Journal Entries

February 2010

My shoulder injury is finally starting to feel good enough to do some sailing. I wanted to head down the coast for a while and get away from Brisbane. I thought a nice slow trip across to Moreton Island, up around the cape and down the coast would be a good way to start.

Just before I left and was still in the marina, I spotted a seagull that just didn't look right. It was paddling through some pretty choppy water and seemed unable to get out of the way of some boating traffic. People on jetskis really annoy me because they seem to be completely oblivious to everything else going on around them. They will happily run down marine life and turn a quiet calm anchorage into their own personal racetrack. I don't really see the point of them.

So anyway I went to check out this seagull and sure enough he was unable to fly. I had a bucket in the dinghy with me and simply scooped him up.

Here is a picture of the seagull. Hopefully you will never look at a KFC bucket of wings the same way.

He was such a pleasant little fella and he had a hook caught in his foot and some fishing line twisted around him. I called the seabird wildlife rescue group and they came out within the hour and collected him. I checked up on him a few days later and they said he was doing fine and would be released in a few more days.

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So off sailing. I was a bit concerned about my shoulder and how I would cope with life at sea but all seemed ok. I set sail for Moreton Island and thought it would be a good idea to anchor there for a couple of days.

anchored at Moreton Island for a couple of days relaxation and shoulder testing.

of course Cutty had her regular swims throughout the day. She could literally spend all day in the water and is quite happy just floating around casually checking out the surroundings.

As always I eat well onboard. Tonight was a green thai vegetable curry.

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After a couple of days anchored off Moreton I changed anchorage and headed for Peel Island. This island was once used as a leper colony. (I hope things don't start to drop off).

Cutty loved the long expanse of beach.

The island shore is full of old logs that have eroded away from the foreshore. They are a really beautiful site and Cutty thinks they make excellent hurdles for jumping.

Of course life on anchor isn't all sunshine and calm water. Tonight we got a pretty severe gale. The wind picked up over the course of about 20 minutes and turned the previously calm anchorage into a rolling lee shore. Fortunately I've recently upgraded my anchor system to a 50lb Delta. I replaced the old 45lb CQR as I really liked the Delta design. Plus I picked the anchor up really cheap at the boaties market.

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After a few days at Peel Island I decided to head out into the ocean and head south. I had to get up around the tip of Cape Moreton first. I figured the best way to do it was slowly. I sailed to the most North West tip of Moreton Island and anchored for the day. The water here is completely different to the southern part of the bay. The inky blue Pacific Ocean water funnels into the bay at this point and the water is as clear as any Pacific Island. You can see the difference between the shallow water and the inky blue deeper water where I'm anchored.

After a restful night it was time to round the cape and head south. The tip of the island is strewn with shallow sand banks and the picture below of the cape shows a nice calm sea. However only a couple of hours earlier as I made my way around the sandbanks where the South East current funnels into the bay the waves were 2 metres high and breaking. It wasn't a pleasant exit.

It was a coincidence that I got a message on my phone before leaving from Peter Kerr's wife Linda. She mentioned that he was crewing on a yacht "Wraith of Odin" to New Zealand and was leaving this morning. As I was round the cape, I saw a yacht in the distance. Sure enough I recognised it as "Wraith of Odin". We passed fairly close and Peter gave me a wave. We later spoke when he returned and he said he recognised the old Westsail a few miles off and thought it was a great coincidence. Below is Wraith heading South East to Lord Howe Island, then to New Zealand.

I was now well and truly in the South East Current and sitting in 82 metres of water.

There was a nice breeze from the South East and Viajero was getting into her groove. We made the passage to Southport overnight in about 15 hours. You can see from the GPS below that it was a quick trip. I have a new speed record at 9 knots. Admittedly 3 of those knots would be attributed to the current, but it was a fast passage.

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I got a call from the office today and John who owns the firm invited me to watch the world titles of the International Contender Class of dinghy. He loves Cutty and finished his invitational conversation with, "make sure you bring your dog".

Below are the contender dinghies racing for the world title.

John has an enormous 60ft luxury motor cruiser furnished with Versace cushions, big screen tv, ice makers and everything else you can imagine. The yacht even has a full time skipper. Whenever I take Cutty onboard I'm very conscious of keeping her on the deck. However John insists that she comes inside as a guest and even gets her to sit on the suede leather lounges. Here is John with the most spoiled dog in the world.

We anchored in the middle of the bay to watch the races. Cutty likes the swim platform at the back. No Cutty I can't put one on the Westsail.

If Cutty ever goes missing I think I'll know where to look first.

