We're back in Mooloolaba, and onboard Barbara Ann once more. In spite of  the great time we had in New Zealand, we missed our girl. Andrew and Kim, on Stardancer, took good care of her while we were gone. Now, we have our sights set on cruising up the East coast of Australia, en route to Darwin, where we'll participate in the 2009 Indonesian Rally. First, we need to head back to Bundaberg, and haul out for our yearly bottom painting.




It's early April, 2009 and we're hauled out in the Bundaberg Port Marina. Teen-aged boys are great to have around when there's hard work to be done. Thanks to their efforts, we were only out of the water for five days - a record for us. The top photo shows Tyler and Austin waxing and buffing the topsides; in the bottom picture, Tyler and I are painting the hull and keel with special anti-fouling paint, in order to prevent barnacles and weeds from forming a miniature ecosystem on our hull.





Here's the final result, after 5 full-on days of working in the boatyard. She's in the slings and ready to launch. You can see our secret weapon in this picture - a bow thruster; don't leave home without it.








After a last-minute rush, we finally started our journey north to Darwin. Our first stop was Lady Musgrave Island, which is an atoll and also the southernmost outpost of the Great Barrier Reef. Tyler took the shot below from the mast while we threaded  its narrow pass.









While anchored in Lady Musgrave, we discovered a leaky injector on our diesel generator. In order to fix it we needed to divert to Gladstone, which is a busy coal port. On our plotter above, the black icon is us and all the gray wedges correspond to ships either anchored or underway outside Gladstone. We've never seen this many AIS targets at one time; thankfully, most were anchored. AIS works like an airplane's transponder; all large ships must transmit their course and speed over the network. By holding the cursor over the target, you get the ship's name, size, course, speed, closest point of approach, and more. We've come to depend on AIS, to avoid being run down by these behemoths. We got the shot below the next day, while motoring through their anchorage. This freighter is one of the targets seen on last night's screen above.








The only pirates we've seen on this trip. Jackie's find at the Bundaberg Sunday Market




After our quick stop in Gladstone, we headed for the Whitsunday Islands - one of the most popular cruising and charter destinations on the Queensland coast. Hamilton is the base of tourist operations in the Whitsundays and a must-stop for last minute provisions. Sulphur-Crested Cockatoos and Lorikeets are everywhere, and mingle with the diners at the local Cafes. Here's Jackie sharing her cone with one of the locals.





In the background is one of the more popular stops in the Whitsundays - Whitehaven Beach.

Austin broke out his skimboard to do the beach at Hill Inlet.








Our favorite anchorage in the Whitsundays was Nara Inlet, complete with a cave having Aboriginal art dating back hundreds of years. The area is cordoned off to protect the walls and has some great interpretative panels outside that were jointly made with the Ngaro people and the National Park officials.



Our last big city visit going north was to Cairns, in Northern Queensland. We docked at the Marlin Marina and decided to take a 3 day road trip inland. The next few shots are from our drive to the "bush".




Yukking it up at a termite mound.





We spent a night in the Undarra Lava Lodge. This mom & her Joey were right outside the lodge, on our walk to the Bush Breakfast.





Undarra's Bush Breakfast tries to recreate the feel of an Outback drover's breakfast. 




The food wasn't gourmet, but it was filling. It's all you can eat, so the 4 of us made the most of it. Here's Tyler on his second round.




Austin and a kookaburra are in sync with a Napoleon Dynamite lookdown.




We couldn't leave Queensland without getting one of the local Aboriginal-made didgeridoos. Austin's learning fast and practices quite a bit.


It's now late May, 2009. We need to be in Darwin in a month, and there's still a lot to see on the Great Barrier Reef. Our next few weeks will find us visiting the reef and its nearby islands, on our way to the Northern Territory. We hope to do a lot of diving and snorkeling along the way. Large estuary crocodiles are everywhere in Northeastern Oz, so there's no swimming or snorkeling close to the mainland.

One of our favorite towns in Northern Queensland is charming Cairns, pronounced "Cans" by the Aussies. We spent almost 2 weeks there. Our most important project there was the installation of some long-needed solar panels, to help keep our batteries charged. Here's one of the two panels, showing its hinged supports that fold down while sailing.





Farther up the coast is the frontier town of Cooktown. Here, in 1770, Captain Cook beached the Endeavour for repairs after striking a reef off the coast. This is the last settlement of any kind on the Far North Queensland coast, and is virtually inaccessible by car from the rest of the country - unless you have a rugged 4-WD that is. These croc warning signs were posted right off the Cooktown anchorage.




