27:27.440S  153:11.440E

At last we have sailed to Australia!  We have been threatening to do so since 2007 when we got within 800 miles before selling Savoir Vivre in New Caledonia.  Another Pacific crossing and twenty seven thousand nautical miles later we finally made landfall in Brisbane!  The Aussie Customs and Bio-security have a fearsome reputation but they could not have been more welcoming.  Apparently they do a background security check once you have given them advanced notice of arrival……they had clearly visited this blog as part of their research and in our file were two photos to identify that we are really who we say we are (we will have to be more careful what we say on here in the future).  The photos that they had chosen were from our blog of 21/12/14 from our "Christmas Party” with each of us holding up an enormous glass of wine…..clearly someone in their intelligence team has a sense of humour!  They had already had a pretty good month finding 17 million dollars worth of cocaine on a British registered yacht that arrived on the Gold Coast at the end of August!

After clearing in we moved around to the Royal Queensland Yacht Squadron in Manly just to the SE of Brisbane which will be Bamboozle’s new home for the next few months. It is a lovely spot and once again extraordinarily welcoming, within just a few days we were being included in local social events and we have loved being here.  We have also had a chance to catch up with old friends with Lucy linking up with Jules and Jodie, two sisters who she shared a house with back in 1986.  We were lent a car for a week, so explored up the Sunshine coast to lovely Noosa and the ranges of the hinterland and after that flew up to Cairns for a livaboard dive trip out on the Great Barrier Reef.  We are currently putting Bamboozle “to bed” for the summer (or winter) and head off on Friday for an overland tour of the big red centre, some of Southern Australia and Tasmania….watch this space!      

Our first night in Australia, still tied up to the Q dock and awaiting customs in the morning.  Not quite what Captain Cook first saw with the skyscrapers of Brisbane on the western horizon and an 8 lane highway in the foreground…..where are the kangaroos?

The RQYS, what a friendly spot and home to a lot of sailing (and social) activity.  They could not have made us more welcome…..impressively inclusive rather than exclusive yachting!

….as well as a yacht club RQYS has a large modern marina with excellent facilities.  Bamboozle’s new home and one where we hope she will be safe and happy whilst we spend some time on land. 

Scott and Nicky Keith showing us a traditional Queensland welcome with Moretan Bay Bugs on one BBQ and roast lamb on the second.  Still a Kiwi after more than 20 years in Brisbane but he has clearly picked up some local cooking skills.

Lucy with Jules Hodgson, a wonderful re-union after more than 20 years.

Waiting for the sun to set on the dive deck of the excellent Mike Ball Dive Expeditions vessel “Spoilsport”.  We spent 4 days on board heading out to The Great Barrier Reef well north of Cairns and then on to Osprey Reef another 100 nm out in to the Coral Sea.  We dived the famous Cod Hole with it’s huge resident Potato Cod and then a quite extraordinary shark dive on the northern tip of Osprey reef, lots and lots of sharks!  The schedule was very straightforward….dive, eat, sleep, and then dive eat sleep and so on until you ran out of energy or your dive computer told you it was time to stop.  We managed to fit 5 dives into the middle day and I think I am still looking pretty chipper heading in to the 5th…..I discovered I am fairly good at the whole dive eat sleep regime!

The fantastically enthusiastic and endlessly cheery crew of Spoilsport…..we were extremely well looked after and thoroughly spoilt.  An exceptional crew and a very high quality outfit that I would recommend unreservedly to anyone wanting to dive in this part of the world.  

“The Guests” …a fun group from for all over the world and all lucky to be here.

We flew at low level by small plane back to Cairns from Lizard Island overflying some of the reefs we had been diving over the last few days.  A particular highlight for me (odd bloke I know) was to fly right over Endeavour Reef where Captain James Cook’s 1777 expedition came to grief and so very nearly to a premature conclusion.   

Happy divers on the way home from a great trip.