After 11 days of sailing from Vanuatu, we arrive in ACTUAL Australia
I still can't quite believe Nauplios has sailed us all the way here from the little old Hamble river!
11 days of sailing means 11 nights of sailing, in which we obviously both need to sleep.....
People often ask me if we stop the boat, or do we moor up at night to sleep? - we don't
One of us will be sleeping, and the other will be watching out, or more technically, being on night watch. This means being in the cockpit, with a lifejacket and a harness on (just to stop you going overboard 😩 ) (We only wear these on night watch)
Most of the time, we set the sails in the early evening, then just leave everything until the next day unless of course there is a big shift in weather and we need to keep ourselves safe - usually by reducing the size of, or reefing the sail.
It's not ideal doing any of this at night -
a) You are tired
b)Its dark and you can't see much
c) Being on deck is more dangerous at night and if you were to go overboard (that's not happening by the way) that would pretty much be it.
Sometimes we know, part way through the night that we need to change our course/change direction, change a sail or do a repair or whatever - but really, unless it's urgent, we just keep going until the morning, usually after a coffee! (Well we are quite old!)
This was a bit weird initially - if you compare it to driving, for example, there is no way you would continue, knowing you were going even slightly in the wrong direction.
In the boat, however, at circa 5 nmph, what can really go wrong? You might lose a bit of time, you might arrive at your destination a couple of hours later than planned - well on an 11 day trip, that is not quite the end of the world, is it??
So in reality, for the majority of times, on night watch, the boat steers itself, we just keep an eye and an ear out for anything unusual, do the hourly checks, try to keep the boat steady and quiet to allow the off watch person to sleep.
One night between Vanuatu and Australia, I suddenly heard this loud squawking noise and realised we had company. Three little bambino seabirds had sought refuge on our solar panels, and pretty much stayed there until we got to Townsville.
Night watch for me can be a bit lonely, a bit scary - the big sea, the big moon, or no moon and complete blackness - so once I had gotten over my heart attack, I loved having these little birds on board. Despite the adversity, I think they enjoyed an ocean crossing on Nauplios.
Adversity appeared at dawn a few hours later when the birds, who hadn't read the "keep the noise down" memo, squawked loudly enough to wake the Skipper up. This started a 9 day battle of Seabirds vs the Sned (my husband)
I loved the birds, but I hadn't been on the foredeck overnight, and it seems this is where the birds like to do KaKa - thick black, seabird birdshit, lots and lots of it, scattered all over the foredeck. Oh dear!
I'm not sure what seabirds eat - I imagine lots of fish, and I'm not sure about the chemical composition of seabird shit, but the reaction between seabird shit and our aluminium boat does not go well together.
It takes ages to get off, and if you don't get it off it leaves a product which can rust the boat (read that as - hole in boat) - you practically have to use a sander to remove it....
So, instead of listening for the noise of the wind in the sails - is the wind changing? do we need to change the sail? etc -Just the normal sailing things - my husband was on total bird duty for most of the passage
I think the birds waited for him to go to bed, and as soon as he entered the deep sleep phase, the squawking started - he would leap out of his bunk, shouting and swearing more, even than normal, rattling the rigging, trying to knock them off the solar panels with the boat hook.( I do have a very funny video of this going on, but unfortunately have been banned from posting it)
The birds would either just completely ignore him, or they might fly off, to then reclaim their squawking position approximately 18 minutes later as deep sleep returns....
After 9 or 10 days together, and a whole load of avian excrement on our foredeck, as we were approaching Townsville, the birds flew off - never to be seen again.
No looking back, No "Thanks for having me" No "I'm sorry I shat on your foredeck"
Meanwhile the Sned is on Amazon looking at " super soaker sniper powerful long distance water guns" ...
If anyone has any tips for cleaning bird Kaka off aluminium boats please let us know.....
So after Bird Gate, and then successfully managing to not shipwreck ourselves on the Great Barrier Reef, like Captain Cook did, we arrive into Townsville around 10.30 on a Tuesday morning.
Australia is well known for having tight border controls, customs and biosecurity- believe me, I have watched "Border Security" enough times to know.
