Australia Preps

We are back in Brisbane after a few weeks in New Zealand - by airplane, not boat. A posting on New Zealand will follow shortly. Loved NZ, but more on that later. In any case, we are preparing Ainia for a departure in about 10 days time (~May 8th?), after all the work is done. We are treating our time here as a mid-circumnavigation refit, a time to fix both major problems and minor ones that the last 11,000 miles have produced. The things we are doing include: • The big one is taking the mast down to do several things. We replaced the standing rigging in Florida, mostly at anchor, and the change went very well, until we got to the final upper shroud. Could not get the spreader cap off and dangling in a bosun's chair and then pulling out to the end of the spreader did not allow much torque to be produced, so it stayed up. The rigging replacement was really precautionary since I could not determine when it had last been done. The one old shroud is still OK, but it will be nice to get it done. Also there is an aluminum wiring conduit in the mast that has come partly loose which has meant that all of the wiring inside the mast has been damaged. We will get the conduit reattached and replace all the wiring - not a bad idea since I think it is all original. Bristol's approach to wiring was not to use the modern-style, tinned wire, but to use wire that is much bigger diameter than is the norm today, so it is a reasonable compromise, but wiring does wear out in a marine environment so it is a good thing to get it done. • We have had normal sort of repairs and maintenance. The liferaft had to go for its every three years' servicing ($715AUD even after the sales tax exemption for foreign boats), the dinghy needed a couple of holes patched and a replacement towing ring on the bow ($390), the sails needed attention for various wear issues ($490). Don't know what the mast work will be but it will be pricey since we have to pay for a large crane to come to the marina twice. They don't take masts down here very often and they haul from about 1 meter below the masthead so the crane needs a long boom. In any case, we are doing our bit to help the Aussie economy. • We are also doing many smaller, less costly jobs - like repairs and re-waterproofing the bimini and dodger, engine maintenance, head maintenance, trying to stop a few leaks in ports and hatches, getting the electric autopilot to work better (we don't use if very often at all but it would be nice to have when we are putting up the whisker pole whenn a second set of hands would help a lot. We were going to get hauled but have decided to use a diver instead to clean the bottom (it is very bad), install zinc on shaft, and cleanout the throughulls that seem to have picked up barnacles. Can't do these things ourselves since the harbour is loaded with jellyfish and even if they are not the poisonous ones they are still not nice. Let the diver do it since he has full body coverage. We may get the diver to replace the cable on the centerboard as well (again this is preventative, not essential right now. Not getting much done today as it started to rain yesterday afternoon and by 9 am there had been 81 mm of rain (>3 inches) and it has poured all day today as well and will not stop until morning. This is supposed to be dry season too. The marine forecast was for 34 to 40 knots so glad we are here rather than outside. Routing There was a question asked about going to Chagos. There are a couple of places you can visit and you must arrange a permit beforehand with the British Colonial Office in London. The cost is 50 pounds sterling per week. We are only going to be staying there a week for a break along the way.

Version 1.1 of our route

More research and more thinking and we have decided to modify our route a bit. Originally we planned on going from Darwin, Australia into Indonesia and then stopping at Christmas Island and Cocos-Keeling Islands, which are Aussie territory, on the way to Mauritius and South Africa. There is a problem with this however. First, our Oz multi-entry visa would expire while we were in Indonesia so we would need to get another visa (don't get me started on wondering why Australis requires visas for Canadians). More importantly, when we arrived at Christmas Island we would be subject to the draconian quarantine laws again. Whatever food we bought in Indonesia - where I assume the food would be terrific and cheap, would be seized. We would have to provision again in CK, where apparently the cost is about 2x that of mainland Oz - which is not cheap to start at. The quarantine fee is $355 AUD or around $370 Canadian or US + the cost of the costly food, so it would be easy to see this being an extra $1000.

SO, the new plan is to go from Indonesia directly to Chagos Archipelago which is due south of India at around 5°S. The islands are uninhabited British territories after the Brits kicked all the people off so they could make a major military base at Diego Garcia Island (you are not allowed anywhere near there). There is another possible advantage here - you are crossing the Indian Ocean a bit further north so the winds might be a little less. Although the trip from Chagos to Mauritius would be a bit more rugged - a bit more on the beam than running. We have to decide to go either north of Java or south from Bali. Not much difference in distance. Bali to Chagos is 2565 nm, while Chagos to Mauritius is 1145.

