On this episode, winds wreak havoc before I get a brief mainsail induction from John.
Don't pull in the pole the pole come out.
We then depart Gary's Anchorage and sail north to Bundaberg where we provision
and prepare to take you to our first spot on the Great Barrier Reef.
We are so excited for this one, and a whole heap of amazing episodes coming your way.
If you're new here welcome, and thanks for joining our crew. Here's the quick rundown. Sick of covid
lockdowns I quit my job, packed up our Melbourne apartment and with my boyfriend John purchased
a yacht called Tucana. Some people called us crazy because we only had a few weeks sailing experience
but somehow we managed to sail her from Melbourne, 1500 nautical miles up the east coast of Australia
to Queensland where we are now and we're about to descend on the Great Barrier Reef.
This is Gary's Anchorage. On this trip we didn't get to see any dingoes. We heard dingoes.
The midges absolutely demolished me, to the point where I had to have an antihistamine.
I went for a walk on Fraser Island, while John manned the boat. This is only the third or fourth
time that we have anchored up and so we just wanted to make sure that we weren't going to
just get pushed into the rocks or anything like that, so John stayed on board.
Right now you wouldn't know it, but we're about to be lashed with some strong winds,
so we've anchored off literally the biggest sand island in the world for protection.
Some know this place as Fraser Island but a few weeks ago it was renamed K'gari, its original
indigenous name for thousands of years which means paradise. It's located off the east coast
of Australia, known for being the only sand island in the world
where complete forests grow. The perfect place to seek shelter from the winds we're bracing for.
Look how close they are. I suppose the thing is they don't react the same way.
They react differently to current in the wind that's why they don't swing the same way. I mean
the current should be running in, so it looks like the powerboat is more affected by the current
and the yacht is more effective by the wind, but usually
be the other way around.
Meanwhile we were having our own little dramas.
The first warning came from the anchor alarm Tucana's backside was getting close to the bank.
That noise gives me anxiety. Making us nervous. Can you turn on the instruments? Yeah.
We thought we might be dragging. What's the depth?
We weren't dragging and had 3.3 meters under the keel, despite the winds swinging us around. How many
meters away do you think we are from shore? Well it's better now, we've come back in.
Gary's Anchorage turned out to be a nice, safe, secure, protected anchorage while we had some strong winds and
and rain come through.
Okay that is disgusting. Here's my little progress.
That crustiness is just the antiseptic powder it's not actually bad.
We've got a pretty big sail today. Perfect conditions, just waiting on the tides now.
Currently going from a low to high tide so we need to make sure that we have enough
depth under the keel.
We'll be sailing the Great Sandy Strait which separates mainland from K'Gari.
It's 45 miles in length.
Every time we sail John always looks after the boom and mast situation
and I've never been out here before so John's just going to show me how it's done today.
I haven't really done it i think because of my height.
Okay, pole topper. Yep there you go.
You know what to do. I think I do.
You put it on here yeah?
Oh this one, yeah see I haven't done it before. And while securing with spinnaker halyard, John also
wanted to update you guys on the leaky eyebrow window. What I did... see I've taped this one
over this one, it should be the other way around because the water's just going straight under.
1500 was spent to fix that window.
It's really heartbreaking. It has to be pulled out and reseeded see and this is the problem
you put tape on and water gets under it now you've got water sitting like on the seals,
you know? John was just saying the reason why they didn't do a very good job is because they
didn't want to take the whole window out because they were concerned that they were going to break it.
It might break and they don't have them in Australia. It'd be a long delay for us waiting
for a new one to arrive from France, so eventually the window will have to come out completely,
everything to be cleaned up and then it reseeded and resealed. Yeah it's a small minor
inconvenience, comfort item which is low priority. Really? I think that's pretty high priority. It is.
For a comfort item, it's top priority.
So back to why we started filming, so what's next?
Halyard.
This one
Oh, you pulling it down now that's cheating. No excuses. Well done i just pull it? You gotta unclip it.
Here you go. Nah, can I actually see if i can do it?
You pull them up and then out. That's it. You need the one on the other side too. Careful what you hang
on to because no.. no.. don't hold on to the pole. Don't pull on the pole, the pole will come out
Spider pig, spider pig.
Spider pig does whatever a spider pig does.
Sugar.
Okay hold on. It's almost painful to watch. Let's just say I'm never doing this again.
Oh! Like ever. What'd you do?