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3 February - I've been gradually setting my old troopy up for camping and got away for a couple of days down to the Northern Coast of New South Wales. I have a lot of gear in the truck and have been considering a small trailer to carry more gear in and to take on camping expeditions. I like to get away camping sometimes as it's nice to have a change from the boat and a way to get inland to see some of the beautiful places that aren't accessible by boat.

I finally found one second hand on Ebay (got to love Ebay) but it was all the way down in Melbourne which is almost 2000kms away. I thought I could take a quick trip down and then take a more relaxed trip back doing some camping and testing the camper trailer.

I gave the old Troopy a quick oil change and grease, packed some clothes, my canoe and a couple of fishing rods and started driving South.

Cutty found a nice comfy place in the back and alternated from the passenger seat to the back throughout the trip.

I did the trip to Melbourne in 26 hours, having stopped to sleep for a few hours just north of Sydney. It was a good trip down and the old Troopy was running beautifully. That old diesel truck is 27 years old with 350,000kms on the clock and still runs like a new one.

We made plenty of short stops just to get out and stretch and one of those stops was the famous "Dog on the Tuckerbox" at Gundagai. Below is the story of the Dog on the Tuckerbox and most Australians are familiar with the song, "On the road to Gundagai".

Here is the official "Dog on the Tucker Box" located 5 miles from Gundagai (and the not so official Portuguese Water Dog).

It was back on the road again and we finally made it into Melbourne. I have to say that Sydney and Melbourne are complete nightmares for traffic. They have new automatic tolls where you can't pay cash but have to sign up to some automated ticketing system. It's a pain in the ass and going through those 2 cities was the worst part of the trip.

Below is a map of the route taken.

I had some time to kill before being able to collect the trailer so I took Cutty to a kiddies playground at a local park. She loves these things and runs around playing on the slippery slide.

I'm going to start putting short videos into the journal pages and hopefully this will give you a better feel for what's going on. They are also available through YouTube. Below is just a sample but starting next month I'll use them more. Please let me know if you like the videos or would prefer just the text version. I'm also planning on doing some longer feature videos and I'll post them into the video section.

So here is the video version of the photo above.

We collected the trailer and headed South East and straight out of Melbourne to follow the coast road back to Queensland.

This is the trailer. It's a purpose built off road trailer with basically everything needed for hauling camping gear around, minus the tent (which is on the roof of the troopy). It even has a water tank built in.

The South coast of Victoria is full of forests. In fact this time last year much of the forests in Victoria were burning and it was one of the worst fire disasters in Australian history. I didn't get to see the parts that were burnt and that's probably a good thing as it would have been a sad sight.

The trailer was proving to be a great complement to the Troopy and I was giving it a good test on the forest roads. It traveled extremely well behind the truck and allowed me to clear the back of the truck out.

I had heard of a place called "Glass House" which was a small sliver of land that separated the ocean from the lake. The lake side only opens during a huge flood or king tide and is very calm. It's fairly remote and took a bit of off road driving to get to.

At the end of the dirt trails was Glass House. This is the shore of the lake.

This is the route so far.

It was time to set up camp as I intended spending a few days here exploring the lake, doing some fishing and canoeing. I jack knifed the trailer and truck and the platform on top of the trailer folds out to a huge 2 metre by 2 metre table. The end of the trailer opens up and inside is a big drawer on slides which holds a whole lot of gear. The trailer has a gas stove for cooking but you will see the little copper boiler I have going on in the photo. It's nice to have the atmosphere of a campfire and the boiler boils 2 litres of water in 6 minutes using just twigs and leaves.

Here is camp fully set up and time for a cup of tea.

The water in the lake was really clear and surprisingly warm for somewhere so South. In the top right hand corner of the photo below you might be able to make out the Troopy and tent. The water's edge was literally 20 metres away from the camp site.

We spent a couple of nice restful nights at this campsite and there wasn't another person for miles.

I have an inflatable canoe that I use as a backup tender on the yacht. It is a quality hypalon fabric and is a very efficient way of getting around. I often use it for fishing or instead of the dinghy and have actually found it was good exercise for my shoulder injury,

We went exploring today and did a bit of fishing. I managed to get one flat head which was Cutty's dinner

The roof top tent is a great place to sleep. It's very easy and fast to set up (3 minutes), gets me up off the ground away from any nasties like feral pigs, snakes, spiders and has a big thick mattress for sleeping on. You can see the view from inside. It doesn't get much better than this.

If you are wondering where Cutty sleeps, she gets up in the tent with me. She loves being up high and throughout the night she sits with her head looking over the edge curious about all the animal noises.

