21.06.629S 149.13.722E  Friday 8^th August            AUSTRALIA!!!  Can you believe it?  We have motor sailed into Mackay Marina,  and we are on the quarantine pontoon –

Anahi on the Quarantine Dock

Neva are just behind us (Shaula III, Penelope III, Marianne, Kaimin and Stargazer following) the huge orange moon was in repose on her back tonight and we are feeling SO excited….. for so many years, plodding down to various marinas, wobbling along the pontoons we used to josh and say ‘shall we sail to Australia?’ ‘Shall we?’ ‘Right now?’ and we used to laugh at the fantasy of it all – and here we jolly well are – amazing!  And by the way it is FREEZING – so much for sub tropical – this is the coldest I have felt since I left the UK six years ago.

Anyhow back to the bird……. Or should I say birds? ‘Birds of a feather flock together’……..’flock’ is the operative word because before we knew it we had more birds – big birds, little birds, booby birds, little brown birds than you could shake an old stick at – it felt like a veritable Noah’s ark for birds – everywhere – up on the spreaders, perched on the solar panels, squatting on the poop deck, clinging onto the rails - and the shit……you cannot imagine how much shit comes out of one small bird in one day……not only that but they would go off fishing……..and eating…… and returning (home) and shitting.  Which presented me with a big dilemma – having convinced myself that each one carried a lonely soul I didn’t feel I could shoo them away…… and then I began to get the giggles…… here we were entering Australian waters – where no living animal, bug, beast, weevil, cockroach or widget was allowed to enter – and now we were arriving with a boat load of birds.  Not only that but we were beginning to have rather more in common with the smell emanating from  theTuna canning factory we left behind in Fiji than one would care to admit to.  Well the solution thankfully came in the shape of a 35 knot wind with huge lumpy confused seas – which either blew or rocketed them all away!! Then the waves washed over the boat and took their guano with them…….

Two birds on the guard rails

One bird on the solar panel (asleep)

This little fellow didn’t make it through the night – and had a full burial at sea…..

Our favourite – a masked booby who stayed with us for three days

Having a little rest……

Super confident………

And what a face………..

Entering Hydrographer’s pass had been discussed at enormous length on the SSB – tide tables were endlessly bandied about with plus and minus UTC added for good measure but we have a little device called CMAX which is on the chart plotter – you just click the curser over the tidal arrows at a given area and the satellites give you an exact and precise flow of tide and current.  More by luck than design we arrived at the optimum moment in the pass (which incidentally has a huge width compared to what we have been used to) to take advantage of these tides but still the sea state was so vile that it stopped us dead in our tracks and with 35 knot winds right on the nose we ended up motor sailing and tacking to avoid the worst…..and the worst lasted the whole day. The compensation was in the sprays of spume multicoloured with rainbows and a clear blue sky.  Never mind, we are through – we never saw a single breaching whale, minke whale, killer whale, whale asleep on the surface, whale showing off her babies, mating whale, attacking shark, ship turning a corner on a sixpence or indeed any of the other sights which other Rally people had seen – zilch!  We did have one drama though when the recently installed new auto helm belt became jammed, disabling the steering of the boat!  Quite an interesting moment, heaving too and removing the steering wheel whilst disassembling the auto helm unit.  We missed a photo opportunity there – me standing on the deck with the unattached steering wheel in my hands – but its all back together and although we have had to hand steer the last part of the journey we have so much adrenalin rushing through us now we have hardly noticed……