Helene Young's Blog, page 4

So far sailing the coast of Australia has been exhilarating, enlivening, extraordinary, and at time exhausting. Roo Bin Esque has given us a mostly comfortable ride in style, if not at any great speed. We’ve met many amazing people and visited beautiful and remote islands, but now it’s time to step outside our comfort zone. The siren call of New Caledonia is too strong to ignore.

Some time very soon we’ll hoist sails and head out of Moreton Bay in an easterly direction. The crossing will take at least six days, possibly more. Roo Bin Esque is as ready as she can be, and so are her crew. We’ve mastered our Iridium Go Sat phone, worked our way through the Predictwind weather forecast programme and ensured we have checked all our safety gear – the new life raft will hopefully never be required!

Much like aviation, sailing is hurry up and wait, but the rewards will be worth it. I hope you’ll come with us on our journey. I’ll be tweeting and posting on FB during the crossing, although the quality of photos is pretty poor since it’s uploading via satellite. Once we’re in New Caledonia we’ll go local and be back on-line and I look forward to sharing our adventures! You can follow us on the track map – RooBinEsque

It’s always sad to leave a place I love and Brisbane will forever have a special corner reserved in my heart, but it’s time to throw off the bowline and dare to explore new horizons. Carpe Diem, I say. We may only have one life so live it!

It’s been a crazy busy week with tradies crawling all over Roo Bin Esque to ensure she’s ship shape for her journey to New Caledonia – and it’s no hardship watching others working! We’ve also had our heads buried in the engine bays servicing the two Yanmar diesels to ensure they’re purring. Whilst we like to sail we do need the motors for anchoring and docking and they’re handy when the wind dies…

Affordable Antifoul giving the hulls a coat of paint.

We’ve also caught up with friends and chatted – a lot. The Boat Works at Coomera is a bit like a giant van park combined with a refurbishment centre for boats. There’s always someone we know who’s here working on their vessel. The boat yard has a great reputation amongst cruising yachties because they welcome us as live-aboards. What does that mean? At other yards we’d need to find accomodation ashore close to the boat and then organise transport to get there and back. The Boat Works set-up means we can still live on Roobi, have access to shower and laundry facilities, use one of their courtesy cars, and catch up with other hard working sailors on the handstand. It makes the world of difference to know at the end of the day there’s a hot shower waiting for me and my clothes can be cleaned as well.

This weekend we’ve been extra spoiled. We’re custodians of the Boat Works’ Electric BMW (thanks to Gold Coast BMW for suppling this nippy little beauty and to Charmaine for being so generous!!)

Graham was very happy to take this little cutie for a spin

Like every sexy French girl, Roo Bin Esque knows the value of a little pampering. Today she accepted the attention most graciously

As an aviator and a trainer ‘Proper Prior Planning’ has been a mantra I’ve lived by for the last twenty-eight years. It seems it’s going to stand me in good stead for sailing!

Graham and I are gearing up for our first blue water cruise to New Caledonia and Vanuatu and, hopefully, Fiji, departing early May if the weather cooperates. It’s exciting, a touch daunting, and more than a little hectic. It also involves shopping on a grand scale… And anyone who knows me well knows I have a badly evolved shopping gene. Thank goodness Graham enjoys it!

Our purchases for the last week include a new life raft, a set of flags for the countries we’ll be visiting, a satellite phone, anchor tackle, a hand sewing awl, a new percolator (after the coffee machine died…), spare parts for the engines, spare parts for the generator, and 6 months supply of toilet paper! The trickiest part of all this? Finding space for everything… Luckily Roo Bin Esque has lots of nooks and crannies.

The endless list of jobs hasn’t shrunk yet either. As I cross an item off another one appears, sneaking up while my back’s turned. We’re going to be hauled out at Boatworks in the Coomera River in two weeks so we can antifoul the boat’s hulls, service the engines, and check to see all is seaworthy. Between now and then we need to replace window seals, fix small deck repairs, sew sun screens for the back deck, waterproof the canvas, repair the dinghy, polish the top decks, check all the lines and much, much more. Meanwhile I’m desperate to find time to write as the next cast of characters are clamouring to tell their stories. And then there will be edits on the current book.