Are you all right? Yeh, I'm alright. What'd you do? It just really hurts. Did you land funny? Yeah.
It's okay I think we'll leave that job for you. That's really sore.
Just on the arch, of that side. Will it get better? Yeah I think so. I think it's just a bit sore at the moment.
I'm glad that you told me how to do that four weeks into our sailing trip.
This has got to come off too. Oh yeah the preventer.
Well it's not a, I don't know why that's called. A makeshift preventer potentially.
The sun is shining, beautiful winds and the seas are going to be flat
only 0.2 of a meter supposedly so these are ideal sailing conditions let's go, let's do it!
And that was the last happy dance there ever was.
I don't want to do this.
Where are you going? Bundaberg is that way. 12 hours away in fact. As soon as
the weather permitted, we all sailed out of the Great Sandy Strait accompanied by
new friends. You know that's what we love about sailing, it's the people you meet along the way.
Just about hitting a way point in a second. But we've got about 18 knots of wind northwest.
We'll be sailing into the night traveling 75 nautical miles north all the way to Bundaberg.
We're going to get some supplies before we take you to an incredible reef.
We got in at about what three o'clock in the morning
and we anchored just over there near the rock walls so unfortunately we don't have
much footage because it was all at night but it was a beautiful evening.
and we had both sails up um throughout the course of the trip
That was the first time we sailed with both sails up
at night. So we are about to catch the bus into town
we have had hardly any sleep we got in at 3 a.m and then we had to work up at 8. We're gonna catch
the bus to town because we need a provision it's been a couple of weeks since I've been able to
go to a supermarket.
I almost forgot my bag this is my little roly-poly bag. John hates it, he thinks it's embarrassing but
I think it's extremely practical.
At most marinas in Australia you need to check in.
And while walking to the bus stop another boatie couple offered us a ride into town.
Turns out their last yacht was called Jakana a similar name to our yacht Tucana. We went
around the world in that for nine and a half years and then we've now
it's at north shore 46. Okay. And now we've got a bloody chugga. So your current boat's name is? Dingo.
Bundaberg was established around 150 years ago in 1870, well before the federation of Australia
in 1901. It's most famously known though for its Bundaberg Rum
founded here in 1888. The distillery survived a fire in the 1930s that
turned the Burnett into a river of rum. Today it distills 25 000 gallons of rum a year
and the city is home to 70 000 people and has kept some of its historic treasures to this day.
Well that was expensive yeah are you ready to catch some lighting
we purchased a heap of fishing gear and some snorkeling gear because we are about
to take you to i'm feeling really unco lady musgrave island wow this spot is incredible
but we do have to navigate our way through the bombies it's pretty narrow so you just have to
keep an eye out big masses of coral that stick out of the sea this is a little bit nerve-wracking
i feel like everything's sort of in my hands for a few years
yeah it is yeah and that that makes me nervous i know
and this is what happens when marinas don't have wheelbarrows now to give
this context oh dear lord i have to show you how many bags we had to transport to takana
but my gosh there are some good people in this world a bloke on his bike saw us struggling
and took it upon himself to pick up one of our heavy bags and ride it to the gate what a legend
paying it forward is really something special so thank you good samaritan for making our day
oh he's trying to help you thank you thank you so much
appreciate that
how nice is that
after living on board our floating home for about a month now i have a bit of a routine
when it comes to provisioning and repacking our fridge and freezer first i take all our old food
out i check the dates and clean the fridge and then start repacking so it's a job that takes me
about an hour or more to complete john because we're in bundaberg i thought we could drink
some thunderbird rum no some bundaberg pineapple coconut sparkling drink that's not wrong
so each time lapse goes for 15 minutes and i have done two time lapses and there's still so much to
do um i've got all the fruit and veggies in though now i think i went overboard i definitely went
overboard this time oh what have i done another thing we have to do is we don't want to accumulate
a heap of rubbish when we're out on the water because then we don't really have anywhere to
store it until we go back to land where we can put it in the bin so what i do when i provision
and i'm sure all of you guys who have boats do this as well is throw away all the extra plastic
and rubbish that is unnecessary for example these noodles are in another two packets everyone knows
how to use noodles so i just take it out of this plastic packet and throw this plastic back in the
coming up next we sail to the second southernmost island in the great barrier reef
a spectacular coral k called lady musgrave island so we're going to do a little safety group this
is the first time we're heading out to a reef so it's going to be tricky a new experience for us
you