Henry Drew/G.K. (Gail) Soucoup
25 Birch Hill Crescent
Ammon, New Brunswick E1G 4P9
CANADA
E-Mail gailhenry2000@yahoo.ca

October 17- December 31, 2004

We decided to join the Port-2-Port Rally from Vanuatu to Bundaberg, Australia, it has only been run for the last five years. Pat and Olivia on ldebaran participated in the rally last year and had only good things to say about it so we thought a free rally was worth giving a go. On Sunday the rally had a briefing and then the boats could leave whenever they wanted. The rally only asked that you check in on the radio twice a day and that you try to get to Bundaberg as close to October 28 as possible. Some boats left immediately, but we were not planning to leave for a few days.

Monday morning Henry went over to Luganville to pick up some fresh fruit, finally received our mail that had been sent mid June from Canada. He came back saying he was ready to leave, so close to one oclock, we dropped the mooring and headed to Australia.

This passage has the reputation of being one of the best in the world so it was with few worries that we set off. Some of the boats that left earlier in the month had experienced bad weather as they neared the Australian coast but we were prepared for whatever might come. The Australian coast is where the Great Barrier Reef is and everyone thinks of it as sun heaven but it does get huge wind squalls that come and go constantly.

The first three days out on this seven-day trip were coming close to being the fastest trip that we had ever made. Alas, the wind dropped and the seas went calm and we had to motor. As the wind was dropping and the seas were fattening, Dawns Light lost their rudder. For those who do not sail, that is like not having a steering wheel on your car.

Several boats that we were very close to dropped back to give them moral support and any help they could. There were also five more boats within thirty miles of them, including Maritime Express so we were all in radio contact with suggestions. They had a New Zealander with them and had a wind vane steering system which they tied a boat hook to and used it to steer. Glennie is a new sailor and she was finding it very difficult to steer using the compass and moving the boat hook forward and back to turn the boat when a tiller is moved left and right. One of the members of the rally Augusta volunteered to sail slowly with them, keeping them in sight all the time. At one point we heard them call Dawns Light and asked where they were going. After this, Augusta moved ahead of them so Glennie could use their mast head light as a guide as she was getting confused in the dark and wandering away from the direct line to Australia. This helped but was wearing them out very fast.

While thinking things over during the first night, Henry asked if someone had a spare tiller pilot that they were not using. Pat on Aldebaran had one but was several miles ahead, he turned back and during the night passed Dawns Light circled around to keep pace behind them. When morning came, Pat could not see anyone, it seems while he was on watch he dozed off and lost the fleet. It will be a long time before we let this Irishman who likes to tease forget his laps.

After Pat found the fleet again, he successfully transferred the tiller pilot to Dawns Light along with pictures he had taken of his boat when the system was up and operating. This was a great help to Al who now had to figure how to get this hooked up to a jury rig. Everything sounds simple in print but it was a taxing problem while trying to keep the boat sailing a straight course and find nuts and bolts that would allow everything to be put in place. By mid afternoon the system was set up and operating allowing them to relax a bit. Of course, Al was worried that the system would not hold up for long or that the wind and seas would come back and put too much stress on the system. There was a real exception that if the wind came up, with the accompanying seas, they would have to abandon the boat.

When the rest of us were tired of listening to our engines, we reminded ourselves that Dawns Light did not need wind and seas so not to be selfish and wish for wind. After days of listening to the engine it is really tempting just to turn it off and float for a while but we all needed to keep within distance of Dawns Light incase she experienced more problems.

All in all there were about six boats that stayed within the vicinity of Dawns Light so that if things went wrong there would be a large resource base. Augusta stayed within sight of them the whole time and finally had to transfer fuel to Dawns Light as they were not going to make it to Australia on the fuel they had. As it turned out, Augusta needed to have diesel brought to them at the quarantine dock in Bundaberg as they did not have enough left to get off the dock.

Early on the morning of October 26 we sighted land and finally reached the Burnett Heads, the entrance to the Burnett River, gateway to Bundaberg and an official port of entry to Australia. We were a little bit too early for customs, immigration and quarantine so we put the anchor down to await their coming to work. This is usually a minor entry point but with so many boats coming into the port they had to bring additional staff up from Brisbane to handle the formalities.

