Fi & Adrian

Sailing & Other Adventures

Author: fiandadrian (Page 10 of 13)

Mereenie Loop, Kings and a Rock

April 28, 2021 /

By Fi

When we last left off, we were just about to head on to the Mereenie Loop Road – a permit only, unsealed stretch of road leading from the west side of the West MacDonnell Ranges, to Kings Canyon. It had varying reviews as to the road conditions, and we had a vehicle that we knew could do it, but the choice was – could we? Yes, is usually the answer in these situations, so off we went, west from a little town called Hermannsburg where we had stopped for a little look and our permit to drive the road.

Our “shortcut” would take us about 3 hours, and would include 200 or so kilometres of corrugations, bolting brumbies, corrugations, amazing scenery, corrugations, more brumbies, corrugations… (if you don’t know what corrugations are, then you are lucky – they are the bone jarring bumps that form in unsealed roads after a time of cars driving over it). So it was a little bone rattley, but Adrian handled ALL the driving like a trooper (I made a note to offer to drive in these situations…), and we stopped at a roadside camp on the top of the escarpment right, at the end of the loop in order to watch the sunset and get some still time, ready for some walking the following day at Kings Canyon.

It was totally fine temperature the day we chose to complete the Kings Canyon rim walk – they do close it when the temperatures get high as it is very exposed to the sun. This part of the world is just stunning and the tourist numbers certainly talk to its majesty. Its not short of beauty, or people! First off on our walk, a huge stair climb and passing people, before wandering over the top of the gorge, admiring views, plant life, bird life and the huge stony structures created by thousands of years of water and weather.

I must admit, we are on a little bit of a timetable and there is a lot to see, so once we had completed our walk, we reapplied the calories with some pizza, jumped back in the van, and drove south to Uluru. We arrived at Yulara (the Uluru “resort town”) a few hours later just in time to grab a spot in the campground, and then head out for a sunset viewing of the famous rock. No time for stopping on this trip! Here are our happy faces part way through our first adventure of the day at Kings Canyon.

Adrian had been here before, so he knew what to expect, but I didn’t! As we rounded the corner and over the small hill that revealed Uluru for my first ever view, I was gobsmacked and just said “Wow” a million times. I didn’t realise how big it really is, and what a presence it has.

Non-alcoholic sundowners were had (if you are seeing a theme of no alcohol, you’re correct – we’re off the booze for a while) and we headed on back to our allocated campsite for the night.

I’m sure you’ll excuse my unwashed, unbrushed hair in this picture – must admit, not a priority – but I’m sure you’re not looking at that.

Walking was again on the cards for the next day – EXCEPT we needed to do the sunrise at Uluru too, so after a decent sleep, we were off back to the rock for coffees, sunrise, and then to do the base walk. Again, awestruck, I walked around the base of this amazing structure, and took a lot of photos. Dreamtime stories abound as does the history and the connection of this place to the Traditional Owners.

Enjoy a few extra piccies of this world heritage listed site.

But its not all just about Uluru at the National Park, there is also Kata Tjuta (The Olgas), and keen to also see this imposing landmass, we drove over to Kata Tjuta on our third and last day in the park, walking the shorter, but no less spectacular gorge walk this time, as the tootsies were telling me they would like a little break.

As much as we could spend a lot more time here, doing all the walks and eating at the restaurants and seeing the cultural displays – our tick tocking timeframe called, and we knew we had some serious driving ahead of us on our next leg. The Mereenie Loop had not put us off driving on unsealed roads, and so we were to complete part of “Australia’s Longest Shortcut” and drive over the Great Central Road (also called the Outback Way) from Uluru, past the Docker River, through Warburton and finishing at Laverton. I’ll hand over to Adrian and his amusing prose for that blog 🙂

Away

April 24, 2021 /

Another milestone has arrived in our sailing project.

Addictive, our 30ft fibreglass yacht was the perfect training yacht and served us well coastal hoping up the east coast. This week Addictive’s new owners finalised the sale and will shortly complete the transfer from Brisbane to its new home on the Gold Coast.

