Blogs

We are all set to go to Wallis Island, which is a place not many people get to visit. We had never even heard of Wallis before we started talking to other cruisers. For those of you who wish to look it up on google earth, the GPS coordinates are: 13 degrees 16.987 south, 176 degrees 9.985 west. (13 16.987S 176 9.985W). It is about 340 nautical miles from Vava'u, or approx 630km. It will take us 2 1/2 days to sail there. Also known as Uvea, it is a French administered island, only 78 sq km in area, with population of 9000. The island is volcanic, with several crater lakes and is surrounded by an outer reef, approx 2 km from the shore. This ring of reef has a diameter of 15 km by 22 km and the island sits in the middle of that oval - right inside the protected lagoon. There is a narrow gap in the outer reef that provides a passage for boats to enter the lagoon and visit the island. We will need to brush up on speaking French but it will be an interesting experience! For now, w e sit and wait for the right weather. Heather has been baking more "William" bread and fruit cake. Karl has prepared some meals which are now in the freezer ready for the passage. Everything is getting stowed away safely so it won't rattle around during the voyage. We have been in the protected waters of Vava'u for 8 weeks now so we have not had to worry about keeping things battened down. We know that in the open sea, anything that can move, will do so! We will need to stuff cushions and towels into cupboards again to have a peaceful journey :-)

What a day we had yesterday! We decided to go for a sail. The waters in the channels around the islands in Vava'u are protected from swell, so are fairly smooth even in the stiff breeze we had, around 25 knots. We were not far out of the harbour when we spotted whales(Humpback)ahead. For almost an hour we watched a mother and her calf playing together on the surface. Gently rolling, turning, shallow diving, breaching, blowing, tail flapping. Just beautiful. A group of snorkelers from one of the whale watch charters were in the water with the whales and this didn't seem to worry Mum or baby at all, they looked quite happy to have humans swimming around. We couldn't join them in the water as it is illegal to swim with whales from a private yacht, you need to be with a licensed operator. But it was fantastic to watch them. An hour later, towards the southern end of the channel we spotted two more whales. Heather managed to get some video of them blowing and diving with their sig nature tail flick before they disappeared. We got the sails up again for the third time that day and within half an hour we had a strike on the fishing line. In the stiff breeze we were getting along at around 7 knots and the fish decided to swim the other way! Karl grabbed the rod and Heather turned the boat around, then hauled in the sails again while Karl fought with the line. The fish just about stripped all the line off the reel before Karl could start getting some of it back in again. While Heather kept watch and steered away from land and rocks, Karl played the fish (or perhaps the fish played Karl?) for over half an hour. Slowly Karl got the fish closer to the boat. And then it jumped up out of the water. It was something very large! Eventually Karl managed to land it. It was a Sailfish, which looks just like a Marlin with a long bill nose and stripes, but also has a large fin on its back like a big sail. At 180cm long this was the biggest fish Karl (or Heather) has ever landed. (In May this year, on the way to Minerva, Karl caught a 96cm Mahi mahi and this had been his biggest catch until now.) Wow! What a thrill - and so unexpected because Sailfish are big game fish and are usually much further offshore. We decided to let him go again, so he lives to fight another day. We finished the day with a swim in the clear azure waters around Nuku Island before celebrating with a gin and tonic. Another magical day!

It's been a while since I blogged. Things have been going fairly well, Alex is coping by singing non stop about anything that comes to mind, drawing in his books, eating what ever he can get his hands on (Banana bread is the new favorite) and demands strawberries everytime we go to a supermarket!!! To him,the perfect campsite has sand were we can build a garage and roads etc for his dump truck. He's also pretty good at undoing his seat belt, climbing in the back and lying down on the couch the second the truck comes to a stop anywhere. You can tell when he's had enough of sitting in his seat as either the volume of his singing increases, the lyrics get obnoxious, or he starts roaring like a dinosaur.

My observations from the road are that for a country that is known as being dry and barren, it is absolutely teaming with wild life. It's hard to describe, there are so many birds everywhere, from flocks of parrots, to crows, pelicans, to eagles with a 2.5m wing span. Not just the odd eagle or hawk either. The other day at Karumba, I counted 47 eagles soaring above an area, just circling. We past a five of these giant eagles today busily shredding a recently deceased Roo on the side of the road. The ground is alive with insects, termites, ants, crickets and yes, flys. It's been a real surprise to me the shear numbers of native animals just doing there thing everywhere!!!
The drama with the suspension lives on. We did a huge section on good sealed roads from Karumba to Mt Isa. On leaving Mt Isa to head to Birdsville the sealed road turned into a single lane of sealed road down the middle with a gravel run off strip on either side. The seal deteriorated the further we got from town, and at 90km/h on this surface it started to show up some issues I hadn't expected. The dreaded wheel shimmy. We stopped for lunch at Dujarra, and I got under the front with the pry bar and torch, and got Sarah to shake the truck from side to side as hard as she could. There was some movement on the panhard bushes, they hadn't failed, but you could see the rubber was deformed and hanging out the side of the bush. The same scenario for the radius arm bushes, the rubber was all deformed away from the center of the bush, and the left rear bush had spat some of the rubber out the side. Yay.

If only I had noticed it the night before, I could have dropped it at a shop in MT Isa and said "fix please", but now we were 150ks from town and I had some decisions to make. We were parked in a camp site sort of area in Dujarra, there was shade, a toilet, water and safe for Alex. I decided to fit the spare radius arm bushes which were a two piece bush, so no special tools required. The catch was the Panhard rod bushes, the ones I had as spare required a press to fit. Rather than disturbing the panhard rod, as the vehicle was still drive able, we decided the next day we would take it back to Mt Isa and get the spare bushes fitted. So now we have no spare bushes left.

I rang around in Alice, and have ordered a set of two piece poly bushes for the panhard from Pedders Suspension. I have also sorted out genuine Land Rover radius arm bushes and panhard rod bushes from the Land rover agent in Alice. The plan is once we get there, I will get the genuine bushes fitted to everything, and retain the two piece bushes as spare, and also have the two piece panhard rod bushes aswell, so I can fit them on the side of the road. I'm kicking myself I didn't have them with me, but at least with having the press in bushes, I saved my self a long wait if I had had to get them ordered in to Mt Isa.
In order to get to Alice, we have to cross the Simpson desert first. Let's hope it all hangs together, I will be looking after Betsie more than ever now!!!!

Did a tour through the coconut oil factory and vanilla production plant the other day. It will be an interesting place if their ambitious vision for the future actually comes together one day. Snorkeled into the famous "Mariners Cave", a little scary going in as the entrance is about 1m under water and you have to stay under for about 3 - 4 meters before coming up inside the cave where it is very very dark! Good fun and much easier going out again because the light coming in from outside shows you where you need to go! Yesterday we caught a tuna, so really enjoyed our fresh tuna steak dinner last night. Back to the market today for more fresh fruit. We love the local passionfruit - yellow in colour and a more intense flavour than our purple ones at home. The pineapples here are not acidic - they are the sweetest we have ever had. Living on fresh papaya, coconuts and the local "lady finger' bananas which have a sweeter, more intense flavour than any other bananas we have had. Life is good.