Our Last Ocean Sail- AUSTRALIA Bound! - Tranquilo Sailing Around the World

Music Farewell Tener It's a pretty wild and woolly day. That's it. We're off to Southport, Queensland, Australia. Now as we go past Nemea we're going to keep a look out on the forecast and if it turns for the worst we'll drop into Nemea just to sit it out until we get another weather window. But right now it looks about as good as it gets for the next one or two weeks to get through to the east coast of Australia. So this morning in a paid leave bus I didn't really see the view of the tender very well. It's been blown off and it's threatening to go overboard. Luckily we thought it would be all downwind sailing. Not too bad. Pretty fast. Fast. It's not so much fun in the gully. Yeah. And Kilo does like it upwind. Even though it's pretty windy. Pretty windy. Wind's finally died down to about 28 knots and it's back to 25. 25. Everything is so noisy. The headsail. Especially the headsail. The mainsail too. The bimini. The dodger. Everything is moving. The boat. It makes a lot of noise through the water. It's pretty tiring. I find it very tiring. Here we are again. Now it's 29 knots. So the wind is whistling through the mast as well. It's just. Is that like a freight train? Nasi Gala. This is track Kilo. Do you read me? Over. Hello Catherine. How are you? Yeah, we've got bumpy seas as well. We must be just north of you. I don't think we can see you on ARDS but we can definitely hear you. Fantastic. Had a nice treat this morning. Phil's off watch. He was just getting to sleep when he heard Catherine, the six year old on Nasi Gala, talking to her friends on Rack and they're all our friends as well. So we got to chat with them. We also knew that Barefeet were close by. So we chatted to Chris from Barefeet. It's so nice when you're in the middle of nowhere in the ocean to have a few familiar voices and catch up even if you can't catch up in person. We're definitely going to continue to Southport now. The weather, well, it's been fast, put it that way, but it's safe. It's 20, 25 knots. So we're on the straight and narrow to Southport. I've just checked our Vic John's battery monitor and we're pumping in about 15 amps both from the Wadden Sea and from the solar. Now that's with the autopilot going and the fridge going. So that's pretty impressive. If you're wondering why we're not stopping in New Caledonia, it's just right behind us. As much as we'd love to, we've got this great weather window from Vanuatu to Australia. So we're taking advantage of it. Later in the week, it's going to pick up the winds to make it harder to get across. And then the week later, all the winds die and we'd be motoring across. So we're taking advantage of these semi-strong winds to get across to Australia fast. It's a shame because New Caledonia looks amazing. This is where Phil and I generally sleep on upwind passages or when it's beam reach like now. And that's because in our room, when Tranquilo thumps up and down waves, it's much more pronounced in there. It's kind of bearable here. It's actually not a bad spot because you can look through, see the sails, kind of just generally have an idea of what's going on. And with the open hatch, the gangway, whoever's upstairs can easily call if whoever it is needs a hand. Nice. I've finally had enough of manky, dirty hair and some sun. I've set up my solar shower here. The only problem is I'm not sure how to use it because normally you hang it up from a tree and it's not a great spot to hang up. So I think I'm going to go back to my old method of putting it in a bottle and giving it a shower with a bottle. So different to a few days ago. Really nice. Calm sea. Still around 10, 11 knots of wind. Boat speed's dropped of course, but it's all right. What's it done to our ETA, Phil? Half a day behind? Yeah, we're still on track to be up to south port in three days. Sounds good to me. It's a lot warmer today and we've got plenty of water. We've got three days to go to south port and we've got about 100% of water still left. And so I thought, I need to take a shower. So I'm using tank water. It's cold, but it's good to have fresh water everywhere. Phil, I'm glad in the last three days of the trip you finally relaxed about water. Better late than never. Last night was the first night in a long time that I haven't really enjoyed and it was purely because I was too cold. So I was curled up here in the cockpit in the fetal position, trying to get some rest as well. Just ended up a bit of a vicious circle. I was just cold, tired and ended up in a bit of a stupor. I know that's silly, but I found it hard to snap out of. I was very relieved when 1am came around and Phil said, why don't you get some more clothes on? So tonight I have. I'm wearing pretty much everything I have on board that's warm. Beanie, scarf, jumper, ski jacket, outside jacket, tracksuit pants and oil skin pants on top and I am toasty. Good morning. This morning the wind has been diving down to 3 knots. The good news is that the sea state has picked up, even though the wind is still 4 knots. So that tells us there's something ahead or maybe a system just off the side of us that is driving that swell. If it was 3 or 4 knots all the way around, then the sea would be flat like a mill pond. Good news and bad news, as often seems to be the case sailing, but the wind did pick up. It was around 10-12 knots for quite a while of wind and now it's picked up to 18-20. So we've got double reef main and still full heady. Pretty nicely balanced with our small heady and big main, double reef. But the wind also changed direction, so it's on the nose and we are slamming into the waves and beating our way to south port. Not the most pleasant, but we are going fast and we are going to make it to south port and that's what matters. Pretty fun. Fun