Whilst you can cross oceans in a yacht like Addictive, we decided we wanted more comfort and safety to be comfortable cruising ongoing. Our dream boat has been gradually taking shape in Cherbourg, France over the last 6 months and finally has a name: ‘Away’ is expected to ‘splash’ in early July.

Away is not your average yacht. Away is a Garcia Exploration 45 designed to explore the less frequented parts of the world. Being 45 feet long the internal volume is much bigger than we are used to allowing room for some home comforts and a more comfortable ride at sea.

Aluminium construction and water tight bulkheads provide safety if we hit something hard

A lifting keel means we can get into shallow anchorages and are less likely to be capsized by large breaking waves.

Insulation everywhere to keep us warm when it snows.

Hot and cold running water and a water maker mean showers every day without going on deck and hanging the camp shower from the boom!

Ducted heating so we won’t need our little gas camping heater to warm our toes.

Thats the generator in case there is not enough solars, and the space next to it is where the washing machine will go.

France is one of the worst hit countries for COVID which is making our travel there in July very challenging, but we are sure we will find a way.

The MacDonnell Ranges

April 23, 2021 /

By Fi

We arrived into the MacDonnell Ranges after travelling from the Stuart Highway, along Binns Track, an unsealed dusty track that lead us to the Hale River Homestead, our stop for the evening. Hale River is a great place, in the bush with loads of history, bush walks, a bar, pool, great facilities and so we relished a non-alcoholic beverage, a little toe dip in the pool and enjoyed the respite from the bumpy track. Ok yes, there were about a million giant mozzies, so we didn’t fancy staying as long as we would have liked.

The next day we were off again, this time towards Arltunga where one of the first gold mines and inland towns in Australia was constructed. Unfortunately, the traditional owners had been driven off their land due to these developments, and now all that appears to remain are the ruins of the mining town, inclusive of police station, government buildings and mine hardware.

We went for a walk to the colonial cemetery and to a couple of the gold mines. The colonial people here did it hard, and apparently often the amount of gold they found, wasn’t worth the cost of living there. They had to ship in food and water and great expense just to live there in a small, square stone hut with a canvas roof.

After a little while of looking around (and a big chat with the local Ranger who was so excited to see a couple of tourists), we headed to our campsite for the night, the “Panorama” campground in the Trephina Gorge. A quick walk up the dry river bank confirmed our plans for the following day to walk the Panorama Walk on the rim of the gorge. We watched the sunset colours change on the gorge wall as we enjoyed some dinner and took ourselves off to bed.

Our morning gorge walk was spectacular with views over the ranges, finishing with a saunter down the dry river bed back to our camp. This photo was taken standing on the ridge just before we descended into the dry river bed below.

Alice Springs was to be our next stop, so we said goodbye to the relative solitude of the East MacDonnell’s and drove into “Town”. We had picked a little caravan park outside of Alice to be our stop for the evening, so we got all our jobs done, and headed there to wind down for the day and make our plans for our next steps. We’d prefer to move along from Alice, because we like the wilderness and solitude, however we did relish some great great food in town washed down with some excellent coffees. Really rivalled those of the Inner West in Sydney (yes I said it).

Here are our excited faces as we cook dinner and plan our next adventures.

The West MacDonnell Ranges were calling. This is where apparently most of the tourists go (according to the lonely Ranger at the East MacDonnell’s). The West MacDonnell’s have the big ticket items, such as Kings Canyon and Serpentine Gorge, as well as the Ochre Pits and are also on one of the roads to Uluru.

After leaving Alice, we had time to find a roadside free camp with a perfect sunset view.

Our first stop the next day was Serpentine Gorge. The dreamtime stories say there is a snake or monster that resides in the water here, and people are not allowed to swim – this is not a safe place according to local custom. We took some photos (an example included here of the shadowy gorge and pool) and enjoyed the quiet of the place, and moved along to our next stop, the Ochre Pits.

Ochre was an important resource to the Traditional Owners, using it from everything from paint, to curing ailments. These pits represent a rich source of the ochre and the colours are simply iridescent. The photos can never do it justice so I did filter this photo a little so it showed what we saw more accurately. You can see the deep red, the yellow and the lighter coloured ochres here in the vertical lines. The layers are vertical as the land was pushed up thousands upon thousands of years ago to its current vertical positioning.

