16.55S 145.47E

Thursday 5th May 2011

I will invoke the wrath of the gods and say that there is very little broken
at the moment. We had to call out a guy who sorted out the AIS in nearly
20secs and then spent 1.5hrs mending the electronics. I've never been to a
girls hairdresser, but he sounded a bit like them - "Who on earth did this
to you last time?"
Queensland has, on every number plate, 'The Sunshine State' ; I had to ask a
man yesterday what that big red thing in the sky was - he wasn't amused and
said it was the worst summer for 50 years.

The good food continues, last night we had, on the far side of the world, a
delicious paella, only complaint (there has to be one) was no chicken and no
peas in the rice; almost too much lobster though.

K

Before we left Airlie Beach the engine man drove 1 ½ hours from Mackay and discovered that our dodgy starting was from air in the system where we had fitted a fuel decontaminator. He put in a new bridge and it has been fine since. He also dove under the boat and confirmed we had banged something which had taken the paint off the propeller but no lasting damage. Phew.

The journey here [280nm] was fine but not relaxing. Nights were a bit scary with reefs and islands all over the place plus confusing fishing boats and large container ships. The shipping lane is the only safe passage a lot of the time so we tried to stick to the edge.

Only 1,100 miles to Darwin.

C