It’s been an interesting time here in Bundaberg.  A good combination of fun and work.  Managed to get the crucial repairs done, new starter switch for the motor, re-riveted most of the mainsail track and re-attached the spreader bar holders on the mast, replaced the water tank, and a dozen other things I cant think of right now.

The sail here from Vanuatu was, well, interesting seems to describe it well.  I started off beating into 20+ knots of headwinds, and by choice.  I was trying to get to a little island called Tana to see an active volcano and remote village.  After three days of brutal torture and a very wet Salsa (inside and out) I gave up and turned West for Australia, heading down wind everything calmed down a lot and it was a decent sail until the last two days where the wind disappeared and then came back in the wrong direction.  Overall I think it took 14 days and I probably could have done it in 9 or 10 easy days had I not tried for Tana, oh well, only used the motor a total of 8 hours, I’ll elaborate on the passage on here some day as I have a pretty good log/journal that will hopefully prove interesting.

I know I’m still behind on updating from Tahiti to Australia and I have much of it written so some day those retro-updated will pop up, some of the pictures have been posted already to photobucket if you check out my new photo albums.

My current plans are to head out the river here tomorrow and then Christmas eve, maybe overnight, sail about 50 miles south to Fraser Island (the largest sand island in the world), hoping to do a bit of hiking and sight seeing there.  Then head about 50 miles south again to Mooloolaba a touristy area maybe around new years, and then shortly after another 50 miles to Moreton Bay near Brisbane where I will hang out a few days for before sailing (probably motoring) up the Brisbane river to the Queensland state capital of Brisbane.  There I will hang out for maybe a few months and continue catching up with work on Salsa plus do some sight seeing and hopefully catch up with some sailing buddies as well.  I still plan to sail back north after the cyclone season (May) and around to Darwin (NW side of OZ).  After that the original plan was to sail across the Indian Ocean to South Africa and I still plan to but I’m contemplating a stop in Thailand that could be quite a detour.  So that’s it in a nutshell for now.  Wishing everyone a Happy Holidays, I’ll probably be sailing for Christmas, and that doesn’t bother me at all!! –Kirk

Filed under: sailing

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