As Molly said in her update below,

we made it up the coast to Southport, just south of Brisbane, and just north of Surfer’s Paradise.  It looks like Miami Beach around here – glitzy hotels, hundreds of miles of golden-sand beaches, expensive little boutiques, and nice restaurants.  The marina is very chic; there are glass automatic doors at the top of each gate, that slide apart as you swipe your card against the sensor.  I am sure we will only be here a couple of days, since our life’s savings are already earmarked for other things.

It was still raining and blowing in Coffs Harbour as we left, but about 30 miles north, the sky was blue and the wind was at our beam.  The ocean swells were still big from all the wind, and it was a roll-y ride.  I can’t seem to get a handle on my seasickness problem.  This time, I tried the patch that you put behind your ear, and it is supposed to keep you from feeling sick.  Didn’t work.  I guess I will just keep trying different products until something clicks.  This time, I was alone in my misery; Molly didn’t get sick at all.

Today, our first full day in Queensland, is a holiday:  ANZAC Day – 25 April – is probably Australia’s most important national occasion.  It marks the anniversary of the first major military action fought by Australian and New Zealand forces during the First World War.  ANZAC stands for Australian and New Zealand Army Corps.  The soldiers in those forces quickly became known as ANZACs, and the pride they soon took in that name endures to this day.  Flags were at half-mast, and there were memorial events everywhere.  All the stores were closed, and the beaches were packed.  Therefore, we have not been able to do much in the way of discovery.

As a greeting, people (really, everyone!) here say, “How’re you going?”  Not “How are you doing,” and not “How is it going,” but “How are you going?”  I always want to answer, “By foot,” or “By boat,” but I am a good little tourist, so I just answer, “Fine, and you?” 

On our sail up the coast, I was pondering the instruments we have on board that determine our speed.  We have the knot meter, which simply tells us how fast we are going through the water.  Even if we were going around in circles, it could read 7 knots.  The “speed over ground” indicator tells us how fast we are going over the bottom of the ocean.  If the currents and wind are helping us or hindering us, we could be going faster or slower than what the knot meter is reading.  Ahhh, but the VMG instrument is my favorite; Velocity Made Good.  It tells you how fast you are going toward your goal.  Once you plug in to the computer where you want to go, the VMG tells you how well you are doing at reaching that goal.  If you are sailing with the wind, and the wind isn’t going the direction you want it too, you might even have a negative VMG.  It’s thrilling to watch the boat’s progress toward your chosen goal. 

I was thinking that it would be great if the world had a VMG meter.  We could check our progress against the big things in life; poverty, peace, pollution, loving our neighbor, etc.  If we all had personal VMGs, we could see how we are marching toward our personal goals: getting the kids through school, moving ahead in our jobs, finding God.  If we found out that we were moving away from our goal, we could make some adjustments and get back on track.  I hope Bill Gates reads this.  They could include it in the next Windows upgrade.

Back home in Enumclaw, four of my family members were having birthdays around this time.  Today we set up a Skype concert for them.  There were about 12 people gathered in the warm light of the computer back home, and Jessie and Molly performed four songs for the birthday people.  Jessie played the guitar on all four songs, and Molly sang “Let It Be” while Jessie played.  We have a camera on our computer, so the family got to see the girls’ show.  Fortunately, we had a good connection, and everyone clapped and cheered.  It was fun to connect, from lo these many miles.  It’s a good way for Grandma to keep up with how big Molly and Jessie are getting, so she won’t be so shocked when we get home!  ~  Jeanna

G’day, mate!

  We are now in Southport, Queensland.  There is big rivalry here in Australia between the states; even the license plates show it.  The New South Wales plates say “NSW – the first state”.  Another one is “Victoria – the place to be”.  A very accurate description is “Queensland – the sunshine state”, and we’re very happy to be here after rainy NSW.  Back in Coffs Harbor, everyone was so helpful and friendly and impressed that we sailed all the way here from the States… until we said we were going up the coast soon, and what was it like there?  Then they just sort of clammed up.  It was like, “What’s wrong with our part of Australia?  Why in the world would you want to go to Queensland?”  It was pretty odd.  

On the subject of us ‘sailing all the way here from the States’, we’ve heard some really funny comments from people walking the docks when they pass our boat and see the hailing port.  Sometimes it’s just “Seattle, Washington.  Wow, that’s a long ways to sail,” and on a rainy day we heard “Oh, there’s a boat from Seattle, Washington.”  “Well, at least they’re used to this weather!”  Once, in New Zealand, we got “Seattle, WA… does that mean Western Australia?”  “No, that’s in America (except it sort of sounded like ‘Amelica’).”  And just the other day, from what sounded like a little boy and his dad: “Look, that boat’s from America.”  “They’re from America?!”  I think you can tell which one is which.

