“Ah oui, les espions, on trouve partout”. It’s 2 am. I’m standing in the deep shadows in an alley off Rue Sadi Carnot, my hat pulled low across my face, a Gauloises hanging from my lips, staring at my phone. My contact is late, not like her. There’s a full moon somewhere above a solid overcast that threaten to rain all day. Walking here I could feel the cool breeze blowing in from the nearby harbor carrying the salty smell of the ocean. The intense green and red lights marking the harbor entrance reflected off the walls of the buildings lining the street at the water’s edge. As I walked I would sometimes quickly duck into a doorway alcove to check for a tail.   I saw nothing; if they were back there, they’re good.

We set the meeting at a spot behind a defunct Chinese restaurant with a broken down bamboo fence in front of its forlorn entrance. As I waited the scratching of a restless rat in an empty cardboard box was the only thing disturbing the quiet night. No kung pao chicken tonight, pal.

Everyone knows the next moment, when the world seems to holds its breath, the clock fails to tick forward, a beating heart pauses, and your brain involuntarily skids down a slope of anticipation. Far down the alley, the sound of a scuffle, a panicked shout, and the crack of a gunshot shattered the night. . .

Once an important stop for ships on trade routes to Asia until the Suez Canal opened in 1870, La Reunion is a spy novel of an island that collected more than its share of misfits, miscreants, foreign legion rejects, and con artists, a place Rick and Louis might have headed for instead of Brazzaville. Now it’s a popular French holiday home location (direct flights to Paris!). With my arrival by sailboat yesterday, I’m the latest miscreant to sully its shores.

My passage here from Cocos (Keeling) was pretty fast, total elapsed time about 18 days but it could have been faster.  I originally notified Reunion from Cocos I would arrive on July 12 but soon realized I would arrive earlier but not sure when.  I finally told them July 10.  I stooged around sailing slow the last couple of days so I would arrive at the harbor entrance during daylight on that day. I also slowed down during the passage when the winds were running 25-35 kts and 3.5 – 4 meter confused seas were hitting the boat broadside.  When a big wave slams into the side of the boat its like it was hit by a truck. Other waves would break over the deck, briefly inundating it, the seawater cascading down the opposite side.  The boat would roll into the deep wave troughs to the point where the edge of the deck was in the water. That roll would also turn the heading of the boat in the direction of the trough forcing the autopilot to throw the rudder hard over to correct the course.  This often resulted in an alarm when the rudder was all the way over against its limits.  I usually try to trim the sails so the boat is reasonably balanced, not inclined to turn one way or the other, with a bit a weather helm left in.  The autopilot doesn’t have to work so hard when the boat is balanced, saving electrical power. In these very rolling conditions such balancing efforts are futile.  The best I could do was to reduce sail to slow down so the ride isn’t so rough, like driving slow instead of fast over a rutted road is a bit more comfortable. Otherwise, I stayed below deck in the cabin getting rattled around like a marble in a jar.

The Clearing In process (Entry Formalities) at Reunion was incredibly efficient.  Angelique, the marina manager, had prepared all the entry documents and handed them to me as I arrived after helping with the mooring lines at my berth. Fifteen minutes later the Immigration and Customs people showed up.  They didn’t need to come aboard, no need to confiscate my eggs, meat, etc. like the morons in Australia.  They stood on the dock, I handed them my passport and prepared entry documents, they stamped everything, bid me a pleasant stay and left. It took minutes!  I’ve been stuck at red lights that took longer. This was amazing compared to other places I’ve been where I had to take a car to multiple offices all over town to clear in and clear out.

The entry stamp in my passport is important. Reunion, like France and other Schengen countries, limits a stay to 90 days in a 180 day window for non-residents of the Schengen Area. The 90 days started when I arrived on July 10.  I need to return home to the US in September to participate in the First World Flight Centennial. Initially I thought I would take the boat across to Richards Bay in South Africa in August and leave it there while I returned home. However, the best month weather-wise to make the tricky passage to Richards Bay is October. I also have security concerns about leaving the boat in Richards Bay where on-board thefts have been a problem in the past.  The marina in Reunion is very secure.  So I am now thinking I’ll leave the boat here while I return to the US in September, then back again to Reunion in October to make the passage to Richards Bay. From there I’ll make short hops around the South Africa coast to Cape Town where I’ll be positioned to make the homestretch run northwest across the Atlantic to the Caribbean and the US (North America, my 7^th and last continent).  The days I spend traveling back to the US in September do not count against the 90 day limit, so looking at the numbers, this plan should work out alright.

