Cairns

Sunday 3rd August

Now that we have had 2 days here in this lively and bustling city on the Queensland coast we are much impressed, especially by the whole nights sleep last night - no watches and no waves...amazing.

The trip from Vanuatu to here was "interesting". We think it felt like the longest leg, in fact we were 9 days at sea. We had a glorious start down a long wide channel and out to the open Coral Sea. Sailing was great for a while until we all ran into flat calm weather. This was followed by a very windy, west winds at that, couple of days. During this time Wizard lost her mast and we went to her and gave them 100 litres of our reserve diesel, aling with a bottle of Irish whiskey and a packet of jelly babies! We stayed in company for about 24 hours and then sailed on into Cairns a couple of days later.

We arrived at about 4 in the freezing morning at the entrance channel to the port. The channel is about 5 miles long and is lit like a runway with alternately flashing red and green lights. The reds all flash together followed by the greens, except for 1 red which is out of phase, we suspect a bulb change!

We had to anchor off the port until morning when we were called into our berth on the Marina. All communications were by mobile phone as the main VHF wasn't working, again, and we had flattened the hand held VHF trying to contact the Marina on our way in. Inspection by Customs, Immigration and Quarantine followed. Whilst this was going on we had Fiona, David, Tania, Gabrielle and Bruce (Darryn's father) waiting on the walkway. They had to wait in the hot sun with no shade. Next Van, Ruth and Darren came aboard, then the Shells (Josie, Damien, William, Max and Georgia) also came on and a cramped celebration ensued - including sparkling wine and Australian fake tatoos for the new Aussie arrivals! In the middle of all of this, an electrician arrived and began looking at the panel. He has since returned and temporarily rewird the panel. The wiring was a dangerous mess and we were apparently lucky not to have had a serious fire!

Last night we travelled to Yorkies Knob Marina for a drinks and nibbles social organised by the yacht club there. A lot of people didn't go to this very enjoyable event. We have just returned from another event, the prize giving, in the same place. BlueFlyer won her class in the leg again, and received her World ARC plaque as a participant in this event. Another one for the wall. Gerry from Wizard gave a very moving speech thanking all who helped him and we received a bottle of Johnnie Walker on which he had written a note. This bottle may never be opened. Another momento of a marvellous voyage.

Fiona in the meantime had organised a notice of our arrival in both The Irish Times and The Age (the main Melbourne paper). Very thoughtful of her.

On Monday the boat is receiving a complete external clean, wax and polish job. This will be her 1st one since leaving the factory about 19,000 miles ago. Today we had the sails looked at and both the main and genneker have gone with a sailmaker for work. We broke a car on a batten on this leg. On Tuesday we will have the electrician back to fit new parts and rewire the ac panel. As well the Raymarine dealer will be back from the Sydney boat show and will be over to us to repair the Raymarine products we have on board. Perhaps we will have some reliability, having crossed the Pacific with faulty navigation equipment. We still found all our destinations OK.

We are staying here for at least a week to relax and do some sight seeing. Then we will slowly head south and should get to Brisbane in about a month, all 1000 miles of a trip. A little slower than the WARC legs. We will probably leave the boat in that area and fly up and down to Melbourne to house hunt/ settle in. The boat will become a holiday haven on the water. For those interested the blogs will continue till we get to Melbourne.

Visitors will be welcome to stay!! Val & Hugh will be in Ireland in May for a family wedding, and this time WE WILL FLY!!