Further up the road, we were hoping to complete a walk in Orminston Gorge. This gorge leads out to a “Pound” which is a large flat area surrounded by ridges. The walk was estimated at 3.5 – 4 hours, and would take us up the south side of the gorge, around the back and into the pound. Signs warned us that there was going to be swimming in cold water involved due to the unseasonal rain, however I was confident these signs were simply a left over from months before, and it wouldn’t be an issue for us. We continued through the pound, and I was so excited by the thousands of native plants, seemingly placed as if they were a specimen display in a botanical garden. Clearly here – very happy.

Towards the end of the walk, we boulder hopped through the creek bed, and eventually came upon what the signs were warning us about. The swim. We either had to swim across the river, or walk the 2.5 hours back through the gorge, arriving at the car on sunset. So swimming it was, fully clothed and fully shoed.

Making it across, with our pack and electronics dry, we were pretty pumped and headed back to the car (and a cheeky shower at the campsite here) and on to our campsite for the evening – solitude in a river bank at yet another free bush camp. Twas a rather massive day so a fire was a nice way to unwind.

And finally, I have to mention the budgies. They are so cute and we’ve seen thousands! Adrian got this epic shot of these two lovers. Also not to be outdone, my phone shot of the chatter of budgies is below.

More adventures in the west to come as we have plans to follow the Mereenie Loop Track south through to Kings Canyon and on to Uluru. That was a bumpy ride and I’ll have a few choice things to say about it next time.

Far from the ocean – the Red Centre

April 16, 2021 /

By Fi

When we last blogged, we had completed our sail up and down the east coast of Australia, starting in Sydney, heading to Bowen, then back to Brisbane. Since then, we spent some time in Brisbane and on the Sunshine Coast of Australia, enjoying time with family and friends, seeing a little more of QLD, before driving ourselves back to Sydney. In Sydney we had more family and friends time, as well as the huge job of packing up our belongings, putting some into storage, and the rest in big boxes to get sent to France for our upcoming sailing adventures in Europe (more news on that coming soon!!)

Before we head to France we wanted to see more of Australia outside the capital cities. So we hired a campervan and have a couple of months to see as much of central and northern Australia as we can. Here’s Fi in Darwin when we picked up the van. Both Fi and the van appear clean here – oh how much will change in the coming week…

Picking up our 4WD campervan in Darwin, we drove south to visit Litchfield National Park. Stopping at the Wangi Falls, we managed a quick walk to visit the waterfalls which were stunning, before cooking dinner in the dwindling light. We are pretty used to mosquitos and sandflies from our recent sailing adventures, but nothing prepared us for the onslaught of tiny gnats and mozzies that were attracted to our internal lighting. This would end up being a theme, given we are here at the tail end of the wet, and the bugs are keen for a feed of tourist meat. Its okay, it means we are learning to eat when the sun is still up, go to bed when the sun goes down, and get up at dawn. Oh, and that the fan we bought in Darwin is worth its weight in gold to keep the humid hot air moving.

We drove through Litchfield National Park, admiring the magnetic termite mounds, and passing landscapes. We stopped at Florence Falls for one night, and enjoyed an afternoon swim in the waterhole, complete with waterfall shower. That evening, we cooked and tidied up, and were inside listening to our favourite sailing podcast before the mozzies even realised we were there.

Our next adventure was to be Kakadu. We set out from Litchfield, driving the 6 or so hours to Jabiru where the Kakadu visitors centre is located. Alas, the big wet season this year would foil our plans again, and almost everything in Kakadu is closed. We decided Kakadu would need to wait until the end of our trip, so we found a place to kip for the evening, and then high tailed it south, putting in a big day to get to Mataranka and the thermal pools.

Floating in a thermal pool, at 34 degrees is a delight I recommend all partake in. Floating on my back, I stared at the canopy above, as the water filled my ears and drowned out the sounds of the other people. We stayed in the pool for a few hours, and the next morning also had another quick dip before heading further south.