I’m renting a car on Friday for a week so I’ll have time to explore this amazing volcanic island.  

The wind finally calmed down enough so I could launch my drone.

This is probably the most remote place I’ve stopped so far on my solo voyage to 7 continents (6 now done), as least in terms of being far from other populated places. Deception Island in Antarctica is another candidate but there were cruise ships coming and going nearly every day during the week I was there so it didn’t feel so remote.

While anchored here I was reminded of what I wrote in the Epilogue of my 2015 book “Flying 7 Continents Solo”:

“There is always the appeal of a faraway place, the rarely-visited, remote, little-known mystery circumstance.  I was recently in Barrow, Alaska, where a small community college had been built catering to “outlying” villages.  Outlying? I thought Barrow was outlying. The lines of civilization, of human activity, get increasingly stretched, ultimately broken, moving beyond the last signpost, the end of the road, the hesitant smile, the final conversation. Further. Passed the last trail, the disappearing footprints, the lonely, windy mountaintop where recognition is a memory. Further still. Beyond process and reason, merging here and there, blurring yesterday and tomorrow, until finally arriving at a last thin space between the shadow and the silence.”

I probably shouldn’t be sitting under a tree with hanging coconuts.  Someone told me more people are killed each year by coconuts falling on their heads than by shark attacks. It would be really ironic to have sailed this far only to be clunked on the head by a coconut but, as Paul Gauguin once said, “Irony is only a coconut away”

I arrived here on Thursday morning, June 13, exactly 9 days after leaving Medana Bay on Lombok, a reasonably quick trip of 1200 nm.

The weather here was nice the day I arrived but soon turned cloudy, windy and rainy and has pretty much stayed that way.  Like the lagoon inside any atoll, it’s protected from the sea but with only a string of low-lying islands (motus) around the perimeter, some with palm trees, it offers essentially no shelter from the SE tradewinds or storm fronts that blow across the Indian Ocean. 

The formal Clearing In process is streamlined here because the Australian officials come to your boat after you notify them on Channel 20 (the common channel used here) that you have anchored.  The hassle comes because there is AU$10/day or AU$50/week anchoring fee which must be paid at the Shire office on Home Island, about 1.4 nm away from the anchorage at Direction Island.  You can’t officially Clear Out of Cocos without a receipt showing the fee has been paid. 1.4 nm can be a pretty long ride in dinghy across shallow waters with numerous coral heads (bommies) in the relentless 20 kt winds that blow through here.  There is a great, fairly new, inter-island ferry (air-conditioned!) but it only connects Direction Island with Home Island on Thursdays and Saturdays and the Shire office is closed on Saturdays along with everything else on Home Island except the grocery store Shamrocks. So as I write this I expect to take the Thursday ferry to Home Island to pay my fees and be on my way to Reunion Island Friday morning. Given the poor weather I would have left sooner except for having to pay the anchoring fee and get an official Outbound Clearance. Not having an Outbound Clearance from the last port can be a problem when trying to Clear In at the next port.

Direction Island itself is uninhabited but with a white sand beach and park facilities (shelters, BBQ grills, toilets, a historical trail with interpretive displays), it’s a popular day trip getaway for people on West Island where most of the local Aussie population lives. West Island also has a few small hotels and the airport.  I really can’t see a big tourist appeal to Cocos when there are so many other places to go if you want a beach holiday. Maybe that it’s remote and rare is the appeal.