Plan for the next sailing season

Sorry for not keeping the blog up, but have not had much to say. I have been spending a lot of time working on my China book, it is going pretty well so far - about 75% done I would say. Have to start spending more time on the epublishing part of it now I think.

Below you will see our plan for the year+ following leaving Brisbane, likely in late April or early May. We have given a lot of thought to whether we should spend more time away or not, possibly going to Malaysia/Thailand or even to China, but we have decided to go a little faster since any alternate destination means at least one year more of travel.

Anyway, here it is is:

Planning for Brisbane Onward v 1.0

1. Brisbane to Cape Henrietta Maria - taking our time for Great Barrier Reef and Whitsundays

2. Cape Henrietta Maria to Darwin - go relatively quickly, eg directly across the Gulf of Carpenteria

3. Darwin Rally - Starts Jul 28th, but should arrive in Darwin by Jul 14th
-Darwin to Bali (multiple stops) 950 nm
- First stop is Kupang on Timor which is 420 nm
- Bali stop is Sept 23 -7

4. Bali to Christmas Island (may go directly to CK?)
- Bali to Christmas - 570 nm

5. Christmas to Cocos-Keeling
- Christmas to CK - 520 nm

5. Cocos Keeling to Mauritius
- stop in Rodriques?
- CK to M 2382nm

7. Mauritius to Durban (possible stop in Reunion) M to Reunion 128 nm; R to D 1446 nm; try to arrive in mid-November

8. Coastwise to Cape Town

9. Cape Town to St Helena go to Namibia? CT to St H 1693 nm

10. St Helena to Ascension and or Salvador/ Fernando de Noronha, Brazil
- St H to Ascension 697 nm
- St H to Salvador 1907 nm
- would want to arrive in Salvador for Carnival; note: Salvador Carnival 2013 starts Feb 7th for about 5 days

11. Brazil to Grenada - with various stops along the way; arrive late March?
- stops in Caribbean where we have not been or where we would like to go again e.g. Saba, Barbuda

12. in Caribbean - April/May

13. Caribbean to Bermuda late May to early June

14. Bermuda to NYC or Newport or Halifax - depart mid-June

15. to Nova Scotia (or stay in NYC for winter)

16. to Newfoundland

17. up the St Lawrence

To the Land of Oz(tralia)

Many nights we would get flying fish onboard. Our record was 11 but most were quite short and skinny. This is a different species that we only got a few times. They ended up in the frying pan for breakfast and were quite tasty.

We had a very good passage to Brisbane from Port Vila. It is about 1050 miles in total to the entrance to the shipping channel that leads to Brisbane (more on that later) and it took us 8 days so not too bad. The first seven days were beam reaching in 10 to 15 knots so it was just about ideal. The only problem was that it was really chilly, especially at night. I assumed that as we got closer to the coast of Australia the temps should go up as there is a south-flowing current along the coast – and, silly me, I thought this meant that warm water would be moved from the tropics to the north. Silly me! The closer we got the colder the water got until around the entrance to Moreton Bay where Brisbane is located, water temps were less than 20°C. At night June looked like the Michelin Man, except I don’t think he wears a toque.

And this was daytime. At night June really got dressed for the cold weather.

The last 30 hours or so, we had more wind, in the 20 to 30 knot range, but the direction was still good so it was not a problem. Then the wind quit – it was about 5 pm and we were 30 miles or so from the channel entrance. We thought, “Its been a good run, we’ll motor in”. Started the Westerbeke and the alarm sounded (it is a pretty feeble sound to be sure). Shut down and opened the engine compartment and there was smoke all over. Turned out that the pipe nipple that joins the engine flange to the exhaust elbow had failed and the exhaust was no longer connected to the engine. I knew that exhaust elbows were prone to failure but this nipple had looked pretty good. Another opportunity for problem solving (which is a critical part of cruising for sure). The solution was was fiberglass-reinforced JB Weld. The latter is a two part epoxy with metal filler that is quite wonderful for fixing metal things that are exposed to heat. I added a band of fiberglass tape and we waited for a few hours while it all hardened.