The Devils Marbles were the next stop, a spectacular landscape, red ochre, flat, except for these giant structures. We managed a walk around the these structures, respectfully at a distance of the particularly sensitive cultural areas. The photos can never do it justice.

Happily, we stayed awake after dark enjoying each others company outside the van, watching the sun set and the masses of stars light up the skies overhead. No mozzies 🙂 and the temperature dropped to such a point we both needed the extra blanket – ahhh to be in the drier, cooler climate. We’ll revisit the top end once the dry season is a little more set in we’ve decided. At dawn, we watched the sunrise while and I sipped on my freshly ground soy latte (you can take the latte sipping, left leaning inner westies out of the innerwest, but you can take the… you get the idea) and then we packed up ready for another big day driving south to get to our next exploration area – the Macdonnell Ranges.

In the coming weeks, we plan to explore the Macdonnell Ranges, Uluru and head West into WA. Keep up to date with us on our instagram (@fiandadrian) and also our facebook.

An exciting announcement

January 31, 2021 /

Some of you may be aware that Adrian and I have grand plans of sailing the world starting with a move to France where our new boat is being built. This is scheduled for July 2021 in Cherbourg in northern France.

Our priority for our remaining time in Australia is to see as much of the country as we can. In Addictive, we had planned to sail north and see some of New South Wales then Queensland and eventually get to the Northern Territory and around the top into Western Australia. Unfortunately, COVID-19 border closures put a dampener on that plan and we stayed on the beautiful east coast for this season and we are certainly not complaining about how lucky we have been.

We didn’t get to sail to the Northern Territory, so we are planning to fly there and live in a van for 2 months before our big move to France. Which means our beautiful Addictive is up for SALE!!

So here’s what we are doing: we have moved into an AirBnB on the beautiful sunshine coast of Queensland for a while to enable us to sell Addictive. Our car has been transported to Brisbane so we can move our belongings off the boat. In early March we plan to drive to Sydney to visit friends and family and pack for France. Then in early April we go to Darwin, and borders allowing, travel through Northern Territory, Western Australia and South Australia finishing in Adelaide.

As an unexpected bonus in late March, we have accepted an opportunity to sail to Lord Howe Island, 3 days off the NSW coast. It will be a different experience heading out into the Tasman on a luxury catamaran and we hope that the COVID issues won’t scupper that opportunity.

So, there are some logistical challenges approaching but nothing Adrian and I can’t handle. We’re super proud of our achievements in Addictive and think she is an absolutely fantastic boat for sailing up the coast and we hope she gets to do it again and again! And if you know anyone who would like a super solid Jarkan 925 that has a history of racing and cruising, tell them to give us a call!

What makes a pocket cruiser?

January 10, 2021 /

By Adrian

Addictive was to be our sailing practise boat for Sydney and surrounds. It was only later we came up with the bright idea of living aboard a very small boat. She was setup for weekend cruising and racing.

To turn her into a comfortable live aboard boat we had to upgrade some systems to improve safety and comfort. This is what we chose to do:

Improving Safety

Safety starts with coffee. Being left leaning, inner city, latte sipping people, we could hardly accept anything less than fresh espresso. Luckily Fi found this stove top espresso maker and a manual grinder to keep the standard of latte’s suitably high. We never leave port without a strong coffee in hand.

If the boat sinks, the idea of being in the water chatting to the sharks whilst awaiting rescue was enough motivation to find space for a life raft. The life-raft provides safety from marauding sharks using a thin layer of light weight plastic.

We bought the best anchor we could find (Australian Sarca Excel) to replace the existing large lump of rusting metal. There are few things worse than lying awake wondering if the anchor will hold. We have never regretted spending the money on the anchor and have at times (Double Island Point) been shocked how well it holds. At the time of writing it has set and not dragged 100% of the time.

