My imagination runs wild thinking about
all the remote places our floating home takes us to.
The world we share is breathtakingly beautiful but these spots just don't magically appear.
To get there sometimes we have to earn it and that means planning. Despite what some
people may think, a lot of time and effort goes into our travels.
On this episode we're going to give you a raw version of our checklist. So that's what we do before
during and after a full day sail. If you're joining us for the first time, I'm Kristina
and this is my partner John. With almost no sailing experience we purchased Tucana
a 50-foot Jeanneau Sun Odyssey and learnt the lines along the way. Be careful John. We left Melbourne
about six weeks ago and we've been sailing up the east coast of Australia ever since.
Today we're going to be cruising from Great Keppel Island to a known military training ground.
Pearl Bay.
Well good morning. This is a day in the life of living on a boat.
Morning. Morning. Good morning.
John's just getting the sail prepared.
How often do you check the engine? Every day.
Every day? Every day.
Every day we're going somewhere.
And I've just closed the seacocks in the bathrooms.
Okay, I'm coming.
Seacocks are valves on the hull of the boat they allow water to flow in and out of a vessel.
For example sea water is pumped into our toilets but we shut off the valve when we're sailing as a precaution.
Just need to push that down, so they're closed.
The other thing we have to do is pack everything that could go flying
away in a cupboard.
Books oh my gosh, this is not a good draw to show you because it's like
where all my socks and undies are. It's a bit of a pig sty in here at the moment
Everything looks pretty stowed away yeah all right.
Quick walk around the deck to make sure there's no lines hanging in. There's lots of lines back here.
Yeah they're all flaked ready to go.
Communication is key on the boat. I now have to put up the anchor at the front
while John steers the boat at the back. And because we are a 50-foot boat
to be able to communicate with each other would usually probably have to scream
particularly over the engine. So John and I have our headphones in
and this allows us to communicate to each other without waking up all the neighbours around us in the bay.
Hey Siri.
She never works when you needed to.
Hey Siri.
Call John. Hello hello hello hello hello.
Okay so we have each other let's go and get this anchor sorted.
John has to take the snubber off because I can't reach it.
My little legs and arms aren't long enough.
And we are locked away because there's no sand or dirt on the anchor I don't need to wash it
down today, so all we have to do is put that back in its holder and I always do this little knot
up here because these are like guillotines actually heard of this story
a lady was putting the anchor away and it chopped the front of her toes off.
See how all the other guys have the anchor lights on. It seems
everyone's sleeping in. But we're off, so the anchor light goes off too.
Captain where are we going to today? The warnings have already started.
So that is the app that tells us if we're dragging anchor.
So what's next where are we going? Shhh... people are trying to sleep.
Where are we going? I'm not quite sure.
It depends how far we get with the wind.
John being John, secretly he has the whole thing planned out.
On this particular morning we are blessed with not only a sunrise but a moon set.
Okay so we are about to put the main sail up. Which means John is steering the boat into wind so that I
can winch.
So the main sail is away and hopefully we'll get enough wind that we can turn off the engine.
We weren't getting enough speed with just the main sail so we put out the
head sail as well which is the one at the front.
The latest weather information will be transmitted by coast guard on vhf channels 21
and 22 at 705 hours immediately after the weather coast guard will transmit a summary
of notice to mariners.
We're doing seven knots. That's so good are you hungry?
Yeah a little bit. All right.
I clearly have Greek background and um I just don't understand how John
has only wheat bix and honey every single morning for breakfast.
I want toast with like avocado, a bit of feta, maybe some olives.
And John literally just wants wheat bix and honey.
And while I'm eating a random breakfast John's trying to catch lunch.
I felt like savoury, so I'm eating last night's dinner shepherd's pie.
Uh it's sierra mike 531.
Just logged on with volunteer marine rescue.
As I'm editing, we have a fishhhh.
Oh my gosh, this is so exciting.
How do you know it's big? Look at the rod. The problem is
We're trying to sail. Oh no we haven't been in this situation before.
So we're just going to put this one back now because we've had him before.
Not too good.
We caught a mackerel tuna in episode 15 and...
is it a bit fishy? Yeah. Oh John's not enjoying it.
Chuck him in. Let it be free. Be free.
I mean I could have made tuna from it but it's a lot of effort.
That's fishing for ya mate.
Alright, let's get the headsail back out.