is one way to describe it. If I was going at a table, the minute I put it on, it would slide off straight into my lap. Not only would it make a mess of things, you'd go hungry. You don't want to do that. Tonight is possibly our very last night watch on Crankearlo. Depends if we sail the boat in south port, but it's much more likely we'll have to go to Sydney, in which case we will have a couple more night watches, overnight passages. But yeah, just in case. I'm savouring this one and I'm sharing it with Aidan, who hasn't shared a night watch with me for a little while. No, not yet. About 50 nautical miles out. No, man. No. Too far away. Right, now that it's calmed down and I've had a chance to recharge this, it's time to shave off this fluff. You're getting respectable from Border Force. Oh, that's the other thing, yeah. Always look good when you're coming into customs, especially Australia's Border Force. Especially Border Force. You've got a reputation. Oh, and incidentally, Border Force just recently arrested a boat coming out of Solomon Islands. They had several kilos of cocaine on board. I don't know if anyone's still doing cocaine. I wouldn't know anyway. I just thought it was very 80s Miami. So that's the other thing. I don't want to look like something out of Narcos. That's the other reason I'm tidying up. Guess what I can see on the horizon? Australia? Something clearer and lower. You can just make out Border Rangers and Mount Warning. Quite hazy. Wow. Home. It's actually amazing. I wasn't quite expecting it, but let's take a breath away. Just a really nice, warm, intense feeling of being home for the first time in a long time. We're 25 nautical miles off the coast and we're starting to feel the two knots of the great East Australian current. Yeah, it's the same one that those cute little turtles, the turtle grommets, surfed down along the coast in Finding Nemo. Now this current's going to come very useful when we come out of Southport and head down towards Sydney when the next weather window comes through. Just finished my usual cooking frenzy. Coming into a new country and needing to get rid of all our fresh fruit and veg, all our meat products, eggs, dairy. We'll either end up in our tummies or be confiscated by fire security. So I don't know which one I'd prefer. Now amongst sailors, Australia has one of the most notorious reputations for how hard it is to enter. Alongside New Zealand and Galapagos. Firstly, our border force. They're the guys who patrol our waters around Australia. I had to let them know 96 hours in advance at least of several details around name of the vessel, registration, the last four ports you've been to, length, breadth, etc. That's firstly. Secondly is our agriculture department. Now there's a sub-department within the agriculture department called ACWIS. It's well known that one thing is that they expect you to have a clean boat. Because Australia is, or doesn't have, much in the way of diseases, particularly around plants, etc. So Australia's trying to protect our agricultural industry. Well, you know you're arriving in Australia when the first creature that you see is one of the most dangerous. It's called the blue-bottled jellyfish. They infest our beaches and have this incredibly nasty sting. They've got very long tentacles that wrap all the way around you and leave quite bad marks. The other thing that ACWIS is on the lookout for is any wood products, any bark products, just because they may be infected with any little bugs, worms, etc. Next thing is Aidan's cricket bat that we picked up from the beach out in the poker halls in France that's going in the water. That's just a bit of driftwood. Ready? Were they still not allowed if they sprayed it? Yeah, nah. Bye-bye, cricket bat. Now another aspect of Australian animals is their cute and cuddly. Oh, there it is again. We've just seen a baby whale broaching out of the water. Huge, huge, huge jump. Look between midday and one o'clock. Now we're about to go between the two groynes that make the entrance to the seaway. Today it's nice and calm but at times it can get quite ferocious. You may well have seen the video of the yacht that had to go through and surf in between the groynes. Luckily enough it made it unscathed. Are you in too? OK, I guess we're behind you guys. So, Adam, can we put that one onto the back? This is the spring. They'll go with John as well. And then I can do the bow. I'll throw the spring and then I can step up and do the bow. And then I will pass that to you. We're in Australia! Well, it's definitely good to be back home on Australian soil. We've gone through Border Force. That's all sorted out. Really nice, guys. Just worked through it all. No big deal. And it's great to be parked right behind our mates on Savannah. John and Joanne, who we first met in Tonga. Great surprise. We saw them just coming in on AIS and then, funnily enough, just pulled in right behind them. So we're just about to go out and grab a few drinks to celebrate and then probably hit the hay. As you can see, I'm pretty tired. Are you ready? Let's go grab some drinks. I don't really mind about drinks, as you know. I don't drink, but I'm busting to get to land. Let's go. It's good to be back in civilisation. A few good things about it. No volcanoes, no crazy zip lines. No dodgy reefs to try and get around, no tsunamis like in Indonesia. No tsunamis, oh yeah. We're completely done with all the formalities. It was very easy, relaxed. The Border Force have quite a reputation, but very relaxed and easy. Yesterday, and biosecurity even more relaxed. Alright, my mum's here. Who gets it first? Two of them get it at once. So good to see you here. Oh yes! My gorgeous boy! Hero of the ocean! Big one! Welcome back! Thank you for coming on my birthday! That's fantastic! That is absolutely fantastic!