We steer using a tiller but hand steering for hours at a time is tiring and even harder at night. We added an auto helm that will steer the boat in whatever direction its told. Its clever enough to understand the roll and pitch of the boat and steer appropriately. So far its managed to steer in all conditions even when we were surfing down waves coming into Bundaberg. The only thing it’s missing is a name…


Adding Power

Imagine you buy a litre of milk and there is only half a litre of milk in the container…’Well sir, the container has the potential to carry 1 litre but there is only half a litre of useable milk in it’…insane, yes, but this is how batteries are sold. A 100Ah lead acid battery only has 50Ah of useable energy (really). However, Lithium batteries are really good and you can use 85-90% of the advertised energy in them (did I really say that?). So the simple way to increase our power storage without rebuilding the battery compartment was to switch to Lithium batteries. They have performed really well and 200Ah (170Ah useable) gives us 2 days usage without any charging.

Our only option to charge the batteries was to run the engine which didn’t do much for the ambiance of beautiful quiet secluded bays. We added a large 300W solar panel that fully charges the battery by lunch in Queensland where its sunny every day.

The solar panel needs to be mounted where its not shaded which on our boat meant putting it on an arch over the stern. We got some quotes for stainless steel arches that would have required a second mortgage, and ended up building our own which has proved to be adequately robust.

Now we had some watts to play with, we added a small portable freezer (ice for the gin and tonics, and fish storage for all the fish we catch), an inverter (turns our 12V into 240V for laptops, coffee grinders, power tools, but not quite enough for the hair dryer…ooops), numerous 12V USB sockets to charge our social media devices, and some fans to blow dry Bernie after a swim.

Toilet Alternatives

The boat came with a basic marine toilet that could flush directly into the surrounding pristine anchorage. There was also a black water storage ‘bag’ under the main bed that wasn’t plumbed to the toilet as the previous owner had concerns over the potential pong.

After a couple of attempts to improve the toilet we changed tack and installed a composting toilet. Basically a box of compost and wee bottle. Sounds a bit basic, but it doesn’t smell, doesn’t need to be emptied often and freed up a huge amount of storage space that was previously taken by plumbing.

Cooking options

We have a metho stove, but we rightly predicted that we would run short of fuel when a future global pandemic would result in hoarding of metho to make hand sanitiser. Our aussie solution was to add a a gas powered Webber Baby Q on the cockpit rail and enough gas to run it continuously through the next pandemic.

Where are we?

There was a basic chart plotter installed which we supplemented with a couple of iPads running iNavx and Navionics charts. This gave us redundancy and chart viewing in the cockpit. We added AIS which tells you when other boats with AIS (ie the big ones) are going to crash into you. So far it seems to work really well and we haven’t crashed into any major shipping.

AIS devices are also activated on our life jackets should we fall overboard. Being visible on the chart makes it much more likely we will be located and recovered, especially at night.

Other upgrades

We added a rod holder so we could look like those people that catch fish.

We used to wash the deck using a bucket to get sea water. Now a saltwater pump allows us to hose off the deck and clean mud off the anchor. Its filter ensures there are no unwanted jellies when we wash up in salt water (or give ourselves a cooling outdoor shower).

Hooks… we added about 1000 hooks and there is still never a spare one to hang stuff on.

An old Porta Bote (read foldable dinghy) is our tender. Its fast, tough (read croc proof) and stores easily on the deck. However it takes 20 minutes to assemble and we have sometimes not gone ashore to avoid the effort of constructing and de-constructing.

Some things we didn’t add:

Radar – we think the combination of AIS and gazing out into the night is adequate. Radar would add a level of safety but requires lots of power and expense.

Water maker – by the time you add the cost of the water maker, the power upgrade, power generation upgrade and the room it takes, we decided to buy a couple of jerry cans instead. Also strapping jerry cans to the deck makes us look like intrepid long distance travellers.

Electric anchor windlass. We (ok, mostly Fi) pull the anchor up by hand. Once we got used to it we decided we didn’t need an electric windlass. Its good exercise and hasn’t been as difficult as we thought it might be (easy for me to say).

Making it feel like home

In many boats of this age the foam mattresses have a compressed dip so you know where to lie, and slight damp musty aroma. For our comfort and sanity we installed a custom made sprung mattress which is engineered specifically for the marine environment, and is simple to take apart and clean.