On a more positive front, I submitted all the required paperwork for arrival at Reunion Island.  They responded that the documents were OK and they would have a berth for me at Titan marina when I arrived.  It will be a refreshing break to get back to a well-developed place (fresh croissants!).  I’m already creating a list of things I need to get in Reunion before moving on. I expect maybe 2 weeks there or longer depending on when a suitable weather window opens for making the passage around the southern end of Madagascar to Richards Bay in South Africa.

I managed to get the engine on Phywave started last Monday. I fixed the starter by “exercising” the solenoid (turning it on and off multiple times) and liberally lubricating it with T9 (much better than WD40). With the solenoid operating smoothly, I bolted the starter motor back in place.

However, as is sometimes the case, that was not the only problem. To minimize electrical leakage currents, my engine is equipped with a “grounding relay” that only connects the start battery negative to the engine block when the starter is engaged. If that relay doesn’t close, there won’t be any battery voltage across the starter and it won’t run. After a few tests I concluded the relay had failed. I got around that by using my battery jumper cables to bypass the relay and connect the battery negative directly to the engine block for startup. With that in place I was able to start the engine. Once the engine was running, I could remove the jumper cable; in effect, replicating the action of the relay.

While I was doing all this I also wired a switch across the terminals of the starter so if the Volvo Penta MDI control box should fail for startup (they have a reputation for failure on boat engines), I can still directly start the engine with the switch (and the jumper).

Getting the boat operational again is only one takeaway from this episode. There are also the lessons learned, that I was under-equipped with engine spare parts for this voyage. Recognizing that lesson, and acting on it, I flew to Perth, Australia, to pick up a new starter, a few more spare parts and tools I wish I’d had, like a set of metric ratchet wrenches (gear spanners). Getting the starter in out of its tight space was a pain – very little room to move a standard wrench to tighten the bolts.

I was not particularly happy with having to use jumper to start the engine so one part I picked up in Perth was a “maybe” replacement for the failed relay. The part number of that relay was not in the Volvo Penta system so I sent them a photo and they came up with a relay with the same size, shape and connection terminals as the failed one. No promises it would work but I wired in place of the old one and, amazingly, the engine started perfectly. No more need for the jumper cable and the engine is back to its normal configuration.

All this reminded me of when I was in my 20’s and used to work on my cars before they became computers on wheels. I can continue my voyage a little better equipped with spares and little more knowledgeable about my engine.

Barring any new issues, I plan to complete Exit Formalities to leave Indonesia on Monday, June 3, and head back south through the Lombok Strait at first light the next day. Once through the Strait I’ll turn west across the Indian Ocean toward Cocos (Keeling) atoll, one of the few places in the world where parentheses are an official part of the name.

As I prepare to leave, I’ve included a few more photos of life around Lombok.

The failed exhaust elbow replacement went well, completed last Tuesday, but a new problem arose when I tried to start the engine – it wouldn’t start. Having seawater sprayed on the starter motor for several hours from the exhaust elbow leak likely caused some other problems. I pulled the starter off and bench (galley counter top) tested it. The motor spins but the solenoid is not kicking the starter gear into place to engage the flywheel; it’s possibly rusted stuck.  It might be fixable but I may need a new starter motor. There may be collateral electrical problems I’m just now beginning to understand.

While in Medana Bay considering the best course to fixing my boat, I am immersed in a new book by Paul Theroux entitled “Burma Sahib”.  Well known for his many novels like “Mosquito Coast” and engaging non-fiction travel books like “Dark Star Safari”, Theroux turned to historical fiction this time to describe the life of a young Eton graduate Eric Blair who, in real life and for reasons never clear to himself, signed up to be a British policeman in Burma in the early 1920’s.  The book describes the imagined twists and turns of maturing Blair’s life as he navigates the brutal, racist, exploitative hegemony of the British Raj and deals with the society and bureaucrats that ran it, their sparsely-furnished minds hypocritically justifying the coercive control of the India subcontinent. Several years later Eric Blair became famous for his jarring, yet no longer very far-fetched, projection of humanity’s dystopian future under his pen name George Orwell.

