Darwin to Singapore
25/11/10 10:24
Darwin was destroyed by a cyclone in 1976 and has since then been rebuilt into a relatively modern and compact city. To get to the city centre from Tipperary Marina where Bali Blue was berthed required a bus or taxi. The city itself has little to offer other than some shops and basic services, most of which are geared to making arrangements for visits to other places such as the Kakadu National Park. Darwin seems to mainly be a warm weather escape for southern Australians during their winter. And very warm it is too. We had temperatures up to 37C which the locals thought cool compared to what was coming in the months ahead. Read More...
Cruising Australia
02/10/10 23:37
It has been some time since my last Captain’s Log due to a combination of laziness, poor internet connections and various other factors that have kept us occupied and/or too tired to make the effort. My apologies. Read More...
Vanu'atu & Cairns
19/08/10 23:31
The crossing from Fiji to Vanuatu was fast and furious and in what seemed like no time at all we were anchored by a quarantine buoy in Port Vila. And what a wonderful surprise Vanuatu proved to be. Read More...
Tonga & Fiji - Russell & Jamie!
25/07/10 23:26
My son Russell’s fiendish plan to confuse us totally by e-mailing that he would be arriving in Tonga on the 2nd July rather than the 3rd worked perfectly. Carol and I duly arrived at the tin shack of an arrivals hall at the “airport” on the 2nd July and kept the taxi driver waiting. The plane was delayed by over an hour but it eventually landed and it soon became apparent that Russell was not on board. A flurry of text messages, e-mails and phone calls later confirmed that he was still in New Zealand but would be leaving late on the 2nd to arrive on the 3rd. So the following day we repeated the whole exercise and were so happy to see him arrive that we soon forgot the angst we suffered the previous day. Read More...
Cook Islands & Nieue
30/06/10 23:18
One thing about sailing across the Pacific is that distances that used to be significant and challenging have now become a short sail. We left beautiful Bora Bora on the 9th June for the 490 nm sail to Aitutaki in the Southern Cook Islands and this equates approximately to sailing from Falmouth to Bayona in Northern Spain. For us now it is merely a short hop of about 3/4 days. We arrived in Aitutaki at 08.00 on the 13th June and anchored outside the reef close to one other yacht from the Rally, Fai Tira. Nearly all the other Rally yachts headed for Rarotonga because the entrance through the reef in Aitutaki is very shallow. As it happened, we stayed anchored outside the reef because the channel has silted following the February Cyclone. Fortuitously the weather was benign for our entire stay. What all this meant is that we virtually had the island to ourselves. Read More...
Society Islands
03/06/10 23:36
We are now tied up to a buoy off the Yacht Club in Bora Bora. This is the last of the Society Islands we will be visiting before heading for the Cook Islands and Tonga. Following on from Tahiti we have been to Moorea, Huahine, Raiatea and Tahaa. Sailing between the islands has often presented us with some uncomfortable seas and strong currents but winds have generally been light to moderate and we have even had to motor on occasions. All the islands are all beautiful, clean, and verdant with dramatic volcanic scenery surrounded by coral reefs teeming with fish. Moorea is debatably the most attractive and a group of us hired scooters to circumnavigate the island in the pouring rain. It was great but very wet fun. Read More...
Tuamotus & pearling
10/05/10 23:35
It has surprised me how many boats on the Blue Water Rally have names that have been cobbled together from the initials of owners/crew/family. In many instances this is advantageous. For example it didn’t take me long to remember that Norman and Sara sail on Norsa. But we have been doing a lot of sailing and partying with those on board Chsaolonina, a ridiculously convoluted name made up from the names of the 4 children of the previous owner. After wrestling with the general confusion this name created amongst rally participants, the current skipper Jeremy took the bold step of temporarily changing the name of his boat for the rally to Chisel and thereby also avoided RT confusion with Spirit of Nina and Peregrina. Read More...
Reflections
15/04/10 23:32
We’ve made it! We arrived at Fatu Hiva in the Marquesa Islands on Wednesday Morning on the 14th April after 21 nights at sea. And what a jewel of an island this is. It is barely 10 miles long with dramatic, verdant scenery that gives it a lost world feel where one could expect Tyrannosaurus Rex to put in an appearance. Read More...
to Marqueses
01/04/10 23:39
Our stay in the Galapagos Islands destroyed any lingering, beer glass half empty thinking as to whether our round the world adventure is worth all the stress, money, bureaucracy and non-stop nautical DIY. The islands are truly enchanting. Where else in the world can you swim with sea lions, sharks, turtles and even iguanas? We saw penguins surfing on the equator, giant tortoises bonking, nocturnal sea gulls and even Steve Irwins nemesis - stingrays. And the Galapagos islands are full of boobies. Some are masked, some are red footed but the most endearing have blue feet which are shown off to potential mates during courtship. In addition to going to North Seymour Island we visited Floriana, Bartolome and Isabella. This provided a nice balance of wild life with other attractions that the islands offer such as stunning beaches and volcanic landscapes. It also gave "J" off Chsalonina the opportunity to step in a huge pile of sea lion ka ka that he alone did not see. Read More...