It worked beautifully (JB Weld is a very good thing to have onboard!) and we got to the shipping channel at midnight, just as two ships were arriving to make it interesting. The tide had also turned against us, it was raining and pitch-black. Other than that, just fine. This long, winding shipping channel has been dredged to allow ships to access the busy port of Brisbane through a large area of sand banks. I imagine they have to keep dredging because of the shape of the coast here and materials being carried into the bay from the Brisbane and other rivers.

We got to the Customs dock about 11 am and had to be cleared by Customs/Immigration and Quarantine officials. Aussie officials have a terrible reputation among cruisers for the strict rules they have, costly entry, and strict enforcement. We certainly cannot agree with this at all. We found them to be professional, knowledgeable, friendly (like all Aussies we have met), and helpful. They do have strict quarantine regs and will seize, meats, dairy, and fruits and vegetables. We knew about this beforehand and made sure not to have much of these things on board – and they do charge A$325 to take away your food and any garbage onboard. Customs is free although you must have visas arranged before arrival. The ones we got allow multiple entries for one year and cost A$105/person. So, altogether it was A$535 with the Australian dollar worth about 5 cents more than the US buck.

From the customs dock we were about 2 hours away from Scarborough Marina where Ainia will be staying for the next several months while the cyclone season passes to the north of us. This marina is very nice with excellent docks and showers, and good facilities on site (terrific marine store, stainless steel, refrigeration repairs, etc). It is a fair hike by bus/train into downtown Brisbane (which we have only done to get to the intercity train station).

Our first impressions of Australia are very positive. Scarborough and adjacent areas are very attractive and clean. The people are great and you can find basically everything you want – as you would expect in such an advanced country. The economy is going like gang-busters compared to North America and Europe with unemployment less than 5% and considerable inflation worries. Prices are very high for most things, especially at the grocery store. Worst example, bananas are more than A$11/kg and limes A$1.25 each. Even things like Coca-Cola are bad at A$3.50 for 2 litres. Almost nothing is as cheap as in Canada and apparently wages are similar here and there. Real estate in Brisbane is not too bad, perhaps a bit cheaper than Toronto but Sydney is much higher.

The marina is pricey, at least partially because of how it is structured financially. The waterlot (and perhaps the land) are owned by the Queensland department of transportation. They have leased it to the marina company until 2034. The docks are owned by individuals - either for their own use or for investment. The dock we are on would cost A$44,000 to buy today (there is a market for such things) plus A$2000 a year for a maintenance fee. So the money we are paying (around A$600 a month (there is also a liveaboard fee)) goes to the owner of the dock - minus some sort of management fee for the marina I assume. On top of this, you pay A$22/week/person for living aboard the boat. This goes to the marina and pays for electricity, washrooms, etc. In total, the cost is similar to what we were paying in Jersey City, within a mile or so of downtown Manhattan.

Oz seemed like an interesting hybrid of the US and England. As much as Aussies pretend to hate the ‘pommie bastards’ of their homeland, they seem very English in many ways, much more so than in English Canada. They also seem less global in their thinking than most Canadians. For example, when we talked about the high cost of fruits and vegetable, several people indicated that they had to support Aussie farmers even if prices were higher. People also said that they should be doing more processing of the mining products they send off to China, India, and elsewhere. These were the sort of sentiments you heard commonly in Canada 20 years ago, but not so much now as we have gotten used to how a globalized economy works. This is not to say that Australia is not globalized – their booming economy relies on the export of their abundant mining products to Asia. I checked and Australia ended the ‘White Australia Policy’ 40 years ago, but with the exception of Sydney, it still seems to be a very white country. (To be fair we have not seen that much of the country yet.)

We are now in Canada for a month or so (for Ian and Ariane’s wedding primarily). We took the train from Brisbane to Sydney to see something of the country. A pleasant 14 hours but even slower than Via Rail in Canada. From Sydney we flew on Air Canada back to the Great White North. From here June is going to go to Beijing to visit her parents so we booked tickets separately. Hers included a flight that went to Toronto with a stop in Vancouver. I tried to book the same flight and it was $200 more than taking the same plane to Vancouver and then transferring to a different Air Canada flight to Toronto. Being cheap I took the latter option of course and arrived in Toronto within 15 minutes of her flight. I will be returning to Brisbane on October 19^th (going west you lose a day, so I will be leaving here on the 17^th).

