Ruby Slippers

It is dotted with parks and gardens, and its many harbours have been used to their fullest advantage.  The Sydney Opera House is just as impressive as the pictures you see of it, and the Harbour Bridge stands proudly over the harbour.  One of the adventures you can have in Sydney is climbing up to the very top of the bridge, protected by belts and ropes and a guide, and standing at the tip-top, over 400 feet above the water.  We chose not to do that, although Molly and Jessie wanted to.  Fortunately, the weather was drizzly most of the time we were there.

We took a boat ride around the harbour, and were amazed at how huge the bay is.  You could easily spend two weeks by sailboat, exploring all the little fingers and nooks of the harbour.  There are villages, shopping centers, museums, and botanic gardens placed strategically along the harbour.  The buses, boats and city trains are easy to navigate.  It reminded me a little of Vancouver, San Francisco, and Seattle, with a bit of Paris thrown in for atmosphere. 

Before we left for Sydney, we drove to a housing development just north of Coffs Harbour, which the Customs guy told us about.  There are many lots in this development; some have houses built on them, and some are yet to be sold.  Each lot looks to be about 5 acres.  For some reason, there are hundreds of kangaroos in this development, all hopping about freely.  They seem to like the short, manicured lawns of the houses, rather than the bushy, un-tended empty lots.  We were there about dusk, and the kangaroos were grazing in front of the houses, keeping a lazy eye on the traffic going past the houses.  There must have been about 50 of them in front of one particular house; it looked like a flock of seagulls, really BIG seagulls, nibbling away while the sun set. It was a strange sight!

Speaking of birds, the sulfur-crested parrot is as ubiquitous around here as sparrows are in the northwest.  Sometimes, a tree will have so many of them in it that the noise is unbearable as you walk by.  They are big and beautiful – bright white with a soft yellow comb.  We went to a botanical garden in Sydney, where the parrots and Lorikeets were tame enough to land on our shoulders and eat peanuts from our hands.  There were times when the four of us each had two or three birds on our shoulders, heads and arms.  If you happened to run out of peanuts, they got a little testy and kept nipping at your hands or ears, whatever was closest.

The weather here has been the biggest disappointment so far.  It has been rainy, and windy, with huge seas.  The surge in the marina keeps our boat tugging and dancing constantly.  We are anxious to head north, but there is a 3-knot current coming south right now, and big ocean swells, as well as 30-40 knot winds.  There was one pretty nice day last week where we rented boogie boards and surf boards and spent the day in the water.  There is a great beach right at the marina, with good waves and a nice landing.  We could hardly get Molly and Jessie out of the water – they must have been in there for 6 hours, at least! 

We haven’t encountered any of the “101 things that can kill you in Australia” yet, but we have seen many of the animals we had hoped to see – some were in a nature park, but some were out in the wild.  Check out the media gallery for a sampling of our first couple of weeks in this huge and beautiful country!   ~   Jeanna

We are now in Southport, Queensland.  There is big rivalry here in Australia between the states; even the license plates show it.  The New South Wales plates say “NSW – the first state”.  Another one is “Victoria – the place to be”.  A very accurate description is “Queensland – the sunshine state”, and we’re very happy to be here after rainy NSW.  Back in Coffs Harbor, everyone was so helpful and friendly and impressed that we sailed all the way here from the States… until we said we were going up the coast soon, and what was it like there?  Then they just sort of clammed up.  It was like, “What’s wrong with our part of Australia?  Why in the world would you want to go to Queensland?”  It was pretty odd.  

On the subject of us ‘sailing all the way here from the States’, we’ve heard some really funny comments from people walking the docks when they pass our boat and see the hailing port.  Sometimes it’s just “Seattle, Washington.  Wow, that’s a long ways to sail,” and on a rainy day we heard “Oh, there’s a boat from Seattle, Washington.”  “Well, at least they’re used to this weather!”  Once, in New Zealand, we got “Seattle, WA… does that mean Western Australia?”  “No, that’s in America (except it sort of sounded like ‘Amelica’).”  And just the other day, from what sounded like a little boy and his dad: “Look, that boat’s from America.”  “They’re from America?!”  I think you can tell which one is which.

