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Blue Pearl - Australia



We have been in Australia for 12 days now and , shame on me, this is the
first time I am writing about our arrival there and our our first taste
of the "modern" world after many months of passaging to and from areas
where poverty seems to be prevalent. I realize this sounds critical of
so many of the beautiful Pacific Islands with wonderful people we have
visited but it is hard to deny that the economic circumstances there
differ significantly from what most of us are used to.

We arrived in MacKay very early, in the dark, two Thursday mornings ago
and waited patiently on the quarantine dock for daylight and the arrival
of the officials to check out Blue Pearl, her contents and her crew. The
officials, including the drug sniffing dog ,who came aboard first, were
all pleasant and helpful and made us feel very welcome. Next came the
reunion with Laurie who had flown to Sydney from Port Vila to meet up
with our friends John and Lyn who showed her around that beautiful City,
welcomed her to their beautiful home in Newcastle and then flew with her
to MacKay to spend three days with us and meet up again with the friends
they had made when they participated in the early stages of the rally.
We had a wonderful time together.

MacKay is in the "cane lands" of the state of Queensland, sugar cane
farms are everywhere, and it also has, what apparently is the largest
coal export terminal in the world. Approaching the marina at night we
passed by an anchorage where at least 25 freighters awaited their turn
to proceed to the terminal and receive their load of Australian coal. As
a result, the local scenery reflects a healthy economy with a number of
large, new shopping malls with every store imaginable. A great place to
re-provision Blue Pearl for the next stage of our journey. The marina in
MacKay is very nice also with a number of nice restaurants and excellent
boat servicing facilities.

Brita, our wonderful crew member who had joined us in the Marquesas
several months ago, took a "leave of absence" from Blue Pearl in MacKay
to fly back to the US to visit friends and family. She will rejoin us in
Darwin ready for our next ocean passage to Lombok in Indonesia. We were
lucky to have Karen Slater join us to take Brita's place for the sail
along the Great Barrier reef and along the north coast of Australia to
Darwin. Karin was born and raised in Hull in the UK and it took us a day
or two to re-tune our ears to get used to her striking Yorkshire accent.

MacKay was the starting point ,for us, to sail the Whitsunday Islands
where we are now. The Whitsundays are Australia"s sailing paradise with
many beautiful Islands all located behind the Great Barrier Reef and
protected from the usual Pacific swells which makes for very pleasant
sailing. The whole area is one huge national park which, in contrast to
the Caribbean, has allowed it to maintain its pristine character but ,
on the flip side, leaves most islands without the pleasant beach bars
and restaurants that are so prevalent in the Caribbean. One of the big
surprises, for us, is the weather here. Beautifully warm during the day
but the nights are like fall nights in the US with temperatures in the
high fifties and low sixties, as a result the water temperatures are
pretty cold by Caribbean standards (sixties instead of eighties)

The big joy here is observing the wild life, whales, dolphins and
sharks. Mike and Karen went for a snorkel (they were wearing wet suits)
when we arrived at our anchorage today (the Nara Inlet at Hook Island)
only to find out afterwards that they were swimming in a spawning ground
of hammer head sharks...! Just one more new experience.

We will spend a few more days in the Whitsundays and will then start to
head up North direction Darwin which is about a 1400nm to sail away.


Before we do that Laurie and are planning to see if we can join a
helicopter ride to the Great Barrier Reef to observe this natural
"monument" from the sky.

Captain Ruud.


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