The weather here is not nearly as nice, but it is pleasant to experience a Canadian autumn which is the nicest time of the year in many ways. Bananas here are are C$1.47/kg – the only problem is that they lack the wonderful flavour of bananas eaten within a few miles of where they were grown. Similar problem with all tropical fruits and veg. You can buy them here, but they are not the same.

***

Q and A

Richard asked about setting up to dump sewage overboard, starting with a boat setup for the Great Lakes i.e. holding tank only. We have a holding tank on our aft head only, but you could do the same for both. You need to have two Y-valves, a T fitting, and a bilge pump (Whale 10 or Henderson). One goes on the head discharge hose on the downhill side. This allows you to send stuff to the holding tank or directly overboard. The other goes on discharge hose from the holding tank and allows you to direct stuff to the deck fitting if you ever find a pumpout (haven't seen one since Chesapeake Bay) or to the overboard discharge, the one direct from the head, where you connect the T. The bilge pump goes on the discharge line from the holding tank Y-valve to the T fitting. Ours is attached to the bottom of the plywood that makes up the aft berth with a slot cut so that the handle sticks up above the berth for use. HINT: (which we have not followed as we should) Work these valves regularly, especially when you leave them in the position for direct discharge overboard (which is most of the time). Otherwise you will have to disassemble to switch them. Ask me how I know.

Questions about water and sewage

Some comments/questions from Rhys aka Marc are worth a reply.

• Marc mentioned squalls in 2009. He crewed with us from the Chesapeake to the USVI in November and we had more than a week of strong winds and fast sailing. While our knockdown this year is unique in our experience we have had quite a few experiences with winds above 35 knots, but not for days on end. We had more than 30 knots for perhaps 8 hours just before our arrival here for example. We are leaving for Australia in a couple of days and Passageweather.com who are brave enough to predict a week away are suggesting winds around 25 knots in a week’s time. The passage is more than 1000 miles so we will not be in before this particular system and it could be much stronger before we get there.
• He also mentioned that he expects to have 3 tanks for potable water and 1 tank for utility water. A couple of thoughts about this … you have little control over the water quality you can get. Some times you will have 4 tanks of the good stuff; other times, the only drinking water you will have will give from your watermaker and you can make it as you need it so one tank for this purpose is ample and you can use the other three for lesser quality water. Also, of course, the amount of water you need for drinking and cooking is really not very much so be flexible in the allocation of tanks.

• We have two water filters. One is a Home Depot GE unit and it is right after the pressure pump so all the water we use goes through it. The other is a Seagull filter which provides a high standard of filtration. It is mounted below the galley counter and only feeds one faucet there. This water we use for cooking and drinking. The Seagull filter is a great unit but ridiculously pricey. The smallest unit, which we have, is around $500 and the cartridges are almost $100 but it is worth it I think. We have a foot pump in the galley, along with a sea water pump, but never use either. With a watermaker and rainfall collection you don’t have to be as careful with the water as the Hiscocks were 30 years ago. In fact, one ongoing concern I have is that the water can sit too long in the tanks. I wonder how pristine it is after a month or so?

• Overboard discharge – We have a holding tank on one toilet but not the other. In the Eastern Caribbean last year we tended to use one head for peeing and the other for more serious affairs. We would pump out when we left harbour to go somewhere but never had to make a special trip. The reality though is that almost no boats have holding tanks (I would guess less than 5%) and everyone just dumps. Makes one not want to go for a morning swim in many locales when people are just getting up. The worst case scenario is Georgetown in the Bahamas where there are as many as 600 boats anchored in mid-winter and you are told not to swim in the harbour. And this is in a very large harbour that is open at both ends and with a good tidal flow happening. In the Pacific no one seems to use or have holding tanks. Here the anchorages are not as crowded as in the Bahamas or Caribbean and are much deeper (most are >35’)

Vanuatu

Vanuatu is a beautiful spot and very popular with Aussie and Kiwi tourists.

We went on a tour of Vanuatu and went to a 'kastom', as in traditional, village where the locals supplement their income by putting on a show and selling their handicrafts to tourists. These guys danced quite well before posing for pics with us. They look fierce and might even be so. The last instance of cannibalism (on one of the more remote islands) was in 1968.


