What seems like an entirely different age ago, I was sailing from New Caledonia (which is due north of us now) to Fiji. It had been hard on the wind to New Cal from Australia (in fact, we had to put 1 tack in to make the pass), and then again hard on the wind from New Cal to Fiji.That time, the course was 64degrees true. The wind was a moderate SE tradewind, so quite tight, but doable and it was much more comfortable than the leg to New Cal.From our current position, if we aimed direct at Fij

Day 6, and its much the same. In fact on last nights watches, neither of us touched the wheel, controls or saw anything else. Totally boring - we’re out here alone and the wind was nice and consistent! The upside was we made some good miles and boring is always good on a boat so far from land.Today will see us pass the halfway mark, with 750nm to go, and we’re just about 500nm to our waypoint where we turn for the run in as the trades establish. The actual route changes a bit each day as we

First sunset of the trip that’s been worth photographing. Spectacular!

After the front passed yesterday, things calmed down and we sailed the night under genoa alone. Peter had to contend with a bunch of Chinese fishing boats on his watch, all milling around the Australian marine boundary. Once through those, his watch was simple. I saw a container ship on mine but it was way behind us and never an issue. Other than that, the watches were easy. I was very tired on my first watch, but fine on the second after my 3hrs sleep. So far, we’re managing pretty well on th

The night was quite lively with the wind steadily building as the front approached. The sea state followed the wind and it meant not much sleep was had as things were moving a lot (and lots of waves slamming into the hulls).The mornings weather forecast showed that we’d not managed to outrun the front, and it was due during the day. We carried on under a very reefed genoa, until Peter woke me at 12:15pm and suggested I may want to see this. The radar was very angry and red, and you could see t

Overnight was quite windy, until my second watch when the wind eased as did the sea state. I shook out the first reef, then all reefs in the genoa. However the wind continued to drop.We opted to replace the genoa with the screecher - but as we started to unfurl the screecher, the shackle failed (seems that even though the pin was moused with wire, it had come undone!). We furled the sail, and lashed the bowsprit up (as the same pin holds the bobstay attached to the top of the sprit). We have a s

We had some rain overnight, and periods of very light winds in between the squalls, but we kept up with the sail changes and engines on/off to keep making progress.Today has been a much nicer day. Champagne downwind sailing, still under just headsail but making pretty nice progress. We’re taking a slightly more northerly course now, but will come a bit further south when the blow comes though on Tuesday. After that, we’ll see where we are - but its beginning to look like we don’t need to g

After a last minute speed fix on my toilet tank pump, we were ready for the off. At 6:45am we lifted the anchor and made our way down towards Southport Yacht Club. Our first port of call was the diesel pump where we put in 160litres at A$2.23/litre. A small motorboat was on the pontoon, but he moved back to the petrol side as he just wanted petrol (which seemed to have run out and explains why we found it slow taking fuel for the dinghy the other day). A large motorboat came in as we were finish

We’re in the countdown to leaving Australia! A few last jobs are underway, and we’re busy making water to fill the tank. Tomorrow morning, we’ll go and fill up with diesel (will report back on price) and then clear out with Australia Border Force, before heading out of the seaway and out to sea.Weather looks easy for the first few days. A light southerly, going westerly to get us going. Tuesday is the complicated day, with a front coming from behind us which may give us some wind to deal w

For a while, I’ve had a couple of clutches (rope jammers) that were showing signs of failing. They were both failing in the same way - the sides were breaking above the hinge pin. Clearly the failure case as this is where the load gets applied. Spin lock no longer make these clutches but they do make an updated model which has the same bolt pattern (easy, no drilling!).So dodging the rain, a bit of a hike got us to a chandlery and by luck they had what we needed in stock. So back to the boat a

The weather here has been pretty bad, with lots of rain and not much sun. We’ve continued to prepare, taking on some of the jobs that I’d been putting off for a while. Having fixed the electrical control boxes, there was an outstanding issue on the switch modules for one of the boxes. The Privilege electrical system is split into 2 parts. Above the nav station is a number of columns of buttons and lights. Each button operates a relay in a box in the hull (some in the port, some in the starbo

