6-1-00 Happy first day of winter - in OZ, that is. It's been quite cool, but beautifully crisp and clear, reminds us of autumn sailing in the Chesapeake Bay, certainly not the tropics. Speaking of the Chesapeake, we caught our first mud crabs, or "muddies" as the Aussies call them. They are huge!!!!! We bought a collapsible trap and our first two crustaceans crawled inside while we were anchored in a mangrove creek off the Hinchinbrook Channel. They are so big, one crab feeds two people. No lie. We had Colleen's all time favorite dish, crab cakes the first night and had leftovers for lunch (one crab made 7 crab cakes). Then the second muddie, we made garlic crabs. What a feast, we haven't caught crabs since the coral crabs in the San Blas Islands, Panama. We are looking forward to catching some more.
6-5-00 We arrived in Cairns harbor yesterday morning, Lat 16°56' S/Lon 145°46' E. Cairns is pronounced "CANS", like cans of soda or beer. It's the largest tropical city in OZ, with an international airport, hotels, restaurants, shopping malls and a large Great Barrier Reef (GBR) tourist industry - tour boats, dive shops, souvenirs, etc. We are starting our PADI, Professional Association of Dive Instructors, lessons today so we can scuba dive on the reef. It's a 4 day course: 2 days of classroom and swimming pool instruction and 2 days in open water on the reef. We are both really excited about doing it, but the weather isn't optimum - partly cloudy skies and windy. Oh, well - gotta do it. Last night we met up with Aussie yachties we met coming across the Pacific last year - Robyn and Don on STYLOPORA. They live just outside of Cairns and picked us up, brought us to their house for a visit and a home-cooked meal. It was great to catch up with them. We hadn't seen them since Tonga. They are back at home working after completing their 7 year circumnavigation.
6-10-00 We are open water divers! Woo-hoo! We passed the written test and completed 4 dives on the GBR. It was cool. The weather conditions weren't superb, but we are so glad we decided to do it. We saw lots of different corals, small tropical fish, white-tipped reef shark, green sea turtle, large grouper, Maori wrasse, and many more that we are still trying to identify. We are so used to snorkeling, it was strange to stay underwater so long with all the sea life. We had a fun group of international people in our class, that made the experience even more memorable - American, Irish, Canadian, Aussie, Dutch, and British. When we dove, we separated into groups of 6 to each dive instructor. PADI stresses diving using the buddy system, so you can keep an eye on each other. So we buddied-up, dropped down to 12 meters and then had to perform various skills underwater while our dive instructor supervised. We filled our mask with water then cleared it, completely removed/replaced our mask, removed/replaced our buoyancy control device (BCD)/tank, breathed from our buddy's alternate air source, navigate with compass, etc. The second day we dove down to 18 meters and performed additional skills. All in our group passed. We had several of our classmates out to SIMMER for happy hour to celebrate our open-water diver certification. Then we all went to an Irish pub and did some more celebrating until the wee hours of the morning. Good thing we didn't have to dive the next day! We look forward to diving again in the near future, now that we are certified .... maybe Malaysia or Thailand.
6-18-00 Happy Father's Day (and Happy Birthday as well, to Colleen's sister, Maureen). We looked for Father's Day cards at the newsstand to send our Dads but we couldn't understand why none were displayed. When we asked, we found out Aussie Father's Day is celebrated in Sept, not June. So our poor Dads got blank cards with a note from us. Hope you both had a nice Fathers' Day. We left Cairns this morning after a 2 week stay. We had a great time in Cairns and accomplished quite alot: dive class, partying, dentist appointments, haircuts, changed engine oil, laundry, postcards, replaced shieve pins on steering system (they had started to wear), visited with Aussie friends, made airline reservations made for Colleen (she is flying home Sept 26th for family wedding), fabricated courtesy flags (Indonesia, Singapore, Malaysia, Thailand), and hiked in the rainforest. Doesn't sound like alot for 2 weeks, but a yachtie's pace is so slow, it's takes us longer to do even the simplest task! Especially when we walk to get anywhere. The weather has improved and now we're headed north again, inside the reef. The Great Barrier Reef (GBR) is much closer to the mainland here and there are various anchorages along the reef. The GBR is so amazing, stretching over 900 nautical miles along the Queensland coast. Sailing inside the reef is thrilling and it does have an advantage for us sailors - the reef dramatically reduces the ocean swell and wind-driven seas. There is a shipping route inside the reef, and commercial ships larger than 70 meters or carrying hazardous materials, must have a local pilot onboard from Cairns northward, since the reef is so close. Navigation has to be spot-on because there are isolated reef patches all along the shipping lane, as well as the huge seemingly endless string of reef to the east.