On one of the first days at Medana Bay I decided to walk into a town a few kilometers east with another sailor here for repairs – Barry Perrins, aka Adventures of an Old SeaDog, a YouTube sailing video sensation with over 120,000 subscribers.  Just as we started down the road ,the marina owner Peter Cranfield (an Englishman who settled here long ago) drove by and offered us a lift.  That lift turned into a 3 hour tour of the north side of Lombok, passed rice paddies, Hindu temples, Muslim mosques, and the verdant countryside of Lombok with its active volcano Mt. Rinjani, at 3,786 meters high the second highest point in Indonesia. It last erupted in 2016.

Yesterday I shared a vehicle and driver with a few other cruisers on trip south to Mataram, the main city on Lombok, in search of tools, parts, provisions, liquor, etc.  It’s a bustling place including an upscale shopping mall with the usual American restaurants (KFC, Pizza Hut, Burger King, Starbucks, etc.) and boutique clothes shops, international brands you’d likely find in big malls all over the world. It was a good break from the routine of the Medana Bay Marina which has become very familiar after being here 2 weeks.

The voyage from Darwin to Lombok, Indonesia, went smoothly until the last 20 miles when my engine developed a major leak in the exhaust elbow of the seawater cooling system. On marine engines generally seawater is pumped through the engine to cool it and then is combined with the engine exhaust gases in an exhaust elbow.  The combination is then sent overboard.

After arriving in Lombok and staying one night near a marina where I thought I could complete the Clearing In process for entering Indonesia (it turns out  they lost their permit to do this) , I started out motoring the next morning to Medana Bay Marina on the northwest side of the island where I was certain I could complete Entry Formalities.  After a few hours I noticed an unusual dribble of water on the cabin floor.  Opening hatches to the bilge, I was shocked to find the bilge full of water. I immediately turned on the bilge pumps which successfully started drawing down the water level.  Investigating further, I found a substantial jet of water coming from the underside of the exhaust elbow .  The only way to stop it was to shut down the engine which I did for a while because there was enough wind to sail.  That wind eventually disappeared so I had no choice but to motor again if I wanted to make Medana Bay by nightfall. The leak returned but now the main bilge pump had failed so it was a race to see if the secondary bilge pump could hold down the water level until I reached the marina.  It did, with a little help from me and a bucket scooping water out of the bilge and dumping it down the sink.

Once at the marina with the engine stopped I had time to assess the situation.  I found that a plug normally in a port on the underside of the elbow had blown out leaving a way for water to escape. As I write this I haven’t found the missing plug in the bilge.  The elbow is made of cast iron which can be TIG welded but it’s a tricky process. I was not confident I could get it successfully welded in a place where there may only bush welders.

The right solution is replacing the elbow with a new one but shipping boat parts into a place like Indonesia is a nightmare, sometimes taking months, even if you’re willing to pay the 40% duty and taxes (which a boat in transit shouldn’t have to pay). I’m not waiting months for anything. Tracking down and ordering the parts I needed in Sydney, Australia, I jumped on the fast ferry from Lombok to Bali last Thursday, caught a red eye flight from Denpasar airport in Bali to Sydney, and spent Friday picking up the parts along with spare bilge pumps and a few other things.  I flew back to Denpasar on Saturday (yesterday) with the parts in my carry-on bag and skated through Customs with no problems.  Returning to Lombok and Medana Bay today on the fast ferry, I’m back where I started with the parts to fix the leak.  I hope to get the new elbow installed tomorrow and get going again by the end of the week.

What’s surprising about this problem is that the engine is only 2 years old with less than 1300 hours. Even with the leak it continue to run smoothly and the seawater and exhaust was still being ejected overboard. A failure like this should never have happened with such a relatively young engine.  I’m worried there is an undiscovered collateral problem that led to this failure. That might come to light when we pull the failed elbow off and examine it.

I arrived back in Darwin, Australia, on April 19 after a long flight from Seattle and an almost missed connection out of Brisbane. Fortunately, Immigration for many incoming foreigners is done at a machine – scan passport, pose for photo, take printout, done. Many machines were available, no waiting. Fortunately, Customs was also quick – they didn’t open any bags.

