Category: Uncategorized

April 10, 2023

Since we’ve been in the South Pacific (11 years now), we’ve been using a meteorologist named Bob McDavitt. He’s been amazing.

On one trip to Fiji, he turned us west for a day and we missed a serious low that popped up with very little notice. Our friends didn’t get the memo and sailed straight into it, and spending two days hove to in 40+ knots of wind. Meanwhile, we had a pleasant day sailing west and then east before continuing on with our course.

Bob publishes a weekly email called the Weathergram on his blog: MetBob. In today’s edition, he mentioned that he’s using ChatGPT to help with research. That gave me an idea. Here’s what Chat came up with…

In the land of the Kiwi, there’s a weatherman sage, Bob McDavitt, our hero, a name for the age. With a voice like the wind, and a heart like the sea, He charts out our courses, as sailors roam free.

From his weekly blog, metbob, he shares with us all, The secrets of weather, both great and quite small. A Weathergram treasure, he sends us each week, A gift for safe passage, for the brave and the meek.

Once a face on the telly, a star of the screen, His forecasts were legend, his manner serene. With a wink and a smile, he’d tell of the rain, And with knowledge and care, he’d ease sailors’ pain.

In the Southern Pacific, where the trade winds do blow, Bob McDavitt’s wisdom is something to know. His advice so astute, and his guidance so kind, He’s the meteorologist sailors can trust to find.

From the smallest of dinghies, to the mightiest yachts, He’s the guardian angel, of sailors’ sweet thoughts. For with Bob at our side, we fear not the tide, His expertise guiding us, through oceans so wide.

So here’s to Bob McDavitt, a true sailor’s best friend, A meteorologist maestro, on whom we depend. May his Weathergrams keep coming, his wisdom unfurled, As we navigate waters, in this beautiful world.

April 8, 2023

Well, physically we’re here, but legally, not so much yet. The check in procedure has been long and very difficult, made even more difficult by the weather. So far we’ve been cleared in by two groups of officials, with two more sets to go. We’ll go into extreme detail on the process in a later post – when enough time has passed that we don’t devolve into screaming or crying messes.

But here’s some good news now: we’re finally in the right place at the right time – for a solar eclipse. Here’s the track of the eclipse with where we are now, where we might be on the 20th of April for the eclipse, and where we might try to go to maximize the effect.

That possible spot directly on the path is in the middle of the ocean, about 150 miles from here. Might be worth an overnight passage, maybe?!?

There’s a great video about the eclipse here.

And here’s a website that shows the path of the eclipse as well as an animation of what it might look like at different points along the path.

Apparently, there’s a tiny town in Australia where they expect thousands of people to turn up. The town is setting up camping grounds. I wonder if they’ve checked the weather?

The little town in question is Exmouth, just southwest of where the cyclone is at the time of the forecast above. It’d have another few days to reach them before the eclipse!

Speaking of the potential cyclone, we arrived at Saumlaki at the exact time the low pressure was forming. This start-of-a-cyclone was the weather I mentioned that is making the  check-in process so frigging hard!

-Rich

April 3, 2023

Well, the day has come. After being in Darwin since Christmas, we’re finally ready to head north to Saumlaki in Indonesia.

We’ve been waiting for the monsoon season to end and the weather to turn favorable not just for the 300 mile passage north but for actually cruising around in Indo.

This looks like it’ll be a pretty quiet passage, except for the noise of the engine, which will need to run the whole time as there isn’t enough wind forecast to sail. Oh well. We have an engine and aren’t afraid to use it!

The exception to this mundane passage might be the occasional excitement of a few thunder storms. We just don’t think that can be avoided at this time of year. Our weather routing on Predict Wind calls for small seas with very little rolling, low vertical acceleration and no slamming. We hope they’re right.

We’ll post a report when we get in (sometime Thursday morning) and after we manage to get a sim card for internet access.

-Rich

Posted March 25, 2023
about September 2, 2022

We headed away from Great Keppel Island after another pleasant night in our anchorage off Svendsen Beach. Our route took us past the other “Keppels” in the area: Middle and Miall islands. Middle Island, with its white beaches, looked rather appealing. But again, with the roll problem at Great Kepple Island, I would imagine Middle Island’s east-facing anchorages would be places that Alan Lucas (the guidebook writer) would call “active.” Miall Island, just above Middle Island, didn’t seem to have much to offer as far places to anchor.

Below, photos of the islands–Middle Island is the one with the visible beaches and Miall is the small island. (Click any photo in the following galleries to enlarge.)

We then headed directly towards Keppel Bay Marina. It’s located in Rosslyn Bay on the mainland and adjoins a nature reserve called Double Heads, so named because of its two monolithic rock hills. This area is one in a string of coastal reserves that make up Capricorn Coast National Park.