We were gifted a 12v aromatic oil diffuser which we use regularly when at anchor or port. It helps to keep mozzies and sandflies away with some beautiful Australia scents of teatree and eucalyptus.

Carpet has protected the floor from sharp claws but also makes the boat quieter and more comfortable.

Fi has collected magnets from destinations she has visited which we attached to a ‘magnet board’ at home. We have replicated this in the boat with a magnet board for the trip.

A mini printer has allowed us to print a photo from each port we visit and create visual timeline of our trip. Its a great way to reminisce about the early part of the trip and a reminder of just how far we have come.

Combine all this with a few throw cushions and blankets and we have a homely space with everything we need to adventure comfortably.

Heading South for Xmas

December 25, 2020 /

Leaving Bundy was very different to our arrival. Early morning and calm seas with just few fishing boats zipping about the shipping channel. As we turned south we barely saw another boat until Fraser Island was coming into view. There were a few rain clouds that we dodged by staying away from the coast.

As Fraser came into view the wind filled out and we sped along the Fraser coast. The northern half of Fraser had been burnt out by bushfire and we soon spotted the helicopters and planes water bombing the fire front. The planes entertained us by skimming the water and then flying low overhead to douse more flames. Our first choice anchorage looked a little exposed to the northerly wind and quite close to the advancing flames. As there was still light and wind we headed further into the sandy straights to anchor for the night.

Several other boats had anchored in a similar area which was located just before the shallow section (where we had run aground on the way north). Just before high tide we joined the procession of boats through the shallow section and on to Gary’s anchorage. More tide meant no bottom scrapes this time.

Gary’s anchorage had fewer boats this time but more sand flies. The next leg of our trip through the Wide Bay Bar and down the coast required careful planning to get a safe combination of tide, wind and swell. Leaving Gary’s before dawn meant we enjoyed a spectacular sunrise as we motored to a couple of hours to the start of the Wide Bay Bar.

The coast guard provides way points through the bar, but its still a nervous experience with breaking waves close by. The tide against us flattened the waves, but slowed our progress and it was over an hour before we made it to open water.

We sailed past Double Island Point remembering the our mis-adventures there on the way north. We were again surprised as the yachts following us didn’t overtake us and some even slowly disappeared behind us as Addicitive chewed up the miles towards Mooloolaba. Bernie caught up on some zzz after the early start. The narrow entrance bar to Mooloolaba harbour was being dredged but still had plenty of depth for us even at low tide.

The marina at Mooloolaba is across the road from the beach, next to the fish shops and a short walk into town. When we thought we might stay there over xmas we discovered everyone else had the same idea and they were booked out. Some yachts are booked in up to 12 months in advance.

A suitable day arrived and we reluctantly left Mooloolaba, negotiating the early morning paddlers, and sailed south passing the shipping lane and entering Moreton Bay. The wind picked up as we crossed the bay, but our progress was slowed by a large tanker inconsiderately passing the shipping channel right in front of us. As we motored into the marina, we realised that this might be our last sail of 2020 as we plan to spend some time over Christmas and New Years in Brisbane and surrounds.

Yes, we had pancakes at Pancake

December 4, 2020 /

By Fi

Pancake creek, where I can only guess the name was aptly applied due to the sandbanks looking like pancakes, is a stunning part of the coast, and one I’m so happy we stopped in on now that we’re heading back south. As you may recall, we had a bit of a hairy time coming in to the anchorage after a big day, so all 3 of us were keen for some chill out time. So we spent a day enjoying the scenery and just doing some boat work. As low tide and sunset coincided, we enjoyed the vista over the massive sandbanks. Later in our stay here Bernie would enjoy running and skipping as he does on these banks and chasing the little bait fish.