Today we did some more exploring of the area and came across this old ruin tucked away in the bushes. This is the reason the place is called "the Glass House".
This Glass Factory was established in 1908. It was set up to manufacture glass telegraph insulators. It is one of only three such furnaces in the world and the only one fuelled entirely by wood.
The finished products were transported by boat to Cross’s Landing and then to Lakes Entrance by road, loaded onto a steam-ship and taken to Bairnsdale, and then finally to Melbourne by train.

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9 February - It was time to leave Glass House and head North / East along the coast and back up through New South Wales. Getting back to the highway involved some more dirt tracks and driving through the forests.

Someone had hit this small wallaby and left it in the middle of the road. Poor little critter was well and truly dead by the time I found him. I moved him to the side of the road and continued on.

All was going well and I was rapt with the new trailer setup. I was about 20 kilometres away from Eden and doing around 100kph when I heard a big bang and loud scraping. I looked in the rear view mirror and this is what I found.

the trailer had parted company from the draw bar and was hanging on by a thread of a metal weld. I was so lucky that it happed here firstly because it was a straight smooth stretch of road and no cars were around, secondly it could have happened when I was hours down a forest trail with no telephone reception.

Now here is the positive part of the story. Even though I had bought this trailer second hand and it was a couple of years old, I decided I should immediately ring the manufacturer. I spoke to the owner of the business and he said send him a photo from my phone and he will have a truck out there immediately.

To my amazement, within 30 minutes a truck appeared and the owner of the trailer manufacturing business had arranged for the trailer to be taken to an engineering shop at Eden for repairs. Even though the trailer was out of warranty, the manufacturer had agreed to repair it. That is great service.

So off to Eden we went.

While the trailer was in for repair tonight I had to camp out of the back of the Troopy. That meant transferring all the gear from the trailer back into the truck. Damn, I had just got rid of all that stuff.

Here is the camp kitchen set up in the back of the truck.

The route to Eden.

The next morning while the trailer was being repaired I took the opportunity to look around Eden. It's a stunning coastal town famous for whaling in the early days. Here was an unusual sight. A bit sad though to think these poor animals are going to decorate someone's wall.

Cutty wasn't going to miss out on her swim. In the background you will see some yachts on moorings. Eden is a beautiful anchorage and one that I'll definitely be spending some time at when I head south.

Below is the trawler fishing fleet of Eden.

At about midday I checked up on the progress to the trailer. To my surprise the repairs were almost complete. They had removed the tool box on the front and welded in 2 supporting brackets and added some gussets for extra support at the front and underneath. It was now better than new.

The new brackets painted to match the rest of the trailer and toolbox bolted back into position.

Almost ready to go after just one day in the workshop.

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10 February - We left Eden in the afternoon and drove for a few hours north. I found a little road leading off the highway that looked like it might end up like a good camping spot. At the end of the road this is what I found.

It was a small fresh water river. The water was beautiful and clear and Cutty immediately jumped in for a swim.

I thought it would be a good spot to spend the night and do some fishing. I currently fish using lures and a baitcaster. I like this setup as it suits the type of fishing I generally do. It also avoids having to use bait which requires refrigeration and ends up stinking everything up. I'm really keen to learn fly fishing and this would be a great place to practice.

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11 February - After packing up camp this morning it was back on the road to head north. The highway meanders through the countryside which has had lots of rain recently. Cutty enjoys taking in the view.

This is pretty country and famous for cheese.

Where there is cheese there are cows.... or is it the other way around?

Cutty had her first encounter with a cow down in Tasmania last year. She was very keen to make their acquaintance again, this time in Southern New South Wales. The cows were very interested in Cutty but Cutty was a bit wary and decided that this was close enough.

The next stop was Batemans Bay. This was a pretty little township although much bigger and more of a tourist town than Eden. We arrived just to catch the sunset.

The route to Batemans Bay.

I was making some dinner when I noticed a big spider sitting on the side of the truck. This isn't unusual and they are pretty harmless (unless they bite you). I gently relocated him to a place well away from where I intended to camp for the night.

Within minutes another spider was crawling across the ground. In total 4 of these big spiders had exited the Troopy. I recall driving through some pretty thick forest with branches brushing up against the truck. I wonder if some of these fellas hitched a ride. This hairy fella has a healthy set of fangs. My finger is in the photo to show the size of the spider. Not because I was prodding it with my bare finger.

and the reason I wasn't putting my finger too close, check out those fangs!!! I wasn't even game to call him 4 eyes!

The next morning I awoke to a glorious sunrise and calm water. I made some breakfast and sat on the rocks beside the water trying my luck at catching a fish.

The entire coast line south of Sydney and down to Melbourne is so beautiful and a cruising sailor's paradise.