For sailors coming into Australia I have a few little tips to make things easy
CUSTOMS
www.abf.gov.au/entering-and-leaving-australia
Make contact with the Australian Border Force within 90 days and at least 48 hours before arriving
You will be asked to complete a PAR form (pre arrival registration) which has all your boat details, and also tells you what you can and can't bring in.
Make sure you get rid of all your guns, weapons, pepper spray, stun batons etc. Also get rid of any illegal drugs and pornograpy. That was a joke, obviously, but be prepared to have your boat searched from top to bottom and if you are not sure about an item, just declare it on the pre arrival form, then tell customs when they come on board.
IMMIGRATION
We got a 12 month tourist visa, which was quick and efficient to organise online and cost around £100
You do need a visa, and unfortunately cant just rock up without one, like a lot of countries.
If you don't want a full year, I understand you can get something called an ETA online fairly quickly - this is a 3 month tourist visa which can, as far as I know, be renewed every time you exit/re enter the country.
Be warned -there are a lot of scam sites around who overcharge and then, when you have been overcharged for a visa that doesn't exist, you probably won't be legal, so you will then need to pay for a legal visa!
This all sounds obvious, and it is, but it has happened to a good friend of mine quite recently ( Actually, it was me. It was always going to happen to me! Luckily I realised and did manage to get all the money back....) (Be careful - just saying)
We are over half way round the world, we have visited loads and loads of different countries now, but never before have we had to have a medical prior to being allowed in - Australia, however, did require this.
We had our medicals done in Fiji - it was reasonably priced at Dr Naidu's clinic in Nadi. www.drnaidus.com
(co-incidentally, this is also where we had our best curry in Fiji! at Swagat North Indian Restaurant, Queens Rd, Nadi, Martintar, FJ)
From what I have been told, if you are entering Australia from some Pacific countries, you may need a chest xray to exclude TB.
The medical included a chest x ray, blood tests, detailed questionnaire and a good medical grilling from Dr Patel and his team (who were lovely - even though they wrote my weight down as 20 kg heavier than I am - not bitter at all!!)
Also - rest easy fellow boozers who might be heading this way over the next few seasons (Obvs mentioning no names Beleza, Susimi, Chiquita, Midnight Breeze??) - the blood test was just a simple kidney function check - no liver function or Gamma GT (alcohol markers) are checked. The medical costs around £150 each.
BIOSECURITY
Australia already has enough creepy crawlies without us lot bringing in more - and border control are not scared to search your boat from top to bottom to hunt them down.
As well as a huge search for any creepy crawlies, there is a big list of things - foodstuffs- that may be at risk of carrying certain bugs/disease. Our banned list was a little confusing, so we basically ate all of our fresh meat, vegetables, fruit, fish, and pulses on the 11 day sail from Vanuatu (hence I think I was 20kg extra by the time we arrived)
When biosecurity got on board, they had a really good snoop around while we nervously sat on deck and tried to act normal.
As it was, the only things they identified as being at risk were two huge bags of lentils and a big bag of rice- for which they charged around £25 disposal cost
Check this website for banned foods/products and dont forget to send a PAR form.
https://immi.homeaffairs.gov.au
The biosecurity people were hilarious and once they saw our fridge stacked full of Fosters (which apparently nobody drinks in Australia =who knew!) they mercilessly took the piss!
Once you have made contact with biosecurity, I would suggest emailing them to get an up to date list of foodstuffs you can and cant bring in. We had lots of conflicting information and probably threw out stuff we didn't need to....
ANCHORAGES/MARINAS
There was an anchorage just outside the breakwater Marina in Townsville which looked sheltered and good. We didn't try it however. There is dinghy parking available at Breakwater Marina
We checked in via the Breakwater Marina of Townsville, and they were beyond excellent at both co-ordinating our arrival and as a marina.
The staff were completely over and above - nothing is too much trouble. The berths are good, it is reasonably priced, close to town, the beautiful beaches, bars and restaurants of Townsville.
A big bonus for us was that they have a marina car you can use to load up with shopping etc.
More Australian fun to follow soon ....
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