However; the boat is a small space, and so we were keen to get off, and explore the area. We walked up to the Bustard Head lighthouse to enjoy the views of the coast, and were intrigued by the Bustard Head cemetery. On the way back, we couldn’t resist a trip down to the deserted surf beach to have a look – and quickly realised that the south end of the beach was a super protected bay with a little bit of swell, and all 3 of us could get in for a beautiful swim and cool off. It was like we were on our own deserted island – totally back to nature 🙂

Paddleboarding was another opportunity here that I didn’t want to miss. I spend so much time paddleboarding using my knees rather than standing because I have the Bernie on the front with me, so I decided Bernie would have to chill out on the boat and wait for me to hone my standing up skills. After a few minutes of wobbling, I got the balance point and was soon across the channel admiring the massive sting rays near the beach. I’ll try Bernie with me next time while I stand. He does move around a little which can put me off balance, so it should be interesting!

After 6 or so days of this idyllic pattern of swimming in the crystal clear waters, paddleboarding and exploring, we had hit on a day that would be excellent for a trip to Bundaberg. Apparently EVERYONE else in the anchorage agreed with us, and just after dawn, the first boats started their engines, and thus began the procession. We counted 14 boats, of which we were about number 5 coming out of the creek and setting sail south. One day we will be the first to leave!!

It would be a fair to roughish day. We had snacks at the ready, and prepared ourselves for what we knew would be a long and rolly passage. Fortunately, both Adrian and I don’t suffer from seasickness, but Bernie had a pre-emptive anti-nausea tablet that his vet prescribed precisely for days like this.

It was rolly coming out of the creek, which we navigated successfully using our in-bound track. Now at HIGH tide we had a much greater safety margin. We set up our sails, handed a coffee to the catamaran following us (about 10m off our stern if they were 1m), and ended up motor sailing for the best part of the morning. Blissfully, the wind filled in, and we could have the sails set wing on wing (our fastest sail plan) and were consistently clocking over 8 knots which is pretty fast for us.

As the day wore on, we noted the waves getting larger, and our ability to properly sail them becoming – hazardous. I suggested that we were perhaps overpowered, after a particularly nasty round up as we fell down a wave, and Adrian agreed. We decided to reef our sails, which maintained our speed, but stopped us from being just that little bit out of control. It felt more comfortable and we learned that we can do this without having to turn into the wind, which in this case was a blessing as the waves were pretty much getting uncomfortable to say the least.

Video’s and photos can never show how it really is, but this clip is us trying to show the rolly sea. The noise you hear is our autohelm working hard to keep us on track.

Not far out of Bundaberg, we noted that the wind and waves were increasing even more and even with reefed sails we were again overpowered – another reef was needed and so we did that, again our speed didn’t change too much, but the comfort and safety of our passage was much better.

Bundaberg was in our sights finally! Given the rolly sea state, we decided to keep our headsail out, drop the mainsail and motor into the Bundaberg channel (Burnett River). As we made the right hand turn to get into the river, the waves were on our beam and smashing over our bow, we were strapped in and getting very wet as each wave splashed over the boat, we were trying to steer a straight line to get through the heads – Adrian was shouting as I was steering “its only 50 more metres!” as we saw the waves crashing OVER the breakwall.

This is a little video when Adrian had a moment. I am steering from the companion way using our remote control for the autohelm. We later heard the breeze was gusting to 28 knots!

Through the breakwalls finally, the noise was still overwhelming, but we could see the marina – our destination and so we kept pushing.

Rounding the corner into the marina, we rang up and got some help to dock. The winds were pretty strong, so an extra hand on the dock is very helpful. Safely tied up, we did our usual high five on a successful passage, and watched as another yacht who came in after us limped in with a ripped headsail.

So after a passage like that, we like to chill for a while, and so planned to stay in Bundy for about a week before heading south again. Apparently Adrian pulled a muscle furling our headsail…

Ricotta

November 20, 2020 /

There’s a lot of purists who will argue that the below method is absolutely not how you make ricotta – but I’m not worried because it looks like ricotta, smells like ricotta and we use it like ricotta! Ricotta means “re-cooked” because the correct way to make it is to reuse the whey from making other cheeses, add an acid, then watch as the whey curdles into what we know as ricotta. The below method works brilliantly on our boat especially when using powdered milk, and I haven’t bought ricotta since!

We use it in ricotta fritters (adding other veges, eggs, flour and spices) and occasionally turn it into a sweet treat with some boozy fruit we have. You can make cheesecakes with it, tarts, paleo breaky muffins with egg, bacon and veges – so versatile!