Quick, we're losing miles here.
After nine hours of sailing covering 50 nautical miles we anchored at Pearl Bay but there was
just one problem. Oh no this is not good.
Remember how John logged on with VMR? Well we need to tell them we've arrived safely but now we're tucked
in behind this bay and we can't get a hold of VMR's nearest station so instead
we're trying to make contact with other boaties who'll be able to relay our message.
The last thing we want to do is backtrack an hour towards the last spot we remember having phone reception
But we also don't want search parties concerned for our welfare.
Oh oh.. doesn't sound good. Tahree this is Tucana over, go ahead.
Uh we've tried to raise Yepoon but we've not got an
answer so um we're quite near you in Island Head Creek so maybe we don't get reception here. We're
happy to try further over.
Oh thanks very much for uh making an attempt, we appreciate it.
We'll try and uh get hold of someone else thanks very much for your help uh Tucana out.
For your information they do do a sched at 17.05 so maybe try them then over.
So John is currently on anchor watch.
And also eating my amazing homemade Greek tzatziki. That looks so good.
That is our depth alarm going off with one meter underneath us. John please explain to the people
what you have done today and where we are. You have sailed for nine hours today, while, what did I do?
I edited, inside, all day. Didn't I?
Just gonna keep an eye on that. We're just caming up on low tide but we're swung around.
This is supposed to be one of the prettiest anchorages
up the east coast of Queensland right? According to Alan Lucas he writes the guidebooks for this area.
So far it hasn't disappointed. It is amazing. I keep calling him George Lucas from Lucas Films.
a.k.a director of Star Wars.
With our tender on the bow.
Good samaritans stopped by.
Would that be all right? That would be amazing.
Wow these amazing people just offered us a lift to go out to shore okay okay.
The only problem is is dinner is on. It's all right, we're only going for half an hour.
The oven is on. Okay.
It is currently low tide at the moment. The sun is setting and how beautiful is this community
of boaties. The couple just picked us up um and took us to shore which is just so lovely
and we're so appreciative and I guess it's just a reminder as well to pay it forward.
Wow there are so many butterflies around here. Look at them all. This is such a picturesque place.
Wow. But signs pinned onto trees reminded us of the war games that unfold here frequently.
Babe can you quickly tell me what the military do back there.
Ah, live firing exercises.
During the Vietnam War i'm pretty sure they they sequestered this whole area off graziers,
cattle farmers, and they set up this whole area for training for the Vietnam War and they've retained
it and used it as a live firing area ever since, and I'm pretty sure the area isn't just limited by
land, it extends way out to sea. So they obviously do find exercises.
Do you know how often it happens?
Um well they had an exercise here a couple of weeks ago so this whole area was closed for
a couple of weeks and I think the time before that might have been a month or two.
Both army, navy and air force working together.
Working with both our Kiwis but also with our American allies.
It's a phenomenal opportunity to come out here and train.
I know the troops love it. You guys are phenomenal partners.
The guidebook says that you're not allowed to shore at any time but they do tolerate people walking on the beach.
When we get back to the boat John will no doubt do some planning on
where we're gonna go tomorrow. But unfortunately we don't have any phone reception and we haven't
told our family where we are staying tonight, so hopefully they don't stress out too much.
For your information they do do a scan at 17.05. Turns out the lovely lady on the radio was right
and we're finally able to get onto VMR after they're sched
Roger that Tucana, not a problem, thank you for the call. We'll take you off the log and talk to you when you move along.
Tucana, thank you for that, appreciate it. Out.
I don't understand how we got lucky then. How did that happen?
So there was just no one manning the radio when we called before.
You're kidding me.
Well there you go. They're volunteers so. There's probably one person there anyway there we go.
Do you feel like you can sleep well tonight now? Yes. I'm going to go have a shower.
This time we got lucky but it's a reminder sometimes things just don't always go to plan
and you're hit with a curveball.
I was thinking we should get like a little basketball or volleyball or something and then we can use it when we go to shore.
Over dinner and a glass of red. I hardly ever drink wine but tonight we have to polish
this off because it's been in the fridge for a few days. We're already planning tomorrow.
We're going to be taking you to The Percy's where we officially become members of a unique yacht club.
So don't miss our upcoming episode.
I think we're going to finish off this episode with a feast.
I hope you enjoyed our day in the life of living on Tucana. See you guys.