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I had intended spending longer coming back home but I was getting a bit anxious and started to put some distance behind me. The photo below is about 2 hours south of Sydney city. It's a huge mountain range and the view from the top is spectacular. I was going to try and spend the night here but camping is not allowed. So I pushed on.

I went through the congested, polluted nightmare that is Sydney (I actually got a headache breathing in the fumes) and kept driving North to Gosford.

I spent the day at Gosford on the water and made the decision to head back to Queensland that night. I was feeling pretty alert and had about 10 hours driving ahead of me.

The route to Gosford.

The rest of the trip was uneventful and as usual the old Troopy just chugged along. I love that old truck and it's amazing how many people come up to me when I'm in it and tell me they use to have one and that selling it was the worst thing they ever did. In many ways it's like a Westsail. They were overbuilt, slow but very capable and have a rugged and simple style. The people who have owned them tell me stories about the places they went in them and how some of their best memories involve their old Troopy.

I'm pretty attached to the old truck now especially because the previous owner was also attached to it and told me that his old dog died in the back. (natural causes). When he sold it to me his wife actually cried. So now I feel a sense of responsibility to make sure its well cared for and they asked if I could send some photos to them from time to time of any trips I do.

Despite this road trip being more rushed than I had originally planned and the trailer incident, it was a nice little adventure and a change from being on the water. In fact had the trip just gone smoothly it probably wouldn't have been as much fun and in the end it all worked out well. I just have to get the rear of the trailer fixed now.

In total the round trip including all of the diversions was just under 4000kms. I'm not a huge fan of driving and sail is definitely the way to travel (unless you are in a rush ...... and towing a trailer of course).

Below is the return route. Since most readers aren't from Australia I thought I'd give you a bigger view of the map of Oz to get a better idea of the distance involved.

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I got back to the boat this afternoon and everything was in order after my time away. There has been some severe storms and lots of rain (see the water is so murky) but fortunately everything was closed up and not a drop of water got inside. It's good to be home.

I still have some varnishing to finish up and I might get a couple more coats on the caprails. I have to get out of here in a few weeks so there should be some more sailing photos coming up.

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15 February - One of the things I love most about living onboard a yacht is the concept of self sufficiency. I make my own electricity from solar and wind, can make water from sea water with a desalinator, can catch fish for food, but what about growing vegetables? Obviously I can't have a garden onboard but I recently discovered "sprouting". Sprouts are exceptionally high in nutritional value and are considered by many nutritional experts a "super food". They are also very easy and fast to grow.

After experimenting with a few different sprouts I have settled on mung beans. These are used a lot in Asian cuisine and can be added to stir fries or just put on a sandwhich or in a salad as greens. Below are the mung beans prior to sprouting.

I found these great sealable cannisters at the supermarket and they have a strainer basket inside them. The one on the right I use for storing the beans and the one on the left with the basket inside, for sprouting.

The process is so simple. You soak the beans in the container for anywhere from 8 - 12 hours. (see the water in the left container)

Drain them off and remove the straining basket and hang somewhere. You need to rinse them about every 12 hours and below is the result after just 24 hours.

They aren't ready just yet and they just require more rinsing.

Another 24 hours and the sprouts are ready. Look at the difference in volume, they practically fill the straining basket.

Here is a close up of the sprouts. They even have leaves forming. The little bean in the front is the original bean just for comparison.

Maybe I'm easily excited about stupid stuff but I think that is so cool. What's more, that little basket of fresh sprouts only cost me about 20 cents.

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SURFING DOG - I took Cutty to the beach today. She is such a crazy water dog. She is now starting to body surf the waves. She actually swims out through the shore break, turns around and tries to catch the waves back in. The waves generally just go right over the top of her but she seems to enjoy it.

After about an hour, I think she has finally had enough.

23 February - Here is a video of Cutty at the beach on a different day. There was a pretty serious rip on this day so I didn't let her go out too far and she had to be satisfied with the shore break.

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26 February - I was going to save this video until next months ship's log however I figured that the Westsailors out there would love to see it (if they haven't already). This is the 'actual' footage of the Westsail caught in 'The Perfect Storm'. The dialogue is a little misleading since the true story is that the skipper was forced to abandon his ship by the Coast Guard despite him believing it was not unsafe. To the skipper's credit the yacht washed up on a beach a few days later, undamaged and was able to be pulled back into the water and sailed away. Satori is still cruising today, albeit with new owners.

When watching the video keep in mind that the waves don't look that big due to the angle of the cameraman in the helicopter, but look at the 200ft Coast Guard vessel and container ship. The waves must have been at least 50ft if not more and that little Westsail seems to be doing just fine.