The song “It’s a Small World After All” really is true!  We just met a man working at a marine store here who remembered us from the Marquesas.  We had an excess of bananas on board, and Jessie and I met him while we were kayaking around the anchorage trying to give them away.  What a coincidence!     ~ Molly

we made it up the coast to Southport, just south of Brisbane, and just north of Surfer’s Paradise.  It looks like Miami Beach around here – glitzy hotels, hundreds of miles of golden-sand beaches, expensive little boutiques, and nice restaurants.  The marina is very chic; there are glass automatic doors at the top of each gate, that slide apart as you swipe your card against the sensor.  I am sure we will only be here a couple of days, since our life’s savings are already earmarked for other things.

It was still raining and blowing in Coffs Harbour as we left, but about 30 miles north, the sky was blue and the wind was at our beam.  The ocean swells were still big from all the wind, and it was a roll-y ride.  I can’t seem to get a handle on my seasickness problem.  This time, I tried the patch that you put behind your ear, and it is supposed to keep you from feeling sick.  Didn’t work.  I guess I will just keep trying different products until something clicks.  This time, I was alone in my misery; Molly didn’t get sick at all.

Today, our first full day in Queensland, is a holiday:  ANZAC Day – 25 April – is probably Australia’s most important national occasion.  It marks the anniversary of the first major military action fought by Australian and New Zealand forces during the First World War.  ANZAC stands for Australian and New Zealand Army Corps.  The soldiers in those forces quickly became known as ANZACs, and the pride they soon took in that name endures to this day.  Flags were at half-mast, and there were memorial events everywhere.  All the stores were closed, and the beaches were packed.  Therefore, we have not been able to do much in the way of discovery.

As a greeting, people (really, everyone!) here say, “How’re you going?”  Not “How are you doing,” and not “How is it going,” but “How are you going?”  I always want to answer, “By foot,” or “By boat,” but I am a good little tourist, so I just answer, “Fine, and you?” 

On our sail up the coast, I was pondering the instruments we have on board that determine our speed.  We have the knot meter, which simply tells us how fast we are going through the water.  Even if we were going around in circles, it could read 7 knots.  The “speed over ground” indicator tells us how fast we are going over the bottom of the ocean.  If the currents and wind are helping us or hindering us, we could be going faster or slower than what the knot meter is reading.  Ahhh, but the VMG instrument is my favorite; Velocity Made Good.  It tells you how fast you are going toward your goal.  Once you plug in to the computer where you want to go, the VMG tells you how well you are doing at reaching that goal.  If you are sailing with the wind, and the wind isn’t going the direction you want it too, you might even have a negative VMG.  It’s thrilling to watch the boat’s progress toward your chosen goal. 

I was thinking that it would be great if the world had a VMG meter.  We could check our progress against the big things in life; poverty, peace, pollution, loving our neighbor, etc.  If we all had personal VMGs, we could see how we are marching toward our personal goals: getting the kids through school, moving ahead in our jobs, finding God.  If we found out that we were moving away from our goal, we could make some adjustments and get back on track.  I hope Bill Gates reads this.  They could include it in the next Windows upgrade.

Back home in Enumclaw, four of my family members were having birthdays around this time.  Today we set up a Skype concert for them.  There were about 12 people gathered in the warm light of the computer back home, and Jessie and Molly performed four songs for the birthday people.  Jessie played the guitar on all four songs, and Molly sang “Let It Be” while Jessie played.  We have a camera on our computer, so the family got to see the girls’ show.  Fortunately, we had a good connection, and everyone clapped and cheered.  It was fun to connect, from lo these many miles.  It’s a good way for Grandma to keep up with how big Molly and Jessie are getting, so she won’t be so shocked when we get home!  ~  Jeanna

about 4 hours by car north of Brisbane.  It is often the first Australian Port of Entry for cruisers coming from Fiji and Vanuatu.  Australia is a very, very flat country.  You can go miles and miles on the roads here, without even going up a little rise.  There are acres of sugar cane fields on each side of the roads.  Bundaberg is famous for their sugar, their rum, and their ginger beer.  We’ve not seen “hide nor hair” of a cow, sheep or pig in this area – it’s all about the sugar! 

Today we went to a huge Sunday market.  There were hundreds of stalls, with people selling everything from old books and used clothes, to fresh vegetables and fruits.  There was a guitar player, entertaining the masses with old Marty Robbins cowboy tunes.  Seedless watermelons were $2.00 each – huge and juicy.  We had rented a car for the day, to stock up on fresh goods for our trip north to the Great Barrier Reef.  Now our coffers are full; the nets in the cockpit are full of apples and oranges, and the nets inside are full of avocados, lemons, limes and tomatoes. 