The song “It’s a Small World After All” really is true!  We just met a man working at a marine store here who remembered us from the Marquesas.  We had an excess of bananas on board, and Jessie and I met him while we were kayaking around the anchorage trying to give them away.  What a coincidence!     ~ Molly

Sydney, Australia is a walking city.

 It is dotted with parks and gardens, and its many harbours have been used to their fullest advantage.  The Sydney Opera House is just as impressive as the pictures you see of it, and the Harbour Bridge stands proudly over the harbour.  One of the adventures you can have in Sydney is climbing up to the very top of the bridge, protected by belts and ropes and a guide, and standing at the tip-top, over 400 feet above the water.  We chose not to do that, although Molly and Jessie wanted to.  Fortunately, the weather was drizzly most of the time we were there.

We took a boat ride around the harbour, and were amazed at how huge the bay is.  You could easily spend two weeks by sailboat, exploring all the little fingers and nooks of the harbour.  There are villages, shopping centers, museums, and botanic gardens placed strategically along the harbour.  The buses, boats and city trains are easy to navigate.  It reminded me a little of Vancouver, San Francisco, and Seattle, with a bit of Paris thrown in for atmosphere. 

Before we left for Sydney, we drove to a housing development just north of Coffs Harbour, which the Customs guy told us about.  There are many lots in this development; some have houses built on them, and some are yet to be sold.  Each lot looks to be about 5 acres.  For some reason, there are hundreds of kangaroos in this development, all hopping about freely.  They seem to like the short, manicured lawns of the houses, rather than the bushy, un-tended empty lots.  We were there about dusk, and the kangaroos were grazing in front of the houses, keeping a lazy eye on the traffic going past the houses.  There must have been about 50 of them in front of one particular house; it looked like a flock of seagulls, really BIG seagulls, nibbling away while the sun set. It was a strange sight!

Speaking of birds, the sulfur-crested parrot is as ubiquitous around here as sparrows are in the northwest.  Sometimes, a tree will have so many of them in it that the noise is unbearable as you walk by.  They are big and beautiful – bright white with a soft yellow comb.  We went to a botanical garden in Sydney, where the parrots and Lorikeets were tame enough to land on our shoulders and eat peanuts from our hands.  There were times when the four of us each had two or three birds on our shoulders, heads and arms.  If you happened to run out of peanuts, they got a little testy and kept nipping at your hands or ears, whatever was closest.

The weather here has been the biggest disappointment so far.  It has been rainy, and windy, with huge seas.  The surge in the marina keeps our boat tugging and dancing constantly.  We are anxious to head north, but there is a 3-knot current coming south right now, and big ocean swells, as well as 30-40 knot winds.  There was one pretty nice day last week where we rented boogie boards and surf boards and spent the day in the water.  There is a great beach right at the marina, with good waves and a nice landing.  We could hardly get Molly and Jessie out of the water – they must have been in there for 6 hours, at least! 

We haven’t encountered any of the “101 things that can kill you in Australia” yet, but we have seen many of the animals we had hoped to see – some were in a nature park, but some were out in the wild.  Check out the media gallery for a sampling of our first couple of weeks in this huge and beautiful country!   ~   Jeanna

Ruby Slippers is in the land of OZ-stralia!

  We arrived in just over 7 days, and are very glad to be here!  We cleared customs this morning (Monday), and it pretty much wiped us out of meat and fresh food.  I bought way too much for this trip, considering none of us ate the first 3 days.  I had to give up about $100 worth of frozen meat.  But the customs man was really nice, and very apologetic about taking all that food.  He brought a bunch of stickers and pins and brochures down to the boat for Molly and Jessie, and said there would be a test later on about it all.  

There were a few turbulent hours on this trip.  At one point, the wind was blowing 35 knots from the starboard side of the boat for about 6 hours, then stopped completely, turned and came blowing from the port side, with the same ferocity for another 12 hours.  That made the seas, as you might imagine, a bit confused.  They retaliated by forming stiff, sharp peaks and huge boiling swells.  My head actually snapped back on my neck several times as the boat performed its bucking maneuvers against the seas.  I felt like a rodeo cowgirl on an angry stallion.  I remained quite calm throughout all of this.  It was like Doris Day was whispering directly in my ear, “What will be, will be.”  It must be my new positive attitude coming through. 

