24° 45.626S – 152° 23.138E  Bundaberg Port Marina

We’ve arrived in Australia!

At 16:45 local time on Wednesday 14 October we anchored in the quarantine area at Bundaberg Port Marina Australia. We’d arrived; we’d crossed The Pacific Ocean all the way from Panama and completed an important part of our circumnavigation.

 We had sailed from Tonga and our visit had been ‘all too short’, the same old saga; not enough time.  The Kingdom of Tonga and The United Kingdom are the only two countries in the world to call themselves Kingdoms. The Kingdom of Tonga, which is independent but part of The British Commonwealth, consists of 169 islands divided into groups. We only had time to visit one of those groups, The Vava’u group of islands with its capital Neiafu. With a large and very well sheltered harbour it is a mecca for yachts crossing The Pacific. It is also a place were many yachts split up, the majority going South to New Zealand and some, like us, sailing West to Australia.

We were welcomed on our arrival in Tonga by our old sailing friends, Scottish couple Colin and Izzi on board the yacht Endorphin Beta who we first met in Lanzarote in 2013, met again in Guadeloupe in spring 2014 and then spent New Year 14/15 with them in Bequia in The Caribbean. We had hoped to sail in company with them some of the way, but we were delayed first by generator and water maker problems and then sadly again by the need to return to Scotland. So it was great finally meeting up for three days in Tonga.

We also met up with a lot of other ‘yachties’ we knew from various places crossing The Pacific.  We ended up by having what can only be described as a ‘very sociable and lively’ two weeks.

We sailed to some of the small islands in the group and enjoyed some excellent hospitality and snorkelling, the best of which was an area known as The Japanese Garden. We met an American couple, Larry and Sheri who live in what can only be described as a floating cabin. They called it the ARK and part of the cabin was dedicated to a gallery, mainly selling Sheri’s own work. They had lived there for I think they told us 17 years! Larry was busy rebuilding a wooden catamaran hauled up on a beach nearby. They hosted a ‘pot luck’ beach party evening together with other yachties anchored in the bay. A fire on the beach, good company, it turned out to be a great evening. The tide had gone out, good job we had some help to get the dinghy back in the water!

The next night we went to a very small island across the same bay to visit a Spanish Tapas Restaurant. The couple that own and run The Basque Tavern are from Santander and had sailed here 20 odd years ago. They have no dingy dock and being wary of being stranded ‘high and dry’ we anchored our RIB, an inflatable boat with an aluminium base, with a stern anchor one end and a long line tied to a tree on the beach. Caroline got off first on the beach. I knew the tide was going to fall by just over  one metre so had to judge where to leave the dingy. My plan was to get as near to the beach as possible and then let the tension on the stern anchor pull the dingy off the shore. It went a bit wrong; as I jumped off the dingy I plunged well above my waist into the water. I was drenched with no change of clothes for the restaurant.

On arrival the owner told me to take my clothes off and they would give me a towel to wrap myself up in. I went discretely round the back of the restaurant where I was alone and stripped off wrapping the towel around me. I was alone that is except for a large goat. The goat took a fancy to me and immediately followed me back into the restaurant! It stayed next to me at the table, resting its head on the bench seat next to me. It was a surreal situation sitting in a Spanish restaurant in Tonga, wrapped in a towel with a goat, called Conchita, snuggling up to me! The food 8 different tapas, delicious paella followed by desert was excellent. They have a little stage and they played guitar and sang traditional Spanish songs for us.

Throughout Polynesia, Tonga being no exception, families sometimes bring up a boy as a girl. They as men are fully accepted in society, have jobs and apart from dressing and acting as women seem to lead ‘normal’ lives. But once a week in a local bar they put on a ‘drag’ show. It has been going on for years and is quite well known.

We never imagined we would be sitting in a bar in Tonga, watching a drag show, and full marks to the ‘lady’ dancers, they were excellent!

Eventually it was time to leave Tonga and after a night of inviting friends over for sun-downers, that carried on a bit beyond sun-down, we set off the next morning for the 1920nm (2208 miles) voyage to Australia.  Most yachts would stop at Fiji, Vanuatu and possibly New Caledonia on the way, but we decided we did not have time to explore any one of those islands and do them justice. We also wanted some time in Australia, especially as Caroline’s daughter lives in Brisbane. So for us it was direct to Bundaberg, Australia, only planning to stop en-route in the event of bad weather or a technical problem with the yacht. The yacht was fine, we had good winds forecast all the way, so having our final review of the weather as we sailed past the French islands of New Caledonia, we decided to keep going. We both had that ‘lets get there’ feeling. We plan to visit to these islands and Tonga in the furture after visiting Australia and New Zealand when we have more time.

The wind during the first week turned out to be stronger than forecast, which although it gave us a fast passage also led to big waves beam on or quartering the stern of the yacht which made the voyage very uncomfortable resembling at times a ‘corkscrew’ ride! It was the roughest of all the passages across The Pacific. No playing backgammon en-route on this trip! The wind was cold, spray everywhere and we were for a lot of the time in full wet weather gear, lifejackets at all times, clipped on and in sailing wellies!  And Caroline, although from the North of Scotland, doesn’t ‘do’ cold! The voyage from Tonga to Bundaberg took us 13½ days.  The weather improved as we got nearer to Australia, and during the last few days the wind died altogether meaning we had to motor the last couple of hundred miles.

Bundaberg is an official port of entry into Australia and on the morning of the 15^th we were asked to tie up at quarantine berth. The entry and clearance procedures for yachts arriving in Australia are very formal and well regulated, with advance notice to the authorities required by e-mail. We were not allowed to leave the quarantine dock until being cleared by Bio-Security, Customs and Immigration. Fresh Meat, fish, poultry, eggs, fruit and veg and a whole load of other stuff is not allowed. Understandably, they take the check-in process, very seriously.  But in fairness the officers were polite, very professional, friendly and courteous. By lunchtime on Thursday 15^th we were checked in to Australia.

We wandered into the shops nearby, found the all important ATM as we had not a single Australian Dollar, had a couple of beers in an Aussie pub and then to the supermarket to do a little restock. In Queensland you can’t buy alcohol in a supermarket and we needed to go to the licensed liquor store, just next door. Having done all that the supermarket offers yachties a free lift back to the marina!

A sailing club bar we passed on the way was offering ‘pokies’ and we just had to ask….pokies are slot machines!

The area around Bundaberg is dominated by the sugar cane industry and as an offshoot of that, rum. Of course we had to visit the Bundaberg rum distillery and sample Bundy rum. Very tasty!

Once we get sorted in Bundaberg we will sail the 200nm down to Brisbane, where we have booked into a marina. The marina in the suburb of Scarborough is only about 1½ miles from where Caroline’s daughter Alice lives and her cousin also lives very nearby. Caroline is very excited about seeing her family.

This will be our last blog this year; we fly back to the UK on 10 November. We hope you have enjoyed reading our stories, not found them too boring and look forward to continuing the blog of our adventures next year. 

We are also looking forward to seeing our family and as many of our friends as possible!

G’day and bye for now!

Michael & Caroline

S/Y Golden Spirit of Islay