Once we were directed to the quarantine dock and had a thorough going over by the officials we started settling in and make ourselves at home. Of course, the first thing everyone wants to do is get a hot shower with lots of water. The next item on the agenda was to get the bus into town and get provisions. The marina is out in the commercial port area and the town is about fifteen kilometres away.

The rally sponsors had set up a large tent and most of the weeks functions were happened in the tent. The organizers realized that because of the quarantine requirements on importing meat and fresh vegetables we would all come to Australia with a quite empty larder, so they provided a five-dollar barbeque. They also had some tours arranged and a large banquet as well as celebrating the Melbourne Cup which is a major horse racing venue here where ladies dress up with hats and gloves and high heels, men wear top hats and tails. We had our own dress up at the tent and watched the race on the television that they had provided.

Within a day of arriving we had a local broker come to us and ask if we wanted to list the boat for sale. His boat shared the same finger with us so we thought it over and went to tell him that it was worth a try. He was away and did not come back until the night before we were leaving to sail down to Brisbane. He came in the dark, took pictures and that was the last we heard from him.

Maritime Express is forty-three feet long from the bow overhang to the stern overhang, at least that was the Panama Canal measurement. Back home in Shediac our dock is just twenty-five feet long and the summer we had the boat there preparing her for offshore our overhang made moving about for the boats inshore of us difficult. Everyone was good about it but we were too large for the marina and I expect everyone was glad to see us leave. The other consideration in Shediac is that we have to haul out in September, take the mast down, remove the back arch with all the cabling that is running up the pipes and trailer the boat through the village, under the very low power lines for winter storage. In the spring we have to reverse this process in late May.

We have looked at this and decided for a boat that we can only use three months of the year, this is not feasible. Also, Maritime Express is a full live aboard cruising boat and for a run to the Bra dOr Lakes we do not need a water maker, solar panels, wind generator and a lot of the other systems on the boat but could do with a smaller, less equipped boat.

After boats leave Australia, it is usually a hair-raising run up the red sea or around Africa. Boats are now heading up the Red Sea in large groups and one group which we have friends travelling in had one boat chased and another robbed. Another friend has just sent a copy of a email where two other boats were attacked and were only saved because one sail boat had a gun aboard and the other rammed the attacker and sunk it. If you go around Africa you can expect to run into weather like we did coming out of Atlantic Canada, just, in our case, to take the boat to Annapolis to sell. We therefore decided we should see what the market would bear in the Pacific.

Now, dont get excited, if the boat sells we will still probably not be home for a while. There are many options still open to us. We could buy a motor home and travel around this large continent or go back to New Zealand. We could go to Europe and buy a canal boat and do, what we have been told could be another five years cruising. Time will tell, but if the boat does not sell this season, we will be heading to New Caledonia and Vanuatu this coming May. A number of the boats from the west coast of North America are paying about fifteen thousand to ship the boats home.

When we came out of New Zealand two years ago, we met an Australian boat Kindred Spirit. We became great friends with Heather and John, Heather taught me how to weave baskets, basic ones. They had headed back home to Bundaberg in May because of the death of Heathers father so we had a grand reunion with them when we arrived in Bundaberg. Heather kindly took a day and drove us all around the two shopping centres to do the shopping we needed to do. It is so much faster when someone knows just where you can purchase what you want.

Bundaberg is famous for its rum and one tour we took was of their plant. The company had sponsored part of the rally so everyone wanted to give them something in return and paying for a tour seemed a good way of doing this.

Finally after two weeks in Bundaberg we headed out for the Great Sandy Straits. This is a channel between the mainland and the large Fraser Island. Much of this area is very shallow and if you have a deep draft (deep in the water) you are much better off going on the outside of Fraser Island.

We had been told that the open anchorage at Kingfisher Resort on Fraser Island was usually a good spot and that walking around the resort was worth the effort. We arrived there with two other boats and by the time we had the anchor down the wind changed direction and made this a very unsafe and uncomfortable spot. We picked up our anchor and headed across the strait to the Mary River where just inside the Susan River branches off. We pulled into the anchorage just inside the Susan River and spent the night.