I had a lot of work to do to get Phywave ready to sail again – putting all the sails back on, top off the diesel jerry cans (I emptied them to fill the boat’s main diesel tank in December), top off the water tank, buy provisions, and arrange for clearing out of Australia (5 day notification lead time required to get an exit appointment at the Customs jetty).

When I arrived in November I removed the dodger because there were many zipper slides that had corroded to the point I could no longer move them. I had to cut some zippers lose to get the dodger off the frame. The bimini and connector panel had already been removed and stowed below long ago after they were damaged in heavy winds sailing south through the Atlantic. I didn’t have either in place since leaving the ad hoc anchorage behind a tall cliff near the east entrance to the Strait of Magellan. I took the lot – dodger, bimini, connector panel – to The Canopy Man, recommended as the best canvas guy in Darwin. I told him I’d be back in April to pick up everything repaired so he had plenty of time to do the work. I picked it up on April 22 and installed it on the boat, a multi-hour effort because the canvas is stretched tight across the frame and takes some pulling and cursing to get it all connected. Everything went back together OK except 2 forward window panels on the dodger that each had one zipper reversed. I immediately took them back to Nick, the canopy man, to have the zippers flipped. As I write this on Sunday I’m hoping to get them back tomorrow. Last Thursday was a holiday here, their Veterans Day, and on Friday Nick was closed.

There is some urgency to get the fixed panels back since I told Australia Border Force (ABF) I would clear out at 1100 am on Wednesday, May 1.

I have made a major change to my route. After watching the weather going north to India for months while at home, and seeing nothing good, I decided to make my Asia continent landing in Indonesia on the island Lombok, just east of Bali where I landed my plane in 2011. Lombok has some good anchorages and a marina. My only purpose in going to India was to claim I’d sail to the continent of Asia. After spending some time at home researching it, I couldn’t find any authority that argued Indonesia was not consider part of Asia even though it is an island country and not attached to what we consider to be the Asia mainland. The change in routing will keep me in the southeast trade wind zone and make most of my India Ocean crossing downwind.

One thing I forgot to do while at home is make a “boat stamp”. Many countries, like Indonesia, are enamored of stamping paperwork of all kinds. Documents are “official” when they have been stamped and signed, stamped by them and stamped by me with my boat stamp. If I’d jumped on it when I arrived in Darwin I could have had one made here but I didn’t remember until yesterday while reading some Indonesia clearing-in instructions. It’s too late to get one made by my May 1 departure date, but I did find a DIY rubber stamp kit at Officeworks, the local version of Staples. DIY (do it yourself) means using tweezers to pluck individual tiny rubber letters and numbers from a tray and placing them in the grooves in the stamp. It’s sort of like old fashion typesetting. After losing a few letters to ham-handed tweezer work, I finally had assembled 3 rows of basic information the stamp should include. It looks like crap but I think it will suffice. No choice at this point.

I finally took out the drone after more than a year, charged the batteries, and made a short video of Phywave in Cullen Bay Marina. My drone flying skills are very rusty. I hope to use the drone more at future anchorages.

I returned home in early December, leaving my sailboat Phywave in a marina in Darwin for protection during the tropical cyclone season. I’ll return to Darwin in April to resume my voyage west when the season ends.

While home I’ve spent some time involved with preparations for the First World Flight Centennial celebration.

The first flight around the world occured in 1924. Four planes, Douglas World Cruisers, took off from Sand Point on Lake Washington in Seattle on April 6. Only two were able to complete the entire flight, arriving back in Seattle on September 28, 1924. 

There will be centennial celebration of this flight in Seattle this September. The website is:

https://www.firstworldflightcentennial.org/

As a pilot who has flown solo around the world twice, over the North Pole, and to Antarctica, I have been invited to participate in the centennial as one of six light aircraft pilots who will have their planes on display at the Seattle Museum of Flight and do a fly-by of the celebration venue.

I’ll interrupt my sailing voyage around the world and return in September to do my part in this great event.

While at home I need to get my plane “un-pickled” from long term storage and ready to fly again so it will be ready to go in September. The “pickling” process involves replacing the engine oil with special preservative oil, removing the battery, replacing the spark plugs with special dissicant plugs, and sealing up openings to the engine, like exhaust, so moisture can’t get in. Once that is all undone, I’ll need to get the legally required annual inspection done.