You will need:

  • 1L powdered or fresh milk in a saucepan
  • 50ml vinegar
  • Salt
  • Colander lined with cheesecloth OR your ricotta cheese hoop

Heat your milk up to 91-94 degrees Celsius or until you see just a little movement in the liquid (being careful not to boil it over).

Once the milk reaches this point, turn off the heat and pour in your vinegar.

Give the liquid 2 or 3 stirs, and then stop. You will see the milk start to curdle.

Leave the milk to separate into the curds and whey for 30-45 minutes.

Using your slotted spoon, spoon the curds into the ricotta hoop, or your cheesecloth lined colander, to drain off further whey.

Let it sit for a further 15-20 minutes, or until the whey has mostly stopped draining out. Tip out the whey from the bottom of the ricotta hoop.

Add ½ teaspoon of salt and gently fold through the ricotta, although this step isn’t necessary and is just for personal taste.

You can then take the ricotta out of the cheesecloth and store in a container in the fridge for up to a week – or simply pop your ricotta hoop into the fridge.

Yogurt and Labneh

November 20, 2020 /

I must admit we don’t eat too much yogurt, but do enjoy it occasionally. I recently made some toasted muesli and we have been having yogurt and muesli for breaky instead of our usual eggs. Labneh is delicious in dips, or just by itself with some carrot sticks.

I do keep a small vial of yogurt culture in the freezer so that when I make yogurt and labneh, I can control the flavour and texture. You can use a couple of tablespoons of leftover store bought yogurt, but the more times you use it to make the next batch, the more and more different the yogurt will taste until it becomes very “different” and may end up in the bin. So for the sake of the smallest vial that is relatively cheap, I choose to use the culture. You can purchase the culture from any good home brewing shop that also caters to cheesemakers, or online.

Using powdered milk seems to result in a slightly more runny yogurt, but its fine.

I use a yogurt container that insulates the 1L jar I have (see image below). I was gifted this from my late Mum and its a circa 1970s model that works brilliantly. Other yogurt makers call for hot water to keep the yogurt warm while it incubates, and there are also electric yogurt makers that do a lot of the work for you.

Yogurt

You will need:

  • 1L milk (fresh or powdered, homogenised or unhomogenised) 
  • 1 Pinch or 1/10th teaspoon yogurt starter culture, or 2 tablespoons of natural yogurt
  • 2 tablespoons milk powder
  • Saucepan
  • Yogurt maker and associated container
  • Sterilisation tools/solution

Sterilise your yogurt container and set aside

For fresh milk: Put 1L of milk in your saucepan, and heat up to about 90-92 degrees Celsius being careful not to boil it over. This kills any unwanted bacteria in the milk that could multiply during the incubation process and make the yogurt taste gross. 

Add 2 heaped tablespoons powdered milk to your yogurt maker container.

Once the milk is heated, take the saucepan off the heat and wait a few minutes before pouring it into your yogurt maker jar and stirring to dissolve the milk powder.

Monitor the temperature of the milk. Once it drops to 32 – 34 degrees celsius, add your starter culture or yogurt.

Place the lid on the jar and put it in your yogurt maker.

Depending on your taste, the yogurt is ready between 12 and 24 hours later.

The yogurt should have that lovely slightly sour yogurt smell, and be the expected creamy consistency of store bought yogurt.

Labne

I love eating labne with carrot sticks. Its moreish.

Super easy.

You will need

  • The yogurt you just made (see above) or 1L of store bought yogurt
  • Colander lined with cheesecloth
  • Container for storing in fridge

Pour your 1L of yogurt into the cheesecloth lined colander

Let it settle in for 5 minutes.

Gather the 4 corners of the cheese cloth and tie together in such a way that you can hang the yogurt to drain.

I use a spoon over a container, and pop this in the fridge to drain off for 24 hours or until the labne is thick and creamy to your likeness.

And thats it! Yogurt with some whey removed.

Use it as a dip, in dips, as a side to shakshuka with some dukka sprinkles, or wherever you might use a dollop of yogurt.

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