The next day the wind had dropped so we left, went back to Kingfisher and went ashore. The main resort lodge was magnificent and when we asked where we could get a cup of coffee they directed us to an eating lodge back toward the docks. We arrived at the coffee shop to find out that the coffee pot was broken so we would be given instant and decided against that. We then noted that they had pizza so maybe we would stay around till lunch only to find out that they only served pizza at the evening meal. At this time we decided to head back to the cafe on the dock hoping they had a working coffee machine. When we reached the dock, we saw that our boats were stern to the shore, bouncing heavily and the wind was rising and the tide dropping.

Off we went again, having a very difficult time getting the dinghy out of the water and then making plans on the to where we would head next. There is an anchorage called Garrys Anchorage and we had been told that this was worth a visit. We headed slowly down the strait, the tide was out so the depth was suspicious to Garrys. Garrys is in a channel formed between Steward Island and Fraser Island approximately fourteen miles up the Great Sandy Strait. As we crept through, we touched bottom and were lucky to drive off it. One larger yacht that was following us was stuck fast until the tide came in later.

The anchorage was very nice and we had a lovely few days there. We also went ashore and walked the forest path where signs warned you of wild dingos. The last night there the sand flies found me during the night. We had the screens in and they did not attack Henry but I was badly bitten and eventually had to get medication from the pharmacy.

Australia has a phenomenon which scares a lot of foreign boaters and called bars. That is not the drinking type but sand bars that cross the openings of their harbours leading into the sea. When the tide is against the wind the seas get very high and people have been drowned when their boats have flipped or been damaged when they have been pushed into the shallows. With this in mind we looked at the conditions for getting out of the area and into the ocean so that we could head down to Mooloolaba, the next harbour.

The Coast Guard, which in this country is a volunteer organization keeps constant watch on the state of the bars and request anyone crossing the bar to call and let them know the present conditions. We picked a very early morning crossing as we had a long way to go and were part of a dozen boat exit, including some local boats.

The wind was really brisk and we were really galloping along with reefed sails only to round a headland to lose the wind and have to motor. About this time the sand fly bites kicked in and I really did not enjoy the trip as much as I might but it was a beautifull day with lovely shore line to watch.

We were originally going to anchor inside the mouth of the harbour at Mooloolaba but the wind was forecasted to rise more and change direction. With some regret we took a slip at the Wharf Marina, downtown Mooloolaba. This marina had large (world class) cockroaches running around the docks and we feel very fortunate that we did not have some come live with us. We took all the precautions we know about but cockroaches usually go where they want without consideration.

Mooloolaba is a resort town with a very large beautifull beach. There is also a long boardwalk and it made for easy strolling. At the Mooloolaba Yacht Club was Djaraka a boat we had met in the Caribbean and stayed the night in Bayswater Marina, Auckland when up there on business. We had a great meal with them and caught up and on one day they took us to the campus of the Sunshine Coast University. There we had a good view of kangaroos who run wild through their grounds, one even had a joey poking its head out of the pouch.

Ragn Dragn and Dream Catcher were at the Wharf Marina with us so one day we rented a car and drove up to the Glass Mountains. The trip was lovely and we stopped many times for pictures or to look at things. There is a small rain forest here and we took the time to walk through it. They have made very wide board walks through the fifty acres to keep you off the ground, not to keep your feet from getting wet but to protect the habitat. This park has wallabies, which look like a small kangaroo. Diane saw a couple in the woods that the rest of us missed but we did see a large one dead beside the walk.

One of the places we stopped at was a woodworkers. His work was beautifull and different from the run of the mill. Next door was an old house with wide verandahs that was a gallery. I really believe the house was built specifically for this purpose, but it is always possible it was a renovation job. We next stopped in the village of Mapleton which is very much a tourist town. I was disappointed with the wood working that several of the shops had for sale. They were very typical of the basic things you see everywhere and it made me want to go back to the previous shop again.

We decided that we were glad that Mooloolaba was not the place that we were going to be staying in for the season, you were too tempted to spend money and we do that easily enough as it is!

When we were visiting One Day in February Wendys brother-in-law, had taken Henry out looking at cars. Most of the ones he was showing Henry were in the ten thousand bracket, way out of our reach. When we were in Pinata, Vanuatu, John asked if we wanted him to look for a car and I indicated no, the price was too high. He had misunderstood and thought we wanted a good North American type car. The lack of a car had us make the decision to go to the East Coast Marina in Manly, Queensland because of the convenience of getting to shops and the train.