The final step is for me to get back in the plane with an instructor (CFI) for a Flight Review. To be current and fly solo, pilots are required to have a Flight Review every 24 calendar months. My last review was in the spring of 2020 so I’m overdue, but since I’ve been sailing and not flying it really didn’t matter until now. The Flight Review only takes a couple of hours, one on the ground and one in the air. It’s not a test but a review to make sure a pilot is still competent enough to fly safely.

After sailing west passed the Great Barrier Reef it was after midnight and I had a straight run of about 25 nm into and across the inside shipping channels.  I decided to take it slow and use the opportunity to get some sleep so I set the sails to give me about 4 – 4.5 knots. This would put me close to York Point (the northernmost point in Australia) and York Island around sunrise.  I planned to stop near there and anchor to wait for favorable west-setting tidal currents in the channel running by Thursday Island.  No ships were showing on the AIS in the shipping channels so I was actually able to get a few hours of solid sleep, waking an hour before first light a 6 am.

I cruised passed York Island early and realized, after rechecking the tide tables at Thursday Island, there was a slack tide at 1035 following a (west-setting) flood tide.  I could easily make that one if I used the engine.  I never want to hang around at anchor just killing time if I can keep moving. The timing worked about right, though I was surprised to get hit with about 3 knots of counter-current in the channel west of the town of Thursday Island.   It may have been an eddy current in the complicated channel.

I pushed on into the Arafura Sea which at that point is really pretty shallow – about 10-20 meters. It’s easy to see how a land bridge could have connected Australia and Papua New Guinea in the distant past.  I got some useful wind on the stern letting me wing out the mainsail and genoa set on the whisker pole.  That comfortable cruising west across the Arafura Sea last a few days but I knew from the weather forecasts the doldrums were coming, and they were brutal.   Except for some interludes with useful wind that lasted only a few hours, I had to start motoring even before turning south through the Dundas Strait toward Cape Don. The temperature rose, and with no breeze, I was getting cooked by temperatures over 100 degrees F. 

The route to Darwin through the Dundas Strait passed Abbot Shoal, Rooper Rock, and then the Howard Channel into Clarence Strait has its own challenging tidal current conditions.  I had the predictions for the current speeds and directions but with that long a route it’s not possible to hit it all at the right time because the tidal current reverses every 6 hours, generally.   I had to make some compromises in my calculations so it would average out reasonably well.  As I wrote down my numbers I remember sweat dripping off my head onto the paper smearing what I had just written. I also started to develop a heat rash – a first for me. Having fun now!

The water along this route was also shallow, about 20 meters, making the water a pretty turquoise over a sand bottom.  With the excessive heat, though,  it was like motoring across the surface of a giant hot tub. I did manage to hit the strongest current spot in the Howard Channel with a following current well after dark, and was now trying to figure out a place where I could get some sleep.  I wanted to arrive at the entrance to Darwin Harbour, where several big ships were anchored, at daylight and reasonably well-rested because I would have to maneuver my way passed them.  From the Clarence Strait I had about 16 nm left sailing (motoring) south to the harbor entrance.  I pointed the boat in that direction, throttle back to almost idle so I was only going about 2-3 knots, and went to bed setting the alarm for around sunrise.  There were no other ships around at that time so I counted on any that might show up to avoid me.  Keeping a consistent course and speed, even if slow, makes it easier for them to do that. Trying to get some sleep in busy waterways, or in areas with reefs or land to avoid, has turned out to be one of the bigger challenges of solo sailing.

The timing worked out about right.  I was still a few miles from the harbor entrance and big ships when I woke up an hour before first light.  I could see the bright lights on the big ships in front of me and a faint glow of Darwin lights  on the eastern horizon.

My final timing issue was entering the Cullen Bay Marina.  The marinas in Darwin, and generally in this part of Australia, are behind locks because of the significant tidal changes that occur here, sometimes  6-8 meters. However, the locks at the entrances to the marinas inhibit the normal exchange of water that happens between the marina and the sea so the marina water is relatively stagnant promoting the growth of water born pests of various types brought in on yachts arriving from foreign places. In the past, this has led to some highly polluted marinas with substantial clean-up costs.