We went to a bird sanctuary about 45 minutes from Bundaberg.  We always seem to gravitate toward animal exhibits.  This place was a huge area, covered with tall netting, where the birds flew around free as, well, birds.  There were lorikeets, macaws, all sorts of parrots, and plenty of finches, doves, quail and cockatiels.  It was very musical in there, and the birds seemed very happy.  Some of the parrots could talk, and Molly and Jessie spent a lot of time near one of the birds, saying “good morning”, “what happened?” and, “I love you.”  My favorite bird was a Bleeding-Heart Pigeon, who had a small circle of red feathers right in the center of his breast, that looked exactly like a gunshot wound.  I don’t know what God’s thinking was there, but it looked very authentic. We decided that we need an aviary when we get home, as well as a greenhouse full of palms, bromeliads, and tropical flowers. After watching the birds for a couple of hours, we had a picnic lunch of watermelon, fresh fruit, and avocados on fresh bread.

At the aviary, there was a nice young man working with the birds, filling their food dishes and adding gravel to their living areas.  I commented that this must be a wonderful place to hang out every day, with all the beautiful, melodic birds.  He said, “Yes, this is a great place to work.”  Then he looked at me, and I could have sworn he said, “Nice dress.”  I pondered this for a moment, since I was wearing shorts.  It wasn’t until he walked away, whistling and pushing his wheelbarrow, that I realized he had said, “No stress”, in his heavy Australian accent.  We seem to catch about half of what people are saying here…

Tomorrow we will head up toward the Whitsunday Islands, and explore the reef for a few days, then head east to Vanuatu and Fiji.  This whole coast is very shallow; there are a lot of places we can’t get in to.  Many of the anchorages are up shallow rivers and inlets.  On the other hand, the sky has been as blue as God’s own eye, and the sunsets have been a watermelon/apricot sorbet color each night. 

I am looking forward to getting back to the less civilized areas of the South Pacific.  New Zealand and Australia are so much like the United States; there are freeways and 24-hour grocery stores, Target, K-Mart and KFC.  I miss the little islands where you have to work a little harder to get your groceries, where the only way around is by foot or horse, and where everyone you meet has time to say hello.

In the May issue of 48 North, there is an interview that Rich Hazelton did with Jim back in January, when he was home for the boat show. You can access it on line at www.48north.com/may_2008/rard/rard2.htm.

There are a few new pictures in the media gallery, too.
Happy Mother’s Day, Mom!    ~Jeanna
 

with a couple of over-nighters thrown in for fun.  I haven’t been sick once!  It must be because I poured my soul out to you, dear readers, which took all the angst away.  We have been pulling in to the anchorages and marinas between 3 and 5 in the morning.  It is very peaceful, dark, and a little spooky at that time of day. 

Last night, near the entrance to this marina, there were about 25 large ships lined up across the horizon, right in front of us. They were waiting for clearance, or a pilot boat or something.  It was quite an armada that we had to weave through, on a dark moonless night.  The last thing you want to see on your watch is a 400-foot ship in your path.  25 of them were almost more than I could bear.  I really wanted to wake Jim up, but I prevailed and conquered.  Jim had another set of boats to go through when he went on watch after me. 

We have discovered that it is impossible to check out of Australia, and then go to the Whitsunday Islands, then the Great Barrier Reef, legally.  They want you to check out and get out of town – immediately.  We are now in Mackay Harbour, the last stop for a customs check-out.  It looks like we will have to go to the Whitsundays, then back to Mackay, then through the GBR, without stopping to dive.  Of course, if we have to check something on the bottom of the boat, while we are near the reef, well….

Each country has its own little rules about customs check-in and out.  They are all quite different, and sometimes it seems like they make the rules up as they go.  You might get a different answer on a Friday than you would on a Monday.  This was particularly true in the South Pacific.  A bit of cash or some baked goods, or a can of corned beef, would get you what you needed from the customs agent.  They are a little more official in New Zealand and Australia; they even have printed matter with the rules on it!

We haven’t met a boat with kids on it since we left New Zealand, and Molly and Jessie are ready to mutiny.  All Mom wants to do is school, and all Dad wants to do is work on the boat. Where is the fun?  Where are the crocodiles?  Where are the koalas?  WHERE ARE THE KIDS?  Our friends on “Fafner” are in the Red Sea, just leaving Egypt.  Our friends on “Azul” are still in New Zealand, and will be in Fiji about 2 weeks after we leave there!  The kid boat, “Skedemongske” (not easy for us, either), is not too far away.  They are in Brisbane, and heading north up the coast, right behind us.  There is something to live for, after all!

Time for school!  ~  Jeanna