The marina has a somewhat remote location, about 6-miles from the nearest town of Yeppon (and the reason why 2-hour access to a complimentary car is offered with a berth rental). Thirty-miles inland is the larger city of Rockhampton.

After a pleasant motor-sail in 12-knots of wind aft of our beam, we were approaching Keppel Bay Marina at high tide. This marina is not a typical one. First off, it’s one of those marinas that’s created by blasting out part of a rocky coastline; then boasts a large breakwater to protect the newly created harbor. It’s not surprising that not everyone likes this sort of place. Also, while there were certainly permanent boats and liveaboards, this marina also caters to boats in transit. Which to us, made the place feel energetic and festive.

Before we left Gladstone, we’d asked people their impressions of Keppel Bay Marina and found a range of opinions. Some said it’s not very nice so just plan to re-provision and get in and out as quickly as possible. Others said it’s OK but the owner should really be putting more money into the place. Only one person said they loved it; but hey, that was hope for us to at least like it.

Rich and I had two advantages for this situation. One is that with our instant hot water heater, we shower on the boat and don’t worry about a marina’s shower facilities. Toilets and laundry, yes, but not having to worry about showers is a huge advantage as many marinas fall short short in this department (water that’s too hot or cold, too low in pressure, too short after putting a coin in the box, etc.).

Our other advantage is that we’ve always enjoyed places such as this and just resonate with how they look and feel. Past favorites include Vuda Marina in Fiji, Kona Marina in Hawaii, Stanley Boat Harbour in Tasmania, and Coffs Harbor in Australia. We especially like when there’s an adjoining rock mountain, much like the Nut at Stanley, the Muttonbird Island Reserve at Coffs, and now the Double Heads at Rosslyn Bay. We rather like having a monolith rock looming over us, a familiar and friendly expression of nature standing sentinel over the marina.

Following the channel into the marina was easy, and finding our slip was no problem. The place was instantly appealing to us, really attractive except for the rather oddly-shaped and painted row of condos on the north end (but if people like living there, who are we to argue?).

We were soon tied up and taking a walk to the office. The big rock mountain made a great backdrop, but I noticed this marina also had some really nice trees along its walkway, attracting lots of birds. Tucked amid the trees were the bathroom and shower facilities, and small laundry room. Again, we don’t worry about the showers, but I could see the laundry would take some effort, squeezing in among all the other yachties who probably needed to do laundry along with provisioning.

It was easy to spot the outdoor area of the restaurant with all the tables outside, most under umbrellas or a tent, on lawn areas amid really attractive landscaping. A walkway led into the building which featured the main desk of the marina, a large giftshop, a small chandlery, and the host/hostess podium for the restaurant.

Approaching the large, central marina service desk, it was apparent this place was rather busy not just with yachties but regular tourists. They were very efficient with us–we were given information booklets, told how to reserve our complimentary car, and helped with everything we needed. It seems the tourists come here to book ferries to Great Kepple Island or make reservations for the restaurant. In any case, it’s pretty active in there!

After getting getting set up, we made restaurant reservations for us and two friends we’d made back at Gladstone Marina who were also headed north. I’d been really looking forward to trying this place as it has an Asian-based menu, and I was craving Asian-based food (not having had it since well before we left New Zealand)!

Soon, it was time to meet our friends for an early dinner. There was some confusion at our “boomer” table because of an increasingly common (but new to us) system for ordering: download an app, bring up the menu on your phone, make your choices, enter your order, then pay. When the food is ready, it is brought out to you.

Rich managed it but our friends had more trouble. Thankfully, they provide the option to view a physical menu and place your order at the hostess desk. Actually it’s pretty funny to see those of us customers born pre-1961 with our reading glasses, peering at and scrolling down the screen menus on our phones or holding up the actual big menu at the hostess desk, muttering what the heck is this and why can’t they just do things normally? But the world is changing and we either change with it or, well, we don’t get to go to cool places like this.

The Waterline Restaurant did not disappoint. We started our meal with festive cocktails, then feasted on just the sort food I’d been craving: spring rolls, dumplings, hand rolled sushi, and a noodle dish.

Yep, I could tell I was going to be very happy here. –Cyndi

Posted March 17, 2023 about
September 01, 2022

I’ve talked in the past about some of cruising’s most annoying challenges, but there’s another category I’ll call cruising’s most annoying moments. Here’s the one I experienced today:

This annoying moment happens after making the decision, in spite of nice weather at the time, to put off some outdoorsy excursion for the following day. Then waking up in the early hours of that following day to the sound of wind. Not the serious kind that makes one concerned for boat safety, but the kind that accompanies weather that’s not good for dingy rides, sun-lit beach photos, swimming/snorkeling excursions, or other outdoor activities. The kind of weather that makes one think, “Ah crap; did we make a mistake not doing xyz yesterday?”

