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Sailing from Bundaberg, Australia to Port Vila, Vanuatu (Story 3)

Posted on by by Posted in Pacific Islands, Sailings, South Pacific

We are motoring in the Coral Sea.

(Sailing Day 6) This morning, my favorite star, Venus, was incredibly brilliant! I can’t believe how bright it was!

We’re still motoring. Seas have been calm and winds less than 5 knots. The new engine has been working nonstop for days. John changed the transmission fluid after running it for the first 24 hours. We switched the RPMs up and down every hour for that initial 24-hour period. Since then, we’ve set the RPM between 1500 and 1800. John thinks the performance is best at 1700 RPM. During my watch,

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Sailing from Bundaberg, Australia to Port Vila, Vanuatu (Story 2)

Posted on by by Posted in Pacific Islands, Sailings, South Pacific

Persistence pays off! Glad you found a spot, seagull.

(Sailing Day 3 to 5) Good morning, world! I slept a solid six hours without waking up. At 1:30 AM, we changed the watch schedule. The cats got their first treats of the day; they usually get three treats daily while at sea. They don’t like the engine’s noise, but we’ve been running it for two days straight. The weather forecast predicts another 30 hours of motoring. Despite the doldrum motoring, I feel refreshed and enjoyed the bright stars, Venus and Sirius, early this morning.

On the third day,

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Sailing from Bundaberg, Australia to Port Vila, Vanuatu (Story 1)

Posted on by by Posted in Australia, Sailings, South Pacific

Sailing at Full Moon Rise in the Coral Sea

(Sailing Day 1 and 2) It’s 4 AM in the Coral Sea. I hear the waves and John’s snoring – a much better symphony than the angry, gusty seas we battled just an hour ago. That earlier sea state was way beyond my comfort level, forcing us to compromise by sailing a little downwind rather than upwind. The good news? The weather forecast predicts motoring for the next few days, so we can easily correct our course then.

Despite taking motion sickness pills, I felt utterly hopeless on the boat earlier.

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Shakedown Sail: Bundaberg Port Marina to K’gari Island

Posted on by by Posted in Australia, Pacific Islands, Sailings, South Pacific

Sunrise at Woralie Creek Anchorage, K’gari Island, Queensland, Australia

A new engine had just been installed on our boat, so we decided to do a shakedown sail to K’gari Island (pronounced “Gur-rie”), also known by its former name Fraser Island. The island boasts endless powdery white sand beaches, and its creeks and streams flow with blackish fresh water into the sea.

There are many camping areas on the beaches, and after campers leave and before new groups arrive, dingoes emerge to check for any food scraps. We walked on the beach carrying a safety stick, just in case they showed interest in us.

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How do you get weather forecasts at sea?

Posted on by by Posted in Boating Tips from Bad Bunny John, Sailings

Source: http://www.bom.gov.au/products/IDYOC053.Global.SSTAnalysis.shtml

(Written by John) Whenever we meet people and tell them that we have sailed across oceans, they always want to know about how we deal with big storms. My answer has always been “We avoid them”.

It has been said that there is a time and place for everything, and in boating, you never want to be in a location during hurricane or typhoon seasons. So a constant moment north and south to get out of the storm belt is a yearly or twice yearly occurrence.

When I first got the boat and we were coastal cruising,

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Sailing from New Zealand to Australia (Part 3 – Arrived)

Posted on by by Posted in Australia, New Zealand, Pacific Islands, Sailings, South Pacific

Tracking Map from Whangarei, New Zealand to Bundaberg, Australia (November 7 to 20, 2024)

(November 13 to 20, 2024). We arrived in Bundaberg, Australia, after sailing 1,600 nautical miles, 13 days. The last part of the journey was a bit stressful, mainly due to the wind direction coming directly from behind us. Despite this challenge, this trip was the best among our long passages.

We hardly slept during the final days but worked diligently on arrival requirements, focusing on cleaning and organizing the boat and managing food restrictions. I prepared the restricted items as follows:

–Raw rice → Cooked rice

–Ham → John ate it for breakfast,

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Sailing from New Zealand to Australia – Autopilot Problem and Engine Issue

Posted on by by Posted in Australia, Boat Projects, Boating Tips from Bad Bunny John, New Zealand, Pacific Islands, Sailings, South Pacific

Tracking Map on GPS: Green (Autopilot Driving), Red (Hand Steering while Troubleshooting), Yellow (More Hand Steering during Diagnosis), Blue (Hove-To = Boat In Park)

(Written by John) Famous last words ” I have an idea, let me try this”

During my normal watch period of 8 until 2 I decided to try and manual steer the boat for an experiment to see if we could get more downwind performance. I turned the autopilot off and tried to manually steer us downwind while easing off the Genoa sheet and letting it billow out in front of the boat.

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Sailing from New Zealand to Australia (Part 2)

Posted on by by Posted in Australia, New Zealand, Pacific Islands, Sailings, South Pacific

My Best Friend “Auto Pilot” Navigating in the Coral Sea

(November 9 to 13, 2024) “The Coral Sea is the body of water east of the Great Barrier Reef, bounded by Papua New Guinea to the north, the Tasman Front to the south, and the west Pacific island chains of the Solomons, Vanuatu and New Caledonia to the east.” (Source: https://eatlas.org.au)

We’ve been sailing in the Coral Sea, currently about 300 miles south of New Caledonia.”

Our total sailing distance over the past six days is about 750 nautical miles (nms),

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Sailing from New Zealand to Australia (Part 1)

Posted on by by Posted in New Zealand, Sailings, South Pacific

Sailing with Jib Sail, Stay Sail, and Main Sail in the Tasman Sea

(November 7 to 9, 2024) Starlink has been a game-changer! Having high-speed internet at sea feels unreal, making it easy to access real-time weather forecasts and update my blog on time.

Before we departed, we met with Customs and Immigration Officers at Marsden Cove Marina. Passports no longer get departure stamps, but we received clearance documents for our first port of entry in Australia. One of the officers even shared the latest U.S. election results with us.

After not sailing for the last ten months,

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Good Bye to New Zealand

Posted on by by Posted in Boat Projects, New Zealand, Sailings, South Pacific

We moved the newly purchased New Zealand Dinghy up on the deck for a long journey. Our cat Happy is ready for sailing. Port Nikau Main Wharf, Whangarei, North Island, New Zealand

We left Whangarei Town and arrived at Marsden Cove Marina yesterday for our customs clearance. This morning, we’re scheduled to meet with the Customs Officer. Once cleared, we have four hours to depart New Zealand and are not allowed to stop anywhere else within the country.

Two days ago, we took our cats to a Biosecurity-approved veterinarian in Whangarei to begin the pet export process to Australia.

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