To mitigate the problem, the department of Aquatic Biosecurity now requires yachts arriving from foreign locations to have their sea water systems treated with a chemical to kill the pests.  I needed an appointment for this treatment that’s done at the pontoon just outside the lock into the marina.  I couldn’t get a time until the afternoon of my arrival so after making my way down the shipping channel toward the marina I diverted to the north and anchored in Fannie Bay.  It’s not well-protected but the holding is great in shallow water (about 3 meters at low tide when I was there).  I upped anchor in the afternoon and motored about a mile to the pontoon where the treatment was completed by a diver injecting the chemical up into the seawater systems through the seacocks in the hull. It didn’t cost me anything but they told me they may start charging yachts for it in the future.  Once the chemical was in the systems I had to leave it for 10 hours so I couldn’t start my engine and go anywhere.  Ten hours ended at 1 am, but I was comfortable tied to the pontoon and wouldn’t go through the lock into the marina until the next morning.  I could get off the boat, however, wander around exploring the Cullen Bay area and have dinner at one of the restaurants there (crocodile carbonara that first night).

Moving to my berth through the lock the next morning was a new experience but made easier with a local sailor I met on the pontoon who offered to come by at 0800 to help me with mooring lines.  Phywave is now securely tied up in berth A14 at the Cullen Bay Marina where it will stay for the next several months.

I have a long list of maintenance items I compiled while sailing that I want to complete while here.  Some can be done in the next 2-3 weeks, and others like repairs to the dodger and bimini, will take longer. I will also be sending my mainsail away to an ace sail maker in Sydney for a more permanent repair to replace the temporary patches I’ve been living with.  I expect to fly home in early December and return to the boat in the Spring to resume my voyage.  I have a lot of weather research to do on how best to land someplace in Asia (for continent #6) and then continue across the Indian Ocean to South Africa.

After completing Australia entry formalities at Cairns (they made me dispose of all my eggs and meat for “Biosecurity”), my next challenge was to sail north, cross the Great Barrier Reef (GBR), then sail west through the Torres Strait, a collection of narrow waterways connecting the Pacific and Indian Oceans.

From Cairns many yachts follow the inside route to the Torres Strait along the Queensland coast.  This foute is also an active shipping channel and full of islands and reefs. For me, sailing solo, it’s a poor choice because I would have to stop and anchor somewhere every night to get some sleep. I’m much more comfortable far offshore where there’s nothing to run into and I can let the autopilot drive the boat while I sleep.

Leaving Cairns I went back outside the reef at Grafton Passage and turned straight north to Raine Island, 350 nm away, the point where I would start my passage across the GBR. I first learned about this route from a book published some years by Ken Hellewell. The route he describes in the book is very detailed with more than 30 GPS waypoints. After studying the charts I decided I could come up with something much simplier that worked as well.  I chose route legs by trying to stay in water that was at least 20 meters deep. As I sailed this route, in fact, the shallowest depth I saw on the depth sounder was 19 meters.  As a point of reference, that’s more than deep enough to handle a hugh cruise ship. The Cairns Channel which routinely handles such big ships is only dredged to a depth of 12-13 meters. If someone were to accept charted depths as shallow as 10 meters, my route across the GBR could be simplified still further.

I set up my route waypoints in the chartplotter on the boat and instructed the autopilot to drive the whole thing, which it did perfectly. I only had to adjust the sails when the course direction changed.  Because the winds were light (10-12 kts), I motorsailed part of the route to make sure I could get past the trickiest parts during daylight after starting from Raine Island at about 0730. 

Waypoint 8 sits on a red line which marks the edge of the inside shipping channel so at that point I was home free regarding any reef hazards.  You’ll also see at waypoint 1 a note that says “FORMERLY MINED AREA”.  Hitting a forgotten WW2 mine and getting blown to bits would have been a spectacular conclusion to my voyage!