I went back to sleep hoping conditions would be better when we got up later. They weren’t. But as often happens with windy, cloudy weather; there are short periods when the sun might peek out. I realized what we needed was to be “cruiserly” about this. Cruisers often have to work around conditions—we don’t blow off a day’s excursion because of less-then-ideal conditions as it may simply the only opportunity we get to experience a place.

Today, being “cruiserly” would include a chilly, splashy dinghy ride to the beach, then waiting patiently for the sun to pop out from behind the clouds before taking photos.

It also meant paying more attention to the actual weather (using the real-life app) and worrying less about the forecast. At the moment we were starting to get peeks of sunlight, even though it was mostly chilly and gray.

So, in spite of the cloudy, breezy morning, we inflated our dinghy and got ready to head to the island, knowing the likelihood was the wind would die off near shore and the air would feel warmer. Hopefully the sun would grace us with its presence and light up the beaches so I could take photos that let us project the image that we live in a state of endless summer (believe me, we don’t).

Riding to shore, the wind did, in fact, die off and the clouds started to break up–it was looking like my weather gamble would pay off.

We decided to land at Second Beach, the smaller of the two beaches. I have always believed I haven’t really experienced an island until I’ve actually stood on its shore, and that certainly proved to be true in this case—it seemed much more attractive from the beach than it appeared from our boat in the anchorage.

The water was clear, the shallows transforming into a kaleidoscope of soft blues when the sun came out. We parked our dinghy near the outcrop hill and realized this was actually an impressive beach, wide with smooth, light-colored sand and backed by a thick line of forest.

We kicked off our shoes and took a walk down to the far side of the beach. Sadly a sailboat had gone aground there and was lying on its side. It looked to be in relatively good shape, and we hoped the next attempt to drag it back into the water would succeed. Below, a few photos of Second Beach (click on any photo to enlarge in the galleries below).

Now it was time to go see Svendsens Beach. We had the option of hiking over the hill to do so, but we opted to be lazy and go by dinghy instead. Here we found a lovely white beach with even softer sand than Second Beach. We walked over to a patch of palm trees and a dry riverbed nearby.

At this point the sun was staying out, and I was happy to be getting some decent photos. And while it was still windy out in the anchorage, it was warm and calm here on shore.

In spite of the number of boats in the bay, we saw surprisingly few people as they were probably discouraged from coming ashore by the weather. I was so glad we came in, especially walking on that lovely sand! I don’t usually go on about sand, but its soft, springy texture, lack of sea rubble, and pleasant shore-water temperature made it feel wonderful to walk on barefoot.

The time came to dinghy back through the windy chop to our boat. Unfortunately, it was now too windy there to fly the drone; so I hoped we’d have a final chance the next morning. Because a period of enhanced trade winds was coming, our plan was take refuge in a nearby marina, the Great Keppel Marina, for a few days and wait for things to settle down before continuing north. Wanting to enter the marina at high slack tide, we would need to leave Great Keppel Island around 10am.

I was disappointed that this meant we wouldn’t get a chance to see Fishermans Beach on the west side of the island. Aside from a nice-looking beach, there were a couple of small, rustic resorts, one of which had an eatery. Rich was showing no interest in coming back to Great Keppel; so I considered maybe we might take a ferry back here (landing at Fishermans Beach) during our marina stay.

Meanwhile, we did manage to fly the drone before we left and got a few interesting photos of the anchorage . . .

Plus one nice panorama that Rich edited but never got around to posting:

Just an interesting side story: People familiar with this part of Australia may remember a rather famous resort, Great Keppel Island Resort, located on Fishermans Beach. This hotel was quite popular in its heyday, but the ins and outs of running an island resort can be like sitting on a house of cards. Queensland is positively littered with abandoned, decaying island resorts that have gone under for various reasons (something I’ll address in a future post). In the case of Great Keppel Island Resort, it seems its undoing was the financial crisis of 2008 and the resulting loss of tourists, especially international tourists.

The resort went under in 2013 and was partially demolished, the rest now in ruins. A series of investors have shown interest in re-developing it but over the years, one-by-one, they’ve dropped out of the venture. The most recent investor was the real deal—lots of money, good business sense, and committed to the project. So everyone was surprised when recently she, too, dropped out. The current feeling is if this woman can’t make refurbishing Great Keppel Island profitable, no one can.

It’s now looking like the end of days for a serious resort on Great Keppel Island. I know many people who live here (and on the mainland nearby) are disappointed, but the reasons why the resort rebuild would be a poor investment are pretty clear.

Actually the whole story of the abandoned Queensland resorts is pretty interesting, and one I’ll be posting about soon. But next up will be the very interesting marina we were headed to.–Cyndi