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Well as you know we have been cruising Australia’s east coast for the last 5 days and so far we are having a great time!

WHALE!

If you’ve been following my Facebook Page you’ll know that we have had a whale escort from Sydney to the Queensland border. We’ve witnessed many pairs breaching, fin slapping and cruising along. The girls downloaded the NSW Whales app so we could log the ones that we saw and report their behavior.

Two days ago we also had the pleasure of the company of a pod of playful dolphins. They stayed with us for about 3 minutes and I managed to get this video footage below, I hope you like it! If you listen in really carefully at about the 2 minute mark you will even be able to hear them!

It’s not all good

Cruising Australia's East Coast

The girls suffered for the first two days cruising with seasickness and our eldest refused to take any tablets for it. I managed to get our youngest to take them and sadly I think it made her feel much worse. No one lost their lunch at least. We gave her nothing yesterday just some antihistamines and she was nauseous but not too bad. Today she seems fine. I think the best thing to do when you leave the dock is just let them get used to it, make a ‘nest’ and let them sleep. Seems like that would’ve been the best option for us anyway.

What I’d do differently next time

I wish I’d had warmer clothes for one thing. I’ve been dressing like a yeti for night watches in multiple jumpers and jackets, hat, socks, scarves (yes plural) and my Whitworth’s boat shoes. I downloaded some podcasts to keep me sane on long watches and made a change to the schedule, 3 hours on, 3 hours off rather than 4. Four hours was just too long to sit up there. We found we were just too tired.

Things that worked well

I had all our water bottles filled and handy each day, that way no one is getting a glass out for a drink only to leave it lying around needing a wash after a sip. It’s easy to drink out of and spills are kept to a minimum. We bought silicon bottles at Officeworks and they have been great.

The first night for dinner I had purchased a preroasted chicken. The girls were feeling a little queazy so I boiled some rice and sliced up chicken on top. Nice and easy with a little soy sauce on top and chilli for the skipper and I. With the leftovers I made sandwiches for late night snacks on watch.

Cruising Australia's East Coast We put the table down onto shorter legs in the saloon too so the skipper and I can take turns sleeping between watches and still be close enough to hear if there’s a problem. The girls are loving the extra space during the day but the Lego is driving me up the wall (and all over the floor!) At least their happy and busy.

We have been making sure the girls write in their diary when they feel up to it so they are keeping a nice record of their trip! Lily has also been writing down latitude and longitude of where she has seen whales, along with a little info about them.

The girls have finally shown an interest in navigation so we’ve had them sit with us on a watch during the day to learn what all the instruments mean. They’re also much better at technology than we are and Sayuri (9) managed to work out finally how to change the time from day lights savings. She’s also confident changing course and following way points now, must keep a closer eye on her now.

We’ve been at sea now for two nights but just about to pull in to the Gold Coast so I better go!

The Gold Coast!!!

So glad to be cruising back in Queensland!

Well, we’ve left the dock but here’s a rundown of what happened in the last two weeks to get us ready!

Voyage Preparation: Provisioning

Preparing_sea_voyage

There’s been lots of shopping, in preparation for our voyage but I left the veggies to the last minute so we bring the freshest produce with us. I’ve been rearranging the food we have on board so that the stuff we need to use first is in the front, taking inventory, using up stuff we don’t need, removing packaging so we can reduce our rubbish and cooking meals to freeze flat for easier storage in the WAECO. Oh, and more shopping! By the way, thank you “guy at Coles’ deli counter” for not handing me the ham I asked for, AND for giving me the mortadella WITHOUT the olives even though you asked me which one I wanted. I’ll just turn the boat around and come back.

Above is a pic explaining what I do to the meat to reduce waste, fit it all in the freezer/fridge and generally make life a little easier on a rocking boat. What I didn’t take photos of was the veggies. Prolonging life of your spoilable food when preparing for a voyage is your ultimate aim (oh and to have enough!) To keep veggies for longer this is what I do: for celery and leeks I wrap them in foil and refrigerate, tomatoes I leave out on the bench in a basket and use the softest ones first, they last ages. Onions, garlic and potatoes go in a dark space (a drawer) and in separate bags. Potatoes will sprout if you leave them with onions. Most all other veggies I put in ziplocs with a piece of paper towel and remove as much air as possible, then refrigerate. When I use them, I check the paper towel and if it’s damp I replace it. I’ve tried green bags, mesh bags and no paper towel and I don’t get as good results. I do wash ziplocs and reuse unless they’ve had meat in them.

Voyage preparation I also pre-prepared some meals for the trip to save space and time. The pic above is of my famous spaghetti sauce which I always jam pack with vegetables. After filling the bags I lay them flat on a thin cutting board and freeze before stacking upright in the freezer.

Voyage Preparation: Stowing

Yeah it’s a catamaran so it’s not the same movement as a monohull but things still move. Anything that poses a threat as a potential missile goes away or is given away. I’ve been holding on to my orchards for a while now but most of them are gone now. All we have on the top shelf is fruit, tissues and charging ipads, all under non skid as I like to go too far rather than not far enough. I’ve also non skidded the galley bench tops just to be sure and popped non essential items away. If it’s rough the knife block fits in the sink with some other potential projectiles. So handy that we have two sinks not one on our Lagoon400 catamaran.

Outside we’ve tied down the surfboards in the tender. We’ve also rolled up the aft shade cloths as we are expecting southerlies, so just in case it blows in a bit too strong up our bum they won’t get damaged.

Voyage Preparation: Safety

We’ve changed details for the EPIRBs and mounted an extra one in our cabin
Loaded on the 4 man life raft
Registered with AMSA the red MMSI (Maritime Mobile Service Identity) distress button to the radio
Attached a MOB (Man over Board) light to the lifering on the aft deck
Re-glued the back step. (Yes it nearly fell off 😂)

Voyage Preparation: The kids

voyage preparation NB: the Skipper is included in ‘the kids’.

I made sure we had plenty of snacks on board in preparation and also threw in some crappy food like 2 minute noodles and jelly babies. If you can eat something you like occasionally it takes away the boredom. The Skipper likes canned chilli so I got a few of those in the shopping cart for lazy lunches. If we were doing a big trip where space was a minimum (like an ocean crossing where I can’t easily re-provision) I might not be so generous.

The girls received beautiful notebooks from friends which they are using to keep daily diaries. I bought some cyalume sticks for the girls to play with at night for a special treat. We’ve stuck up a chart of the east coast of Australia so that they are involved in plotting our course and downloaded the Whales NSW app so they can log all the whales we see. We also updated their life jackets as they’ve both grown like weeds since the last voyage.

That’s all for now. We are underway so I will post again soon. Make sure you subscribe to Instagram and YouTube also for pics and videos in real time, also I will be updating the Facebook Page regularly.

Homeschool Ahoy

Dolphins and Whales Cruising Australia’s East Coast Superhighway!