Tuesday 3rd November 2013-12-04
Day 7
3am
Well its 3am, and up I stand to have a look around and in the distance I can see a large white glow on the horizon, I just sit back down and cry, I wake The Captain, as we were changing watches, and we both just stared and took it in, It s our first sighting of Australia, we have almost made it we are almost home.
The ocean is still big with strong gusts of wind that blow us way too far on our side still, but we are only getting the occasional waves smashing into us.
I managed to get some sleep and when I woke and sat up and looked around I could see our homeland on the horizon man I cried again...haha
What a journey we have had, after almost two years, I think 17 countries and the handfuls of Small Islands we have visited, we have sailed almost half way around the world, in nautical miles we have sailed over half way around.
Actually if you take in all the places we have visited before we found the boat we have actually been all the way around the world, man thats crazy.
I kinda look at ourselves as Cruisers but a friend of ours told us we are Voyagers... haha maybe we are maybe were not, maybe we are just crazy.
When we left America 7months ago, we were told by many that the two of you don’t have enough experience, and cannot possibly handle a boat that size by yourselves you will need crew.
Well I guess all the modifications paid off we always said we did not want crew, this was our Journey our time to shine, have we shined? More like a huge smudge....hahaha but we are here the boat is in one piece and we are in one piece, and I have to say the journey as brought The Captain and I a lot closer together, we are a solid team.
As we slowly make our way to land the tension starts to build, we need to get somewhere a bit calmer so we can try and tidy up the boat before customs boards us. Customs here are really strict and it has been stressing us out a lot these last few days, we have all the horror stories from other cruisers about entering into this fine country of ours.
From taking almost all food on board to going over the whole boat checking for white ants, to demanding an anti foul is done within the first week of arrival and many many more restrictions.
Then you can add the fees we could be up for stamp duty this can run into one hell of a lot of money, we could be up for $17,000 $18,000 who knows.
But the pressing stress attack at the moment is ships huge mama ships they are everywhere, we sure are getting close to a main city, we have to have an eagle eye out, and we study the Chart plotter constantly so we can make our way around shallow areas.
We eventually get closer to a bay that we think will shelter us enough to get some cleaning down, but its way to rough there as well, so the decision was made that I will do my best to clean and organise while we motor into Morton Bay, as this is where we have to go and check in.
It was not easy I tell you being thrown this way and that, but after about 6 hours I managed to clean and mop up as much salt as I could, every locker and bench plus walls and floors was dripping with salt water or dried salt. It was shocking and don’t even get me started on the mess of articles, that were thrown out of lockers it was bad.
The Captain had the nerve racking job of navigating through this major shipping channel, as its shallow waters on both sides, we tried to stick like glue to it and had to pass very close to ships and a cruise ship talk about up close and personal, man those things are big.
I’m not sure what I was thinking when he told us we have to go down this channel, I was kinda thinking it would be like a freeway I guess but in water well no, it’s just in open ocean with marker here and there although it is well marked you still need to have all your wits about you.
We were about two hours away from a spot that we were going to anchor for the night (it’s a long way in) when the engine makes a funny noise, talk about fear set in, we are in a major shipping lane, shallow water nearby and one huge Cruise ships boring down on us.
The Captain races down and lifts the floor boards and the prop is not spinning I’ve grabbed the two way radio ready to call for help, when it starts working again, we get out of the cruise ships way real fast and continue on at a much steadier pace.
We finally come into the area that we want to anchor in pitch black something we always don’t do, but had no choice.
And we are here finally anchored in Australian waters, and tomorrow we will go the last leg of around 12nm which should take about three hours and face customs.
Well tomorrow is another day.