6-22-00 We're at Cape Melville (Lat 14°11'S/Lon 144°27'E), making our way up the Cape York Peninsula. Cape York is the top of northeastern OZ - the narrow, pointy "finger" that sticks out toward Papua New Guinea. Once we get to the tip of the peninsula, we turn left and start heading west. We are in the northern most section of the Great Barrier Reef, about 200 nm to go to Cape York. The last few days we've sailed by a couple historic places in OZ: Endeavor Reef and Cooktown for example. Capt. James Cook was one of the first sailors to navigate this area in the late 1700's. The Great Barrier Reef is such a vast system of reefs, it's amazing to think that 18th century ships sailed these dangerous waters. We find it challenging enough with charts and our electronic navigation. Well, in 1770, Capt. Cook wasn't so lucky, and struck the weather side of a reef and had to jettison cannons, ballast and an anchor from his ship, ENDEAVOR. Hence the naming of that reef - Endeavor Reef. After freeing the ENDEAVOR from the reef, he headed to the mainland and spent over a month repairing the damage. This was the first recorded place in OZ that Englishmen spent more than a few days ashore, where a kangaroo was first sighted and named, and where the first true contact with the indigenous Australians, the Aborigines, took place. The settlement was eventually named Cooktown. So much for your Aussie history lesson for today.
6-27-00 We've had a great week of weather and sailing. Today is a day that sailors dream about. We're underway and enjoying a lovely 15 kt breeze and reaching along with just our head sail (135% genoa), making 6 kts. The sun is shining in a bright blue sky and the GBR is just 1 nm to starboard! The only thing to complete the day would be a a pod of dolphins to ride our bow wake. We are currently passing Hazel Reef, Inset Reef, Piper Reef, Key Reef, and Moody Reef - making our way towards Cape Grenville (Lat 11°57'S/Lon°143 15'E) to anchor for a couple days. All the reefs have names, although we think there are so many, they ran out of names. Some reefs on our chart are named Ribbon Reef No. 1, Ribbon Reef No. 2, ...3, ...4, etc. Along the way, Mother Ocean has been feeding us well. A couple days ago, at a reef anchorage off Morris Island, Pat speared a lobster, or crayfish as they call them here. Of course the Aussies shorten it to just "cray". Colleen collected a bagful of scallops along the waters edge and we had a seafood feast. We've also had good luck catching Australian Mackerel, a great -tasting white fish. When we travel away from major ports like this, we usually stock up on meats that keep well in the freezer or fridge - such as boneless chicken, ham and hot dogs. We've been eating alot of seafood since we left Cairns though, and now we've added fish to the freezer. We also have canned meats onboard, if we really get desperate. Just before Morris Island, we met some marine patrol employees maintaining the national park on Stanley Island. They pointed us in the direction of the island trail which led to Aboriginal cave paintings. It was pretty cool. The artwork consisted of indigenous animals - fish, dugongs, turtles, birds, starfish, dingoes, crocs, and sailing ship drawings. The ship drawings depicted several types of 17th and 18th century vessels. The park wardens also warned us of the salt water crocodiles, or "salties". We didn't think they were on the reef, but they are, and in greater numbers from Cairns northward. They told us they have pictures of one 50 miles offshore with a huge sea turtle in it's jaws! We've only seen crocs in the Sydney aquarium, and now we're always looking over our shoulders when we walk along a beach or on the reef at low tide! We wouldn't mind getting a look at one from our boat, but we don't especially want to see one up close while walking or swimming.
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