After a somewhat manic mini-refit, Duplicat is now back afloat. We’ve done upholstery inside and out, covers, windscreen covers, mosquito mesh, escape hatch fixes, engine services, mast off and electrical and standing rigging replacements. We’ve done a myriad of other little jobs (new nav lights, new cockpit lights, fixed some of the original Privilege control modules. Its been hard, non-stop work but we’re done, afloat and out of the marina.Now the really hard part starts - waiting for we

I find myself in Australia for yet another Australia Day, or Invasion Day as some call it. For your typical Aussie, its a day to hit the beach or get out on a boat, throw a few snags on the barbie and blow the froth off a few cold ones. For the indigenous people, its not quite the same. It does seem churlish to celebrate a day which was the start of much pain and suffering to so many of the population here. The indigenous peoples would prefer the celebration to be on almost any other day (and yo

Things have been a bit quiet on the blog, sorry about that! Its not that we’ve not being doing anything - we’ve been doing quite a bit. Its just not that interesting!We left the Brisbane river after a lovely time enjoying city life. Some great breweries, exquisite restaurants, shops so I could get on with my tech refresh, etc. However, it was clear that COVID was becoming more common there and so it was prudent to move to a less crowded area.Bryan and Sammie joined us for the trip down the r

Well, our stay in the Brisbane River has been extended as Cyclone Seth is making itself felt in the bay outside. In truth, its not really going to impact things on the coast too badly, but the wind is up as is the swell, so we’re far more comfortable in here.City life is also quite nice for a change. We managed to stay a while on the walk-ashore pontoon. Officially the limit is 2hrs, but boats are staying weeks at a time because otherwise they are empty all the time, and come March a new bridg

We’ve been having a nice time catching up with friends, collecting parcels, cooking, socialising. Oh, and Christmas.We had Christmas Day anchored out at Sandhills on the eastern side of Moreton Bay, and it was very pleasant indeed. Prior to that, we’d been anchored at Peel Island and Raby Bay (twice). We even saw a Dugong up very close in Raby Bay - which was a nice surprise as I’d not seen them there before.The forecast for the next few days is looking a bit average, so we’ve decided to

After a night at Inskip point (which was very comfortable), we punched the last of the incoming tide to get out across Wide Bay bar. It was never likely to be a problem, but Wide Bay bar has a deserved reputation, so we treat it with sensible caution. For me that means arriving at the bar before the outgoing flow has started. The prevailing swell is coming from offshore, so once the tide is falling, the bar can get lively.Given todays conditions, the bar crossing was simple, and once out we coul

Having seen the turtles, manta rays and caught up with Upstart and Jadean, we could once again move south. So at 5:20am this morning we dropped the mooring (which in a nice piece of choreography was immediately picked up by Upstart), and headed out of the lagoon.Once around the top of the atoll, we turned SE and motored towards Fraser Island. We did see Caledonian Sky, a small cruise ship we’ve seen up and down the east coast and throughout the Kimberley) heading towards the atoll, so pleased

Its been quite windy whilst we’ve been here, and we had a day of squalls which was a bit damp. Very tropical weather… After the squalls we’ve had wonderful weather. Sunny, warm but with enough wind to keep everything a pleasant temperature.We‘ve managed to snorkel a bit, and get some boat jobs done. When the wind calmed down we went ashore for a walk around the (tiny) island and despite not having seen any signs of life on the island, found quite a few camped there. I knew there was a ca

Having recovered (a bit) from the 2 night passage, we headed out in the dinghy to the spot where I’d previously seen manta rays. There was a bit more swell than I had hoped for, which made spotting them harder. So I just dropped in for a drift snorkel to see what was going on.It wasn’t too long before we’d found a rather tired looking turtle.And shortly after that, we found our first manta ray.We saw 3 in total, but didn’t spend too long swimming with them (still feeling tired from the d