On the way down to East Coast Marina we stopped at Morton Island in Morton Bay at the Tangalooma Wrecks anchorage where Henry got in the water to place a new anode on the prop. The locals use this anchorage for weekends and diving the wrecks but the other side of the island have sharks so I kept a close watch while he was in the water.

Once we had arrived at the East Coast Marina in Manly we found out that, yes we could get the internet on the boat, but the hoops and expense we would have had to run through, only to be subject to being moved at their whim made it unreasonable. It was also a ten minute walk to the toilets which was daunting in the early morning.

We arrived at the marina on Friday evening and on Sunday John and Tom (One Day) drove down to take us to Johns home for brunch and to pick up our car. We had a lovely reunion and took the car back down to East Coast. To get there you cross the Gateway Bridge over the Brisbane River and pay a toll of two dollars twenty. We realized that it was going to be costly if we made many trips to the north side of the river.

Wendy had asked if we were going to get a cell phone and when the answer was no, she gave me one for my birthday. It is an old phone but she purchased the Vodophone SIM card for me as she knew that most of the Yachties use Vodophone.

Now that we had a car, we made enquiries on the north side of the Brisbane River at Morton Bay Boat Club. This is a private club, you must be members and they have a small number of boats where East Coast had more than a thousand. So early on Friday morning we moved the boat twenty miles up the bay to the Morton Bay Boat Club, a decision we have been extremely pleased we made.

While down on the south side we had taken a drive and picked up a nail-gun nail in the right rear tire. Lucky we had a spare and on the way up to Morton Bay Boat Club we stopped and had the tire fixed. The following Sunday we took Dream Catcher for a drive and were in a section of the Gateway Highway with no shoulders when the tire went flat again. I had on a bright orange T-shirt so I went back up the highway a bit to act as a warning since here in this country the back right wheel is on the road side.

It was amazing how many cars still made no effort to pull into the vacant right lane. Henry got the tire changed and we were on our way again. We went to Manly and visited a few people we all know when it started to rain. We decided to head back to our boats and while going through a residential area had another flat, the same wheel. Now we had a problem, no spare and pouring rain. Henry got out and started walking back the way we came looking for somewhere to make a phone call. He eventually found a telephone booth and found a taxi. In the meantime John was out in the rain, again on the traffic side, getting the tire off. Again I was standing in the rain using my bright shirt as a security cone.

The taxi driver found a garage that was open with three old dodgers drinking beer and talking. They fixed the two tires and we were in business again, if not a little wet. It turns out that probably when they had vandalism in the car park at the Boat Club someone had kicked our hub cap. There was a great crack in it and it would turn on the wheel and would push on the valve stem until it was cut.

We knew it had not been cracked before from our first flat tire.

On November 28, a Sunday, Tom and Wendy came to the boat for brunch. While sitting there eating, a man came down the dock with a friend of his and stopped to say that he had seen the flag, he was from Canada originally and we were to come to his house for Christmas dinner. That was the last of him we saw until the week prior to Christmas.

In the meantime John from Dream Catcher had a birthday on December 1 so with four other boats we met at the Club restaurant to celebrate. Two days later Ian and Wendy from Remedy were leaving to head back to New Zealand for Christmas so we met again for a meal, then December 5 was my birthday and we had another lunch. This was getting to be a hard place to watch your diet but it was nice to have a restaurant with good food on your doorstep.

All in all during December we celebrated two birthday parties, one going away party, took two couples to the airport and picked one up, went to Tom & Wendys son Matthews for an early Christmas dinner, went to John and Bevs to celebrate Wendys fiftieth birthday, early Christmas and their going away party (they headed back to their new place in Vanuatu to continue the building project). We also went into the city with John and Penny to South Bank which is a great park area that was originally their Expo site and is now a family venue with man-made pools made to look like a long stream bed and on Sunday a craft venue. There is also a great marine museum that John and Henry visited while Penny and I did the craft thing.

After we arrived at Morton Bay Boat Club another broker came to see us and asked if he could list the boat. Because we had already been approached, signed no papers, but were thinking about it, we agreed. Peter (the broker) had been a sailor, bought a power boat because his wife did not like sailing, sold the power boat within weeks and took up being a broker after retiring from a very hectic career. We told him that it was ok to bring someone to see the boat but not if they were just kicking tires. We were not looking to make a fire sale so dont bother us.

