Almost Home

LAST LEG TO SYDNEY

The trip to Sydney was uneventful for the first week and a half. 

We settled back into the routine of six hour watches, doing maintenance, cooking and lots of reading.  We were watching our grib files anxiously as we could see front after front moving across the Australian continent.  In winter, the low pressure systems move northwards so we knew we were likely to meet one of these fronts. 

The one we did eventually meet travelled up the coast as far as Mackay so we were not going to miss it.  Our choice was to turn for Fiji or somewhere north of Brisbane or battle it out.  Neither could we find shelter as we passed Norfolk Island nor were we happy to go through the narrow channel at Lord Howe Island on the day we passed by as by then we were experiencing 3 meter waves and decided that it would be too dangerous. Sure enough, the front hit us exactly as predicted, two days out of Sydney.  We were reefed right down in anticipation, only flying a tiny bit of main and a little staysail, which eventually we had to furl as its outhaul line lost the outer sheath from all the flogging. We motor sailed, at almost full revs but because we were sailing close hauled, (almost directly into the wind), we were being knocked back by the waves. Our speed kept being reduced from around 4 knots, right down to 1.5-2 knots so our anticipated ETA in Sydney went from 3am. all the way to 7.30pm. a delay of 16 hours.

As always happens, urgent repairs need to be done just when the weather is at its worst.  Sure enough, at 2am. on Sunday morning, our engine began to overheat.  We discovered that the fan belt had broken. The first thing we did was switch off the engine, put some more sail up to get control of the boat and changed course to decrease the violent motion. With a bucking boat we retrieved the spare fan belts, right at the bottom of the storage locker they were in, replaced the broken one with a new one, replaced oil and coolant and after an hour, were once again on our way.

At around 11 am. on our last day, Arti was thrown across the cabin and sustained injuries to her chest, arm and hip, equaling those Dimitri sustained on our first day out of Sydney!

We had just above ¼ of a tank of fuel at the beginning of the blow, with just 250nm. to go.  This would normally be way more than we would need for this distance but with the boat being knocked back by the waves every few minutes and our having to keep the motor at high revs. to make headway, our fuel was disappearing at an alarming rate.

Passing Lord Howe Island

Australian Border Control require one to inform them of yacht arrival at least 96 hours before arriving.  We had contacted them while in Tonga to let them know our ETA.

We radioed in to Customs and Immigration to tell them that we had been delayed because of the bad weather and Arti’s injury.

To our surprise as we entered Port Jackson Heads, Sydney, a police boat was waiting just inside the harbour to escort us to our berth at the Royal Sydney Yacht Club. .  They later told us that they were waiting in case we needed a tow.

Customs and Immigration were waiting to help tie us up and process our paperwork and the Ambulance Service was waiting to check Arti out.  We have never had such a reception and service from officials anywhere else in the world!

We were delighted to complete our circumnavigation.  Our children and grandchildren were all waiting to congratulate us, complete with awards and cards and our little stowaway gnome was at last repatriated with the grandchildren who had hidden him on Artemis V on our departure.

Home at last