopot on the gas burner not the inside pot. Smoke, flames and dripping plastic saw Steve throw the pot in the water as the quickest solution. All good except it was now floating out into the seaway and becoming a shipping hazard. Ok, now the kayak had to be untied for Steve to paddle out, retrieve it and then put the kayak back on board. All before my second cup of coffee! Was this an omen?????
We all took an initial Travalcalm as recommended by some as a precaution for the predicted rough start and feel this helped in none of us succumbing to ‘Mal de Mere’ (seasickness). Later, we were to hear stories of lots of crew going down with it. Fiona at one stage has admitted to going down to her cabin to reassess life and wonder what the heck she was doing out here but took stock and reassured by our confidence and the boats ability to ride the waves was ready to go again. We had some great sailing for the first 2 days with wind on the beam even if it was a little rough. We reefed in for the night on the first night and unfortunately in our haste we didn’t do our double checks and the main grabbed one of the stays and we ended up with a small tear. We nursed this all the way, only pulling it out if winds were moderate and leaving it reefed if it was getting up there
So, began the routine of shifts. We had a roster of 4 hour shifts during the day and then 3 hour shifts during the night. We were all generally up and in the cabin during the day with naps being had whenever you felt you needed to. Fiona who is normally not a good sleeper at home, slept like a log! I had the shift before Fiona’s and on several occasions once handed over to Fiona, slept in the cabin to be on hand in some of the trickier night shifts.
Our weather forecasting was done by MetBob (who does all the Sydney-Hobarts, Jessica Watson etc) who didn’t have a great one on this trip. Everyday we sent our updates, including position, heading, wind, weather, boat and crew status at lunchtime. MetBob would then send a weather and routing email back at 5pm for the next day, In the space of 24 hours we had done a complete zig zag. Advised that all boats would have to tack south at some point, we decided to do it in the morning as we were losing the wind direction we needed, only to be told that afternoon, that all boats were to go North! This meant a day sightseeing around Capel Banks. (A shallow part of the ocean halfway to New Caledonia with depths down to 10 meters – meaning waves) The first day all boats were sailing together in AIS range and sight, the second day we had about 10 boats within AIS range (not in sight though) and then by day 3 – no one, nowhere. We were on our own in the big blue sea! Day 4, we then encountered light winds and ended up motor sailing for a day and a half. Luckily this picked up on the last day and we sailed into New Caledonia!