Lizard Island - a Cruiser's paradise, and no crocs. Excellent diving and snorkeling, a calm anchorage and a great beach. Lots to do, or just a great place to do nothing.





On the wild and windy side of Lizard Island a hike ends in a descent to a secluded beach. Here's Jackie learning the ropes.





While we were at Lizard Island, we took Barbara Ann out to a nearby, famous Great Barrier Reef dive spot, known as the Cod Hole. Once there, we put on our scuba gear and played with two enormous groupers, known locally as Potato Cods. They nestled up to us like puppies and seemed to enjoy being petted. The water was crystal clear and it was one of our most memorable dives to date. We regretted not having an underwater camera with us, but this photo taken by Mark Moxon shows what it's like. Check out Mark's interesting travel site: http://www.moxon.net/









Farther up the Queensland Coast, in the Flinders Group is Stanley Island. The traditional land owners, the Yiithuwarras, have been painting on the walls of this overhang for hundreds of years. In this photo you can see traditional sailing ships, possibly drawn in the 1800's.






Morris Island, a little more secluded spot farther north was another great stop. We only spent two nights here, but enjoyed its remoteness. Tyler was beginning to think he was the only fisherman on board. Luckily, I proved him wrong with this Great Trevally caught while trolling right off the beach at Morris Island. Our friends on Stardancer also caught a "GT", and we organized a big beach BBQ to celebrate. Both fish are wrapped in foil, cooking on the beach fire below.






All of these offshore islands have resident crocs. These hours-old,  low tide tracks on Morris Island's sandbar belonged to about a 5 footer, that we somehow managed to miss seeing on his way to the water. Barbara Ann is anchored just a quarter-mile away.









Jeff & Gayle on Lazy Bones got this shot of us, under spinnaker, south of Escape River.





This guy we didn't miss. He was hanging out on a sand bar on the Escape River, where we spent a night before rounding Cape York. Cape York is the far northern end of Eastern Australia. After we rounded it, we headed west across the top, to Darwin.










After rounding Cape York we entered the Torres Strait and visited the Torres Island Group, which is just below Papua New Guinea. This cannon was part of the island defenses in Green Hill Fort, on Thursday Island. TI, or Thursday Island was a strategic crossroads in the Pacific and saw action in World War II.







After crossing the Gulf of Carpenteria, we were out of Queensland and in the Northern Territory. We stopped at the Bauxite mining town of Gove to get permits allowing us to visit the aboriginal communities of Arnhem Land.  We also visited the Mulka Art Center in the nearby settlement of Yirrkala, where this artist was putting the finishing touches on a didgeridoo with paints made from natural materials found nearby.







Our first stop was the settlement of Galiwinku. The aboriginal adults we encountered weren't very communicative, but the kids were very friendly and inquisitive. This boy was visiting from his mainland settlement of Katherine and was real treat for us to interact with.




Here's a low-tech plot of our route from Brisbane north to Cape York, and from there, west to Darwin. Sailing distance was over 2000 miles. It took us about 2 months to do it; significant stops along the way included Bundaberg, Lady Musgrave Island, Whitsunday Islands, Townsville, Cairns, Lizard Island, Flinders Group Islands, Morris Island, Cooktown, Torres Island group, Gove, and the aboriginal settlements of Galiwinku and Maningrida. The longest nonstop segment was across the Gulf of Carpentaria - which was about 330 nautical miles. For the most part the weather was perfect - sunny and mild - with consistent SE trade winds and following seas. Occasionally, we had no-wind days, which meant burning fuel if we wanted to make miles; the other option was to simply wait until the wind filled in again - but we rarely waited. While sailing north along the Queensland coast we stayed inside the Great Barrier Reef, which blocks the South Pacific ocean swells . In short, it was an easy and memorable trip.











We finally made it to Darwin on June 23, and settled into the Tipperary Waters Marina. In town, Crocodile Tydee proves he could have handled any crocs that dared come after us. What were we afraid of?


THIS!




These two shots were taken up close and personal on our Adelaide River Croc Tour, just outside of Darwin. They were close enough to touch, if you were foolish enough to try. The guide let me stand on the bow to get the picture below. Had I fallen in the mud alongside "Stumpy" - well, it wouldn't have been pretty.






Soon our next chapter begins - sailing to Indonesia and then on to Malaysia, Singapore and Thailand. We leave Darwin on July 18, 2009 with the Sail Indonesia Rally, a flotilla of over 140 sailing yachts. Here we are on the day before the rally leaves Darwin.



Next stop: Saumlaki, Indonesia.


Indonesia