Across The Coral Sea!

Riders on the Storm!

Across The Coral Sea.

At long last it is finally ready!! Thank you for your patience as I took a little more time than usual on posting our final crossing. As you can imagine after nearly four months at sea I’ve been doing a lot of catching up in both Australia and SoCal not to mention gaining back some much needed weight after 80 days of sailing and 5 days of food rations.

Although we were cold and hungry we did have enough to eat albeit small and mostly horrible tasting rations. However, thank goodness we made it to port when we did because a few more days at sea and this would have definitely turned this into a disastrous ending.

Making Landfall - Bundaberg River

That said, I did find myself making silly mental errors on the final days and was happy to make landfall when we did.

After clearing customs we motored about 8 miles up the Bundaberg River past the local brewery/distillery to the town of Bundaberg as we enjoyed another spectacular sunset on the final hour of our voyage.

Sugar Cane Ash Falling at Sunset on the Bundaberg River

Then as we were literally dropping

anchor and readying our luggage for our final approach to shore, the oddest thing happened. Ash began to fall from the sky and covered the entire boat. As it turned out the local farmers were burning sugar cane and a light breeze brought a cloud of it right over the town of Bundaberg.
And with that enjoy our final leg of the pacific, Across The Coral Sea!

Mission Complete!

Hey everybody after sailing across one ocean, two seas, by three continents and through four hemispheres…we have finally made it to Australia!!

Our voyage took nearly four months and 10,000 nautical miles.

In the meantime, get ready for some welcome home parties taking place in at least four different regions across the globe and be sure to find your way to at least one of them.

I will be posting our next video update regarding our final passage covering the high winds, food shortages and final river cruise up the Bundaberg River!

Stay Tuned!  G-

New Caledonia / South Pacific

7/17/11: Let’s Go Sailing – South Pacific

After 4 weeks at sea we’ve made our way through the South Pacific and are straddling the edge of the Pacific & Coral Sea in Noumea, New Caledonia.

The Pourpre

We set sail from Nuku Hiva on a Friday, which according to sailor legend is bad luck…even the British tried to put this legend to rest back in the day by laying the keel on a Friday, launching the boat on a Friday, setting sail on a Friday under the command of Captain Friday and one just one week later sunk on a Friday.

To complicate matters even more one of the reefing blocks broke and the mast began to wobble on our final few days into Nuku Hiva. Upon further investigation we found the base of the mast was loose which meant we had to sail on light winds until we were able to tighten the rigging. To say the least, this trip was off to a less than perfect start. En route, the winds died thus eliminating the mast issue for a little over a week but left us bobbing like a rubber duck in a bathtub.

Mahi Mahi

On a positive note, we hauled in some really massive fish (Wahoo, Mahi Mahi (Dorado), Sailfish) en route and as you can see by the Mahi in the pic we had plenty to eat. We eventually began throwing the fish back not because they were too small but rather it would’ve been just plain wrong to carve off a dinner from the side of these massive beautiful creatures and still use less than half the fish.

Yesterday, the owner of the boat arrived so he will be sailing with us to Australia. We leave first thing in the morning so look for another update on our final crossing soon!

Until then be sure to check out our latest video, a documentary/travel combo on the South Pacific and New Caledonia

Let’s Go Sailing – South Pacific

Enjoy!

Let’s Go Sailing – Nuku Hiva

6/15/11: Let’s Go Sailing – Nuku Hiva

Nuku Hiva Paradise

WOW!! What an amazing response from all of you on our previous video, Into the Pacific…I’m glad that you are enjoying our travels as much as we are.

However, I think you will like our upcoming video’s even more as I’ve decided to steer away from the reality/documentary styled program and based upon your input went for more of a travel show concept with yours truly as the host.

Thanks for all of the positive feedback and enjoy the show (link is above).

Nuku Hiva Paradise

Best Mango’s Ever

Setting Sail

We are all fueled up, provisioned and ready to once again set sail!

Due to time constraints we will be skipping Fiji and heading straight to New Caledonia. This too will be over 3,000 miles and could take up to 4 weeks or longer although we are hoping for less.

We’ve some great footage of Nuku Hiva and we’ll be posting this video for you once we arrive in N.Caledonia.

Also, I understand that our Euro friends are having trouble with the latest video and unfortunately we won’t be able to look into it until we reach our next port.

Talk to you all in July!

Into The Blue…

Into The Blue

Hey Guys, we’re nearing 100 viewers!! Anyway, after 3 weeks of sailing more than 3,000 miles we’ve have arrived in the Marquesa’s a French Polynesian chain of islands located in the middle of the South Pacific. We caught so much fresh fish that we actually stopped dropping our line into the water so we could eat some spam instead.

The Marquesa’s are such a remote area of the world that it’s very hard to describe where we are currently at…however, the absence of taxi cabs, restaurants and even a bar makes it the most remote place I’ve yet visited in my travels across the globe so far.

We caught a ride with some locals yesterday to the center of the island to fill up our water bottles for the next leg of our voyage from the island’s only fresh water source, the river! Video is coming…soon!

Into The Blue

The GalapaGuy

The Highlands

5/18-5/20 – Local Life

Many of you have requested more of the local life in the islands, other sailors and more of the friendly seals. Although, I didn’t have time to edit and add tracks like I normally do you should get an idea of how the people of the Galapagos are…or as Captain Beardsley aptly put it the other evening the Galapaguys & Galapagirls. The locals hadn’t heard this before but really liked it so we’ve been using this newly coined term since.

Also, I’ve received questions about how we prepare for departure and our provisioning…a majority of which is spam (the food). You can understand our excitement now when you see us reeling in a fresh tuna. However, the beginning of the voyage is always good because we can take fresh veggies and bread for about a week.

Our next, crossing will be a long one…we have stocked up on additional water which is stored below all of our beds but hopefully we won’t need to use it.

At any rate, 32-3400 miles will earn us all some stripes I’m sure. See you all in the Marquesas…we set sail in 2 hours. In the meantime, enjoy The Galapaguy.

5/21/11 – Tortuga Bay (tortuga means turtle)

I’m thinking they may have to change the name to shark bay for yesterday a college student was bitten by one and this morning as I walked out through the waves for my last surf in the Galap I could see a dozen or so 1-3′ sharks. As I would look across the blue water to the left and to the right you could see the water turn red as the sharks were feeding on the fish. The blood stained water would sometimes encompass an area as much as 25 yards in diameter. But as it was all in the shallows I convinced myself I would be okay and pressed on through the waves out into the bigger surf.

The waves were chest to head high and not forming all that well but still fun…when just behind me was a splash and all I could see was dark shadow diving down. Reassuring myself that all was fine I continued to stay on, however, not three minutes later it was closer and boy was he big, a lot bigger than I for sure. I could sense this beast and turned to look behind me just as he was coming up but as I turned towards him he then turned back, splashed and dove back down. Still not able to get a clear visual on what type of shark he was I knew that regardless he had the upper edge and turned to paddle in. To my relief a nice wave popped up and I caught it all the way back to shore where I intended to notify those on the beach of my encounter…but there was no need, they too had seen it and said, “there was a huge shark behind you just as you caught that wave.”

Well that’s about as much excitement as I will need for today. Good thing that was my last day surfing here. Ciao!