Las Perlas & Galapagos
13/03/10 23:33
We stayed in Balboa, Panama until the 24th March but before leaving there were some fun and games in the anchorage. One evening after dark a southerly wind with 1 to 2 meter waves blew up and caused many boats to drag their anchors. Two collided and there was much wailing and gnashing of teeth before things got back to something approaching normal. Bali Blue escaped unscathed. Read More...
Panama
22/02/10 23:30
Panama must have been an extremely wonderful country before the Spanish arrived and introduced their alien culture and religion on the indigenous population. Various Indian tribes such as the Kuna lived in virtual harmony within their environments such as the San Blas Islands. These islands fulfill the ideal of a desert island covered in coconut palms and surrounded by sandy beaches and coral reefs teeming with fish of every description. The modern day draw back is that each and every inch of coastline is covered with tons of plastic detritus washed up from afar. How sad! Having said that, we enjoyed walking round a couple of Kuna villages and being invited into their long houses where 20 to 30 people live under one roof. They are the shortest race of people after the pygmies so Carol was very much at home and took hundreds of photos of their unique way of life. Read More...
THAT crossing - Columbian coast
01/02/10 23:41
We are now in Porvenir in the San Blas islands after the most awesome sail imaginable. It took us 4 days to get here from Aruba and we knew in advance that we would be in for some heavy weather. The Hurricane Centre in Miami was forecasting wind speeds of 25 to 30 knots and wave heights of 12 to 14 feet. Other sources gave a similar picture which seemed “manageable” in order for us to keep to the schedule to transit the Panama Canal. Read More...
Caribbean Cruising
25/01/10 23:28
My last Captain’s Log was on the 8th January and it seems like a year has passed since then. We left Rodeny Bay Marina on St Lucia on the 9th January and sailed in the lee of the island down to Souffriere, named after the hot sulphur springs behind the town. From our buoy in the bay it looked lovely but ashore it was poverty stricken, run down and intimidating. On and island where you can plant a walking stick and it grows, we found it difficult to buy vegetables you would risk feeding to a donkey and no one could sell us a pineapple. Read More...
Antigua to Martinique
18/01/10 23:36
We are now in Rodney Bay Marina on the island of St Lucia having sailed here via Guadeloupe, Dominica and Martinique. The sailing has been fantastic with 20 knot winds between the islands and the seas running straight in off the Atlantic. On the leeward side of the islands things are less boisterous and winds can be a little fickle. Read More...
Atlantic Crossing
11/12/09 23:34
This will probably be a long log entry as it covers four people spending over 3 weeks together on a 40 feet long boat – books have been written and films shot about lesser experiences.
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Lanzarote
01/11/09 23:38
Bali Blue is now tied up alongside a pontoon at Puerto Calero in Lanzarote. We arrived on Friday 30th October with winds of 24kts and a cracking sail reaching 7.6kts at times with main and poled out foresail. We had spent 6 days at sea with a testing range of weather conditions from no wind at all to winds on the nose and some thick fog thrown in just to make the task of avoiding Moroccan fishing boats that don’t show up on the radar even more fun. Their idea of the international prevention of collision regulations is varied and always novel. One boat even saw fit to have a blue flashing light that made us think we were just about to be arrested by a coastguard vessel. Another boat on the Rally was accosted by a fishing boat with demands for whisky and while we carry gallons of the stuff this particular boat is skippered by a TT! Read More...
Getting started
23/10/09 23:29
I have been remiss in not keeping the Captain’s Log up to date – my apologies. The main reason for this has been the fact that we have basically been holed up in Gibraltar since the 15th August and there hasn’t seemed much to report. Having said that, we have managed to escape back to England, USA and Scotland to catch up with friends and relatives. But apart from these very joyous interludes we have basically been stuck in Gibraltar which is great for a couple of days, tedious after a week, brain numbing after a fortnight and conducive to suicide thereafter. So my belt and shoelaces have been confiscated and I have been forced to endure the whole episode with only the occasional vodka or ten to alleviate the pain. Read More...