June with a 'friendly' spider as the tour guide described him. From leg to leg he was close to 8 inches long.


People in Vanuatu were very friendly. This youngster just wanted to show us his pig.

Finally a really good tradewinds passage! We are now in Port Vila, Vanuatu after coming 580 miles from Suva, Fiji. This passage is more of what we expected. We had runs of 130, 138, 148, and 160 n.m. (just think how fast we would have gone if it was a 10 day passage) with just the poled-out genoa up and the wind behind us. About halfway through the trip we gybed from port to starboard and that was it. We also had only one rain shower, although June was lying on the cockpit seat one day when a perfectly-aimed wave slapped against the hull and dropped a gallon or so of water exactly on her body and nowhere else.

Vanuatu is a very interesting spot for a stop and it is unfortunate that we do not have more time here to explore. We knew virtually nothing about the country before arrival except some of the dated stuff in the Landfalls of Paradise cruising guide. It is a string of islands spread from north (13°S) to south (21°S) that used to be known as the New Hebrides in colonial times. These islands have a unique colonial history. For 80 years, until 1970 when they became independent, they had a ‘condominium’ (that was the official term) French-English government. This meant that there were parallel government systems operating at the same time in the same place, e.g. two police forces, two school systems, etc. It seemed to work OK and the result today is a country in which there are two cultures and three widely-used languages.

These are Melanesian, rather than Polynesian, islands and the Melanesians were not seafarers as were their neighbours to the east. The result was that Vanuatu had 115 languages (and a whole whack of anthropologists) plus French and English. The government worked to create a formalized version of pidgin English, called Bislama, which most people speak, although you also hear a lot of English and French in Port Vila, which is the capital and largest city. You see many signs in Bislama (although English is most common) and you can just about understand it. For example, ‘beer’ is ‘bia’ ‘how are you?’ is ‘yu oraet’, and and ‘excuse me’ is ‘skiusmi’. It is all pretty neat since I thought that pidgin English was a relic of the past and something found in the writings of Jack London.

And now for your Bislama quiz. Most of the buses and taxis (they look the same) have a sign on them that says, ‘Plis siam doah slo’. What does this tell you? The answer is at the end of this post.

It turns out that Vanuatu has experienced 26 earthquakes (according to the US Geological Survey) in the past week. We have felt nothing because they occurred at night but people in the city went into the streets. Magnitudes of these quakes is from 5.0 to 7.1. That means that we have had a volcanic eruption, a tsunami, and a swarm of earthquakes on this trip - cool, but we can do without the plague of locusts.

Vanuatu is probably the poorest country we have visited but that does not mean it is cheap to be here. There are two parallel economies here with 80% of the people living in rural areas in something close to a traditional, subsistence agriculture way, while at the same time there is an urban economy linked to the tourist trade (lots of Aussies here). We had lunch in a lovely restaurant that was quite sophisticated and would be a hit in Toronto or any other major city. Right next door is the market, in a building constructed with French foreign aid that was quite good but had major sections selling firewood and charcoal. Apparently most people use these fuels rather than kerosene or gas. June found the shopping here to be quite good with a direct pipeline to the Chinese knockoff industry. For example, you could buy DVDs of all of the movies we saw in Fiji (new Planet of the Apes, Crazy, Stupid Love, and Captain America) that were released within the last month.

‘Plis siam doah slo’ translates to ‘Please slam the door slowly’. All over the world, the sliding doors on 15 passenger Toyota (and other) minivans seem to be a particular weak spot. I got a lecture in Lesotho once for closing the door there with too much vigour.

Questions ... and answers

Boat Maintenance Costs Accounting

Richard asked about how much we have been spending on boat maintenance. A few comments are in order.

• We spent a small fortune (no make that a large fortune) getting Ainia ready to go and these costs are not included in our monthly expenditure summaries.

• There are also valid questions to be asked about our accounting practices. We keep very close track of spending as we go, but have not considered the use of boat s paresin our costing. For example, we left Florida with something like a dozen oil filters for the Westerbeke (and comparable numbers of fuel filters along with filters for the genset) and perhaps a dozen gallons of diesel oil. When we do an oil change we have not included the cost of the oil and filters in the monthly charges but would add them on when we replace these items - which hasn't happened yet.

