4-09-00 G'Day family and friends. We took a land trip last week to Sydney and spent 4 days enjoying that pretty city. Sydney is in New South Wales (NSW) about 1,000 kilometers, or 625 miles south of Brisbane on the coast. We discovered a couple of inexpensive forms of transportation and decided to head south to see the big city before we started northward with SIMMER. We delivered a one-way campervan from Brisbane to Sydney and took an overnight train back to Brisbane. It was fun, and Sydney has a beautiful waterfront with several inviting harbors. The rest of the world will get a chance to see Sydney this Sept when the 2000 Olympic Games are hosted there. We toured the famous Aussie icon - the Opera House, but didn't have a chance to see a performance (read: we couldn't afford one). We walked the harbor bridge, took in some Olympics sites, the Royal Botanical Gardens, Chinatown, shopping districts, aquarium and maritime museum. Lots to see in Sydney! It's very cosmopolitan and bustling with renovations & construction in anticipation of the Sept Olympics. Now we're back on the boat, waiting for cyclone season to end, finishing up a few boat projects and food provisioning before we cast off the dock lines and get cruising again. Check out our photo album for sights from Sydney. (Sorry we have no digital photos of our trip to New Zealand. We didn't bring our digital camera, since we were tramping (back-packing) and had to carry all our "stuff" on our backs! We did take a couple light-weight disposable cameras, though to capture our NZ experience.)
4-20-00 We're cruising again! We pulled in our docklines and left Scarborough marina yesterday morning, sailed 40 miles north and anchored in the Mooloolaba River early afternoon (Lat 26°41'S/Lon 153°08'E). The area reminds us of Ft. Lauderdale with palm trees, beautiful lagoon homes, busy waterways, tour boats and quite a few marinas. We had a great sail up the coast with westerly winds 12-15 knots, SIMMER was happy to be moving again. We thought we might go further and sail an overnight passage to reach Fraser Island, but decided to take it easy on our first trip out after our 5-month break. We had also just completed several projects on SIMMER and wanted to make sure all was ship- shape before venturing out overnight. One major refit was replacing our 15-year old rod rigging with new wire and staylok fittings. We did it ourselves, one stay at a time while the boat was in the water. Needless to say, Pat spent alot of time up the mast, disconnecting the rod stay and reconnecting the new wire stay. The job went quite smoothly and took us 4 days to complete, 10 stays in total. We had a huge spool of 1 x 19, stainless steel, 7 mm wire which we measured and cut to the proper lengths, attached the end fittings, and installed one end of the wire on the mast and the other on the deck. Now we have peace of mind, knowing that our rigging is brand new and of quality workmanship - since we did it ourselves! Pat also reworked the exhaust system in our diesel engine. The galvanized pipe was corroding from salt water. A local hardware store made the new pipe pieces for us at a very reasonable cost and we reused the heavy rubber hose, since it was in good shape. We also did a thorough service of the engine: changed filters/belts, tightened fittings/hose clamps/bolts, checked fluid levels, checked for chafe, lubricated parts, etc.... SIMMER's Universal 30 hp engine has performed well and we want to keep it that way. We've received email from fellow sailors who are following on the web and have asked for a little more technical information about the boat, maintenance, passage planning, living aboard, etc. So we will add in more of that type of info. Our intention with our webpage was to keep family and friends informed of our trip with pictures and a log, but as we receive input, we will try to incorporate it. Also, remember our updates to the web will be sporadic again as they have been when we are on the move.
4-23-00 Happy Easter everyone. We are currently in Tin Can Bay, just south of Fraser Island and woke up early this morning to visit the "Easter dolphins" that visit the area. Actually, two Indo-Pacific Humpback Dolphins visit a small creek every morning. Locals feed them fish and they come right into the shoreline and seem to enjoy the interaction. It was a neat experience at 7am this morning, standing in water up to our knees and have 2 dolphins swim right in front of us. Now we are planning a short sail on this gray, windy day but only 3 hours to southern Fraser Island, about 20 miles away. We'll be nibbling on our chocolate Easter bilby (in lieu of a chocolate rabbit), chocolate eggs and black jelly beans. What a superb lunch! Colleen is looking forward the the after Easter candy sales so she can reprovision the boat with lots of chocolate.
4-29-00 We're now in Bundaberg (Lat 24°50'S/Lon 152°20'E), about 200 miles north of Brisbane on the Queensland coast. Bundaberg, or "Bundy" to the Aussies, is promoted to be "where the Barrier Reef begins", although it is 10 miles up the Burnett River. But coral is present off the coast and about 40 miles north the first real reef at Lady Elliot Island awaits us. We are anxious to get in the water and snorkel again, especially with the Great Barrier Reef as our underwater world. The last week or so the weather has been rainy and windy and we've been wet, although not from swimming. Yesterday was the first blue sky we saw in a long time. Bundy is also the home of the Australian sugar industry, and we are planning to tour the Bundy Rum Distillery today. (Bundaberg Rum is an Australian icon). We passed heaps of sugar cane fields on our way up the river yesterday and once we got close to the distillery we could smell rum, sugar and syrup. Very inviting, we'll have to check it out.
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