He was fine with that so we signed with him. About two weeks later he and his wife invited us to their house for lunch. They live in a very country setting, in the city that made us envious. Their daughter is married with two girls and they have a family compound. They have a swimming pool dividing their front doors and the girls can come and go as they please. The grandparents enjoy the youthfull activity and it actually gives the daughter some freedom as she is a surgery nurse and is sometimes called in when her husband is away.

The house they live in is one floor, quite open landscape with two bedrooms. Because the daughter is in the front yard, when they want to go somewhere they just lock the door and leave. It made Henry and me a bit envious as with our house we need someone to live in it and when we come back from this adventure if we want to go again we are tied down trying to get someone to live in the house. Maybe I will get my brother to enlarge one of the stalls in his new barn and live there!

Talking about the barn, that is one of the sad things when you are away, life goes on back home. My sister Janet Rose and her family moved to Summerside, PEI and have all sorts of things going on that we miss like birthdays, Christmas, graduations, soccer games, etc. My brother, William has cut his own trees and has had them milled and is building a large barn for his and his wife, Kimberlys horses while my sister Trudy and her husband Kevin have had a baby and I have never seen my new nephew. It does make us understand the cruisers among us who have family at home and eventually the wife gives sailing up to be home with the growing family. The sad thing is that it is usually the wife who wants to be home with family while the husband/father often is not really interested and just wants to keep on with his sailing.

A few days before Christmas we received a phone call and it was Michael Courtenya, the guy who had invited us for Christmas dinner. He was calling to make sure we were still coming and it would be Christmas eve. I offered to make pumpkin pie and was quickly taken up on the offer as it was one of the things he missed from home.

When we finally arrived at Michael and Tracys home we found they have two sons, one living on his own and the other in the last year of high school. Also present were Tracys parents, Michaels brother from Elgin, Ontario (Dennis), their best friends, Tim, another Canadian and his wife Leigh and their son and daughter, Leighs parents and a few others that passed in and out during the night. It was great time, most present had been to Canada so we were not asked ridiculous questions like what do you mean it gets hot there, I thought Canada was cold.

All present took Henry and me in as if they had always known us and we had just been away for a while. It was a very pleasant way to spend Christmas Eve.

The next day, after opening our presents on the boat, we went to the open deck at the Club for Christmas dinner. There are several local people living on their boats here and a few at the Scarborough Marina, which shares our anchorage, who were alone came over also. One of the members here won a turkey and asked me to cook it for him. They rarely cook turkey and this was so big he did not know how to go about it without drying it out. There are several locals living on their boats at this marina, including one family with a two year old so it was not just a foreign group for dinner.

As expected it has been quite hot in Brisbane with the temperatures during Christmas being in the mid to high thirties. We have had a few rain squalls but not enough as the brown grass tests to. On the thirtieth of December Penny of Dream Catcher came to us with a newspaper clipping of the train trip from Sydney to Perth on The Indian Pacific. There was a web address but she could not get anything to come up.

I connected to the web and saw that the price for the one way trip was $595.00 but there was a special package if you had a backpackers membership and a foreign passport. To me it looked like it was a six-month pass on The Indian Pacific, The Overlander and The Ghan for $495.00. This did not seem reasonable so we piled in the car for the half hour ride to the commuter train station at Sandgate and another half hour ride to the city. There we inquired and found out that this information was correct. Without much deep thought we decided to go for it.

Consequently we booked from Brisbane to Sydney on Country Link then to Adelaide on The Indian Pacific, then The Overlander to Melbourne and back to Adelaide. There we would get on The Indian Pacific again to Perth and back to Adelaide. At Adelaide for the third time we would join The Ghan for the trip up to Alice Springs. Katherine Gorge and Darwin in the Northern Territory, back again to Adelaide joining The Indian Pacific back to Sydney and the Country Link back to Brisbane. It would take us from January 18 to March 3, mainly as the trains only run two days a week.

Before any in depth planning could start, we had been invited to Tim & Leigh for New Years. Again the cast of characters was large with a few new people added in. We had a great time, good food and good company.

Well, this takes us up to the end of the year with lots planned for the coming year.

Gail and Henry