Wrinkly hands from sitting in the rain...I was sick for the first day and a half, which was unpleasant. I'm hoping it was just due to me taking the wrong sea sickness pill - the ones with antihistamines are the only ones that work for me. I took one without. But we had some nasty weather - the boat hasn't been shaken up that much since New Zealand, so it wasn't surprising I ended up feeding the fishes.
I cannot wait until we have an AIS. That is the thought that went through my head the most on this passage, next to woeful regrets about packing away the majority of my winter gear. We came up past Port Macquarie and Newcastle, so there were boats EVERYWHERE. As in, EVERYWHERE. We were surrounded, weaving in and out between massive cargo ships. At night. With the moon hiding behind the clouds, not even offering to shine a tiny bit of light on the situation. I hate other boats vehemently and I hate them more when I can't see them. Garth pointed out that it will be scarier when we have the AIS - the big ships will be able to see us and where we're going, so they'll be more confident about coming closer. That's not ok. But it has to be better than staring at all the lights through the darkness, trying to figure out if they're heading towards us or sitting still while they wait around for a pilot to take them into port. If they were just all moving at a normal speed it would be easier, but they slowly crawl closer while they're waiting. It's infuriating.
I had a horrifying moment during the first ten minutes of one of my watches. I was feeling sick, so when Garth woke me up to do my watch all I wanted was to lie down and not throw up. We're not allowed to just run off when we switch - the person coming off has to tell the person coming on where all the boats are, what they're doing and anything else relevant to the next two hours. They're also responsible for making sure the sleepy substitute is tethered on.
Garth showed me the boat parallel to us and told me to keep an eye on it because it wasn't that far away. I looked at it, didn't pay any attention to which way it was going and just registered that it wasn't that close and there was no way we were on a collision course. Then I set my timer for ten minutes and collapsed. My bad.
I looked up again before the timer went off, so probably 7 minutes later. And it was right in front of me. As in, it had done a 90 degree turn so we were now aiming for the middle of it, and the outline of the cargo vessel pretty much took up the whole sky. I distinctly remember looking up at the deck towering above me. That was probably an exaggerated memory.
I yelled out for Garth, unhooked Boris (our windvane steering) and swung the boat around by 180 degrees. Then proceeded to head in the complete opposite direction to the scary ship. About 15 seconds later I realized that he had probably been going around us and had turned south when he was sure he was clear, and that completely changing course would just confuse him and possibly cause him to head closer to us. Whatever. The giant scary thing was behind me now instead of in front. I'm pretty certain that at his 20 knots compared to our 4, we wouldn't have crossed paths. In fact by the time I stopped freaking out, turned us around again and got back on course (a few minutes later), the Christmas tree had been reduced to a few rapidly diminishing lights in the distance. Then we couldn't get Boris working again and I had to hand steer. And I didn't even care, because I would have made the same decision again. Big ship, run away. I couldn't really have aimed to tuck in behind him either because the wind was being disagreeable. Even though it's very unlikely we would have crashed, it was too close for my comfort levels. So that whole situation was stupid and I'm fairly sure we weren't actually in danger, but I'll sure as hell pay attention to whether I'm looking at a red light or a green one next time there's a ship parallel to us and I'm half asleep.
Garth doesn't get as nervous as me. For the first day or so of a passage I mostly sleep in the cockpit to prevent going down below and getting sick. I looked up in the middle of the night at one stage and there was a ship off our starboard bow with bright fishing symbols up, being overtaken by another one directly in front of us. Then not far off the port side was another ship starting to curve left to go around a reef, and there was a fourth ship just in front of him. They were moving around each other like clockwork and Garth was sitting there happily, not in the least bit worried. I look at the boats, figure out what they're doing, then panic anyway as soon as they get closer. He's just calm as a cucumber.
The rest of the trip was just as sucky. We bobbed round in circles when the wind died, and eventually turned on the engine for a few hours when we were getting close to our destination. It drizzled and then poured down for an entire day, making it really hard to see anything. Garth stayed on deck for hours trying to keep me dry, but it didn't pass and we all ended up drenched to the bone. We dropped the anchor in Coffs Harbour quite late at night, with the sails dumped on the lazy jacks and carelessly tied down with one sail tie. Everything was wet and a lot of stuff made it to the floor again - we're slowly securing all the things that fall down. This was the worst weather we've had in seven months, and a hell of a lot more stuff stayed on the shelves this time than it did on our first trip from Wellington to Whangerei.
We have to make holes in the pretty wood to put straps or nets over the shelves, and the more holes we add the more our boat value decreases. So we're trying to figure out what to do. We definitely need something to keep all our junk in place though. It's only the really high shelves without nets, and things only fall out of them when we're really heeled over, or bouncing back and forth. So it's not often a problem unless the weather is bad.
We've been relaxing on the boat for two days, camping out in the marina while the boys did a billion loads of washing. Yesterday we walked the three or four kilometers into town and wandered around. We got a few things for the boat plus the rare opportunity to eat lunch out instead of having our usual sandwiches on the boat. It's a pretty walk along the creek and it was nice to do some exploring. We climbed up to Muttonbird Island in some crazy strong winds as well, to enjoy the view.
Today we decided to go on an adventure. We kayaked into shore, deflated the kayak and carried it for about half an hour to the creek then inflated it again. Sam went off to hire one for himself and the three of us went off to explore the creek via kayak. It was a lot of fun! I got nervous going over sunken shopping trolleys and scary rocks in the kayak, terrified we'd pop a hole in it. I'm always stupidly paranoid when it comes to sea faring vessels. We found some interesting bird life, a cute lizard and a giant eel. So we had a good day all round. Garth and I ended up kayaking to the beach and dragging our little boat through the waves, picking it up and carrying it over the breakwater to the harbour so we could head home. I was shocked by the water temperature - it's quite chilly at the moment, but the beach was still like a lukewarm bath. We're slowly getting more tropical!
We kept running aground on the way out... I figured out a system.We're heading to Yamba tomorrow, then to the Gold Coast. Hopefully both day sails!
Xxx Monique
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