For me, writing lists helps me keep it all on track. If my list is done then it’s been a good day and I’ll sleep well at night. If the list is stubbornly resisting being ticked off then I don’t have the same sense of satisfaction for the day. Since Graham’s approach is a little different he thinks my lists are hilarious,  but he learnt a long time ago that a pilot and her list should never be parted!

How do you go about managing your busy life? Do lists rule your world or do you go with the flow? Does it matter if your list isn’t finished at the end of the day? I’m always open to new suggestions for bringing order out of chaos  

Slowly, slowly we’re heading south. After a huge week driving from Hervey Bay to Brisbane and back for a meeting we decided we’d recharge our batteries wandering the coast of Fraser Island. The world’s largest sand island has given us many wonderful holidays over the years and it’s always peaceful – perfect for letting go of the stress.

We’re anchored north of Wathumba Creek, without another boat in sight. The island seems to breed its own weather so after a delicate blushing sunrise we’ve had clear bright sunshine, followed by pouring rain! Diversity is the key – a bit like writing really

It’s hard to believe that 2016 has been relegated to the history books and 2017 is already rocketing along. When we left Cooktown last year, heading north to the Flinders Islands in Bathurst Bay, I had every intention of keeping the blog updated. Of course, I should have known that the Telstra map showing coverage in that area was perhaps a little optimistic. For almost four weeks we were without phone, internet or contact with the outside world. I have to say it was blissfully peaceful.

Once we returned to sporadic coverage I found it difficult to give up precious writing and exploring time to fight the internet to post a blog. Face Book and Instagram – for reasons I don’t understand – still worked with limited coverage where a browser on my computer froze…

So a short run down from my last post? We’ve been to Flinders Island, Lizard Island, sailed down the exquisite Ribbon Reefs, played at Agincourt Reef, Orpheus Island, Magnetic Island and moored Roobinesque in Townsville for almost three months. With Roobi safe we spent a month in the UK celebrating Christmas with family and friends. When a family illness took Graham back to the UK I spent five weeks redrafting my latest novel, almost from scratch, loving the cool quiet of the Townsville library. Fingers crossed I’ll have a release date soon, but these things are never certain and the book is a  departure from my romantic suspense stories. Meanwhile I’ve started another story, one to follow on from Northern Heat.

Today Graham and I are anchored in the Burnett River, with plans to sail to Hervey Bay on Saturday. Whilst there’s still outstanding family business to finalise we’re planning to sail to New Caledonia this year. I can’t imagine how widespread internet coverage will there so I make no promises about the blog in 2017. Although I do promise to drop in as often as I can. The year ahead will be full of adrenalin charged adventure and challenges that will take us out of comfort zone! I hope you’ll join us on that journey on FB, Instagram and here on the blog.

I’ll leave you with a few of my favourite photos from the end of 2016

Yay for Telstra! We still have internet!! This may be the last post for a while as the internet quality at Lizard Island and beyond is more than questionable…

We had a wonderful day sailing yesterday with a good solid breeze on a beam reach. Great to feel Roobi come alive under our feet. Our track took us past Cape Bedford, with its surprising flat top mountain and escarpment – totally unexpected but quite beautiful. The colour of the water’s being changing to turquoise as we pushed further north. No sign of whales, though… They must have already started their journey south.

We did sailed through large streams of coral spawn with its distinctive smell. Great to see the reef in this area is breeding. The resilience of Mother Nature is always surprising and very welcome.

Cape Flattery’s loading jetty appeared out of the haze, looking totally out of place on the wild coast. The silica mine is one of the largest in the world – you may even be reading this post on a screen which has been made with North Queensland sand – and accessible by air or sea or a very rough ride over corrugated roads. A ship was loading on the very exposed jetty as we sailed past. It must be a challenge docking it in the stiff south easterly wind. The mine was damaged a few years ago by a cyclone and there still seemed to be sandbags in place across the front of the terminal area.