We signed up for a local service called Russell Radio Offshore Communications for this trip.  It is a one-man company, a guy named Des, who we talk to on the SSB each day at the same time, and give him our coordinates, boat speed, and heading.  He tells us what he has learned about the weather in our area for the next 24 hours or so, and speaks words of encouragement to us.  Des must be about 80 years old, and sounds like he has one foot in the grave.  His voice is gravelly and raspy.  But he knows his weather, and he knows the south pacific oceans extremely well.  It’s comforting to talk with him each morning and evening, have him ask about the wife and kids, and tell us to hang tough; better weather is just around the bend.  I know that if we hadn’t called in for a couple of days, he would call the authorities.  He has been spot-on with his weather advice so far.  For 50 bucks a year, just hearing his grandfatherly voice is worth every penny.  We also are getting weather information from Buoy Weather Service, Ocens.Net (out of Seattle), and the McDavitt Report, another local service.  The weather patterns in these seas are so unpredictable that the information can change hourly. 

  Since we arrived, the weather has been rainy and cold and very windy.  We might take a train down to Sydney, to see the big city, and then head north in the boat toward the Great Barrier Reef.  The current will be against us on the way up the coast, but I think the weather will be nicer as we near the equator. 

No new pictures just yet – we haven’t ventured away from the boat very much.  We did discover that there is a small theater in town, and they are performing “Calamity Jane” starting this Sunday.  We traveled all this way – I guess we better go see an American western!  Stay tuned!  ~  Jeanna 

Halfway to Australia

and we’re feeling fine!  It was quite rainy for the first couple of days at sea, but it was okay, since we can perform most of the necessary operations at the chart table.  Only Molly and I ventured out into the cockpit, to throw up.  It is somehow more natural and refreshing to throw up overboard, as if we are communicating directly to the ocean; telling her we don’t appreciate the way she is slapping us around like a rubber ball, and that she should respect us like we respect her.  I said to Jessie the other morning, “What is Molly doing?” She looked at me blandly and said, “The technicolor yawn…”  Kids are so cute at this age.  After the requisite 3 days of feeling like shoe goo, Molly and I are back to our old selves.  

 

What I like about this trip is that the seas have been so flat.  There hasn’t been any chop or huge swells, and it has made all the difference.  We are cruising along at about 8 knots, smooth as a parade float.  Too bad there’s no one to wave to.  The wind has been mostly on the beam and behind us.  We had the jib poled out, going wing on wing all through last night.  It was a great ride.  The stars were gorgeous, and there was a sliver of a very yellow moon behind us.

 

The biggest problem I have had, on every crossing so far, is when to brush my teeth.  I am basically “on duty” every three hours, and try to sleep in between.  It seems natural to brush your teeth before going to sleep, and upon rising, but I have been brushing about 8 times a day.  At this feverish pace, I will have teeth the thickness of magazine pages by the time we reach land.  I have the brushing down to about four times a day now, which still seems excessive, but more manageable.  

 

Poor Jessie is starving.  I haven’t been cooking much; actually, not at all.  The chili I made ahead of time didn’t go over so well; I guess beans and acidic tomatoes weren’t the best idea.  The lasagna went over pretty well.  Our bread all turned green, so I will try to make some today.  There is a lot of snack food around, but Jessie needs her protein.  

 

The boat is moving well, and all systems are working.  We have only seen one ship the whole time we’ve been out here, and that was about a mile away.  I have been reading a book called Down Under, by Bill Bryson, which is all about the history of Australia and what makes it such a strange and wonderful place.  It is so huge, almost 70 percent of it has never even been surveyed.  I can’t wait to get there and see just a small part of it.

 

We would like to say a special hello to JoAnne Gray’s parents (whom we’ve never met), and Hester and Sam Kool (who we know well).  Thank you for your support of and interest in our adventure, through the wonders of cyber space.  We would love to get together with you all when we get home!  ~  Jeanna

We finally got rid of the parents

 

Mom was pretty easy.  While she was leaning out over the rail, feeding the fish, we gave her just a little nudge.  There goes mom!  Dad was harder, since he has his sea legs.  But, we told him there were dolphins surrounding the boat, and while he was leaning out with his camera, we gave just a little push.  We are sure going to miss that camera…

 

We have the boat all to ourselves!  No more school!  We can go anywhere we want!  There is plenty of food and fuel on board (thanks, Mom, thanks, Dad).  We could head south for Tasmania – I guess that is where kids like us belong.  Or north to Fiji.  Well, we would love to have a koala bear as crew, so I guess we will stick with the plan and go to Australia. 

 

First we have to decide who is captain of this ship.  I (Molly) think it should go by age.  5 minutes older is plenty to establish dominion, don’t you think?  I (Jessie) think it should go by height.  A captain needs to be taller than her minions.  

 

Height!  Age!  Height!  Age!  Pow!  Sock!  Punch!  X@!* %!!!  Kerpow!  Woops, there goes Molly.  Wish I knew how to turn this boat around, with all these sails up.

 

Well, I guess those full nights of sleep are over with.  Australia, here I come!  ~ Jessie

 

P.S. Happy April fool’s Day!