Last Passage

We've been in Iluka, NSW for four days - long enough for us to catch up with our team here.  We've been to a couple barbies, Elias has had a couple of long plays with his mates, and I've been for a surf.  And we had the great treat of overlapping with some good sailing friends who happened to be anchored here, the same people who were sailing in company with us the first time that we came to Iluka, on Christmas Eve three years ago.

It was only when we arrived here that we felt that the trip was really over.

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I'll just share a few photos of our 18-day passage from Futuna to Australia, the last passage of the trip, and also the last offshore passage that we're planning until we head to New Zealand in a year.

When we left Futuna we knew that a "squash zone" of enhanced trade winds was heading our way, but we just couldn't talk ourselves into sitting at anchor for another three days to let it pass us by.  So we sailed into it - here we are, with all hands tethered to the boat.  Once the winds piped up poor Eric threw up twice, and after that we kept him in the cockpit, where he doesn't get sick as easily.  Keeping a 1-year-old entertained while he's strapped into a seat all day is a bit of a challenge...

 Once the weather improved, Elias started to spend a lot of time fishing from the rail...

...but the only fish we caught was this flying fish that landed on deck.  Tasted great.

Soon after this picture was taken it was my turn to get sick - I was useless all day, and barely managed to stand watch that night.  Not so easy for Alisa to cover all the bases solo!  And hard to imagine doing a trip like this with someone who wasn't so supportive.

We anchored in Ouvea for the night to get some sleep.  I rigged up a buoy swing on the end of the boom for Elias while we were there.

 Baby sea snakes were attracted to our lights at night.

Elias doing his school work, back at sea.

Sooty/short-tailed shearwaters near the south end of New Caledonia.  These birds split their time between Tasmania and Alaska, and are therefore very close to our hearts.

After New Cal we sailed into a giant wind hole.

On the second half of our trip the mahi mahi drought finally ended - in a big way!  We ate a lot of mahi mahi.

That last fish was caught the day that we made it into Bundy.  By then, we had been sailing long enough that the beginning of the trip was already fading from memory.  Before the fact, I had confidently predicted a twelve-day passage.  Alisa was kind enough to only bring that up once or twice.  We still love long passages, we still felt the peace of being at sea, far from everyday cares.  But we missed the radar alarm on this one - would have been good to get some more sleep!

The end.

Pit Stop

Well, this has been the break we were dreaming of. Or would have been dreaming of, if we had been sleeping enough on passage to get a chance to dream! Ouvea is an uplifted atoll where we found a wide expanse of turquoise water, perfectly protected, to recover from the vicissitudes of sailing a thousand miles in six days with our two little kids.

After a round of naps we rigged up a buoy swing from the end of the boom and Elias and Alisa and I took turns launching ourselves into the water from the side deck. We remarked on how much cooler the water is here, at 20° S, than it was at 14° at Futuna. We tackled a few boat jobs, Alisa made pizza, and we showed Elias the baby sea snakes that were attracted to our deck lights at night. And then, in spite of our best intentions to get an early night, Alisa and I found ourselves going to bed at midnight.

This gave us six hours of uninterrupted sleep. I don't think I've felt so completely rested since I was a government employee...

The catch in all this is that stopping in Ouvea has left us with 150 mile of sailing to the SSE to get around New Caledonia - right into the prevailing winds. But, better than we could have hoped for, the weather forecast is promising light winds, from the east and even northeast, to get us around that obstacle.

When we were looking through our charts last night we found another chart of the Chesterfield Reefs, this one identifying them as a French possession. So we're not quite sure whose they are. Because a travelling yacht is one of the few places in the world that is still somewhat safe from the hazards of unlimited information on demand, we'll indulge ourselves in ignorance.

And, whether they're Australian or French, it doesn't really matter - it's now too late in the trip for us to enjoy any relaxing interludes in out-of-the-way places. The long-imagined end of the crossing is just over the horizon - we can smell the burning cane fields of Queensland, we can taste the meat pies from here. Today, some time before lunch, we'll pick the hook by hand and set off for Australia.