We’re now moored in the lee of Cape Flattery and will make the short hop across to Lizard Island this morning. The lovely long beach is used by fishermen with several feral looking camps tucked up in the trees. An amazing amount of flotsam has also been washed up which has been turned into hanging ornaments – must have been a slow fishing season

Mackay Cay is everything we hoped it would be! A pristine coral atoll with nothing but birds for company, surrounded by azure water. And then there’s the snorkelling… So many different fish, gardens of vibrant coral, and even a couple of relaxed turtles who really didn’t care whether we swam along with them or not!  I have ‘go pro’ shoulder from filming all afternoon but it was worth it! Although I’m still working on keeping the camera steady enough so bear with me while I learn a new skill…

Last night we ate delicious coral trout fresh from the reef courtesy of Mark and Wendy aboard Temptress. We really need to sharpen out fishing skills as well! And the company was wonderful as well

We snuck out of Blue Water marina, disturbing the mirror finish on the water, and headed into the sunrise. The valley to the south of Cairns was hiding in rain, but the sky to the north was clear.

There’s a certain tension to every departure. Will the forecast be accurate and our next anchorage welcoming? Have we really ticked off all those jobs and provisioned the boat well enough? After a month in dock it takes a little while to get back to the rhythm of conserving power and water, finding our feet again on a moving deck, and remembering the order that works best for hoisting the spinnaker. (At times like this I miss my ordered world of aviation and Standard Operating Procedures!)

We arrived at Low Isles with enough time for me to have a swim off the back of the boat – the water was divine. When Wendy and Mark, aboard Temptress – our sister ship, arrived we launched the kayaks and headed ashore.

Like so many of the lighthouses around the Australian coast Low Isles has had more than its fair share of trouble. It seems that perhaps the mercury which supported the light may have contributed to the odd light-house keeper descending slowly into despair and mental illness. The first lighthouse keeper’s wife is buried on the island in a grave that looks out over the calm waters to the north.

An osprey has claimed the now automated light as its home. You can see the sizeable fish it was munching clutched in its claw.

The island itself, with facilities for the day trippers that head out from Cairns and Port Douglas, is serviced with renewable energy – solar or bio-diesel with banks of rainwater tanks. It’s great to see more and more of this infrastructure being installed in tourist destinations. It’s a tiny coral cay in danger of being loved to death so at least part of the ‘footprint’ of visitors is being reduced.

This morning we had a batfish come visiting – I think he thought we were there to feed him his breakfast but sadly fish feeding is banned for mere recreational boats…

We’re on our way to Snapper Island and then Mackay reef so hopefully we’ll find some wonderful coral to share with you.

And I’m off to writing land for the day to expand some of the themes in my latest manuscript – it’s always liberating to be told ‘write more!’ rather than less

After a crazy, busy month it’s time to head north again. We’ve had a good stay in Blue Water Marina and have managed to catch up with a few of our friends  – apologies to those we didn’t manage to connect with…

Roobinesque is sitting lower in the water, filled with enough food and fuel for 2 – 3 months. We’re heading for Flinders Island, north of Cape Melville, but we’re in no hurry to get there. Tomorrow night we plan to anchor at Low Isles, east of Port Douglas. From then on we’re at the whim of the weather and open to suggestions – Lizard Island is definitely on the itinerary!

We’re travelling in company with good friends, Wendy and Mark. They sail Temptress, another Lagoon 400, and it will be lovely to spend time with them on the journey.

Sometimes the day’s sailing is about the destination. For the next month I hope it’s as much about the journey. We’ll be travelling through the Great Barrier Reef, past Cape Tribulation, Endeavour Reef (Capt Cook’s nemesis), Cooktown, Cape Flattery and along the magical ribbon reefs. I’ve looked down on this seascape for 18 years, flying for QantasLink, made countless PA’s describing it, and I’m finally going to see it up close and personal. I can’t wait!

Telstra doesn’t have a strong presence up the Cape so there’s every chance we’ll disappear from social media for a while – even the aerial mounted up the mast won’t help! But we’ll post when we can and no doubt see many more beautiful sunsets.

Look forward to sharing our adventures with you here and on Face Book.