• Very importantly, when you cruise you often cannot spend much on boat maintenance because there is nothing to buy that you might need. In some countries there are few boat parts to be had and you can get stuff sent in. Panama and the Bahamas are good examples of this. In some places, Ecuador is a good example, you could try to get stuff sent in but more often than not it will disappear somewhere along the way (likely in the infamous customs warehouse in Guayaquil). Or you will be asked to pay ‘handling charges’ that may be more than the value of the shipment. (In theory, shipments to a “Yacht in Transit” should be duty/sales tax free but this stipulation is often ignored.) A boat here had some engine parts shipped in and was required to pay Fiji$18/hr for a customs agent to accompany him from the post office to the boat to make sure the parts were going to a boat. The customs woman actually went out in the dinghy with him to see the box put onboard.

• Some places have some yacht equipment available and most services you might need. Fiji and Tahiti would be good examples. Even in these places the selection is limited, prices high, and sizes generally metric, which does not help if you have an older North American boat. There are a few places where you can get anything and everything – New Zealand and Australia are the obvious examples, although even there you will be faced with marine industries focussed on 240v and metric measurements. It is a happy coincidence that most cruisers go to one or the other for cyclone season which provides a good opportunity to get your boat back in perfect shape after coming 10,000 miles or so and before heading off the next long stretch of a circumnavigation.

• American Samoa is a unique place in the sense that it is part of the US postal system and recognizes the “Yacht in Transit” designation (they have a local sales tax on other imports apparently). In fact, West Marine offers $20 flat rate shipping to AS and does do price matching. There are a couple of complications though. Defender only sends order up to $500 (although they sent us an order that was almost $2000 (water heater and new instruments) because we were repeat customers). West Marine wanted a bank draft above $1000. In any case, a visit here does give you easy access to US boat stores and we spent quite a bit of money here that will be reflected in the monthly summary for July.

• In terms of getting work done, you can usually find a diesel mechanic (parts are a different matter) and outboard mechanics, but you rarely will see an outboard in the South Pacific smaller than 20 hp (most are much bigger) so parts are a problem. Different brands of outboards dominate in different countries. Fiji, where we are now, is dominated by Mercury but elsewhere you would rarely see a Merc. Boat refrigeration and electricians are rare.

Tank Capacities

David asked what our tank capacities are and whether they are adequate. Our tankage is similar to your Gozzard. We have 140 gallons of water and 100 gallons of fuel. We actually have one additional water tank and and one additional fuel tank that have leaks and we do not use them (fixing them has proven a problem and there is no way to remove them short of taking apart the interior so we have left them for now.

Our tankage has proven perfectly adequate for our needs but the answer really is that it depends on lifestyle. If you like real showers like onshore you will need to use your watermaker or get water from shore often. Remember that water from the watermaker is really just diesel fuel in disguise. We have friends who run their genset a couple of times a day to charge batteries and make water (one a Little Harbor 44, Richard). We might run our genset once a week and then only if the sun has not been strong and the winds light in an anchorage.

You also have questions about fuel and water availability and quality. Diesel fuel has been available everywhere but often you have to go to a gas station with jerry cans to get it. we have a very nice folding cart for carrying jerry cans since you may have to go a few hundred meters with fuel. A few places like Panama and Tahiti have fuel docks but these are rare. Diesel quality has not been a problem. We started with pristine fuel tanks, lovingly cleaned and always use our West Marine copy of a Baja filter. Other than that, normalinterval fuel filter changes have done the trick.

Water is also available just about everywhere again by jerry cans. Quality varies though with water in some places being questionable for drinking but fine for laundry and showers. Makes one think that it would make sense to have dual water systems on the boat - one for potable and one for other water. Water quality is a bit unpredictable. At the marina in Papeete, the water was not very good in the day or so after a heavy rain (little organic bits floating around although it was chlorinated). In sleepy little Mangareva they had a well in the hills behind town where they got water that was then chlorinated before being sent to the town. In some harbours, Suva and Pago Pago come to mind, you can't use your watermaker because the harbour is quite polluted.

BTW, we have four diesel jerry cans and two water jerry cans and that seems to work well.