Tag: Bernie

Goodbye France

October 15, 2021 / fiandadrian

By Fi

We spent a few fun days in Cherbourg catching up with new friends and tidying up the boat. We were about to enact our complex plan to get to the UK to save our remaining Schengen visa days, and to get the dog into the UK – you might remember the UK’s very strict rules on dogs entering on private yachts.

Bernie staring at our lovely neighbours who just want to eat their dinner.

We packed all our things, and one very very early morning, left the boat and drove down to Caen and got through the plethora of paperwork to get on the ferry to Portsmouth. Little Bernie had to stay in the hire car, but we enjoyed a little shut eye, some food, some random quiz and some suitably calming live music on the ferry.

We got through the UK customs uneventfully, and we were off to our airbnb in the countryside. About half way there I realised that no one that we encountered in he UK gave two hoots about the dog. I wondered if we were being WAYY too straighty-one-eighty by following all the rules perfectly. Hmmm.

We had 2 weeks in the country. We walked and walked, ran some errands to the swindleries (read chandleries) and set up a few things to make life easier once we were able to get Away in too.

Our trip to the chandleries garnered this lovely encounter in Lymington.

The Quantock hills presented us with some challenging walks, fantastic pubs and a few times, a lost dog. Bernie has discovered squirrels. He’s never seen anything like them before and is absolutely obsessed. He eventually comes back. We also think he has discovered pheasants.

Well, that’s going to need a bath later.

I’m very happy to be walking the hills. My new hiking boots are cutting the mustard too.

Bernie is loving his world and fits right in.

The weather has been magic. Rainy when its okay to, and sunny when we want it to be.

Speechless. They weren’t bothered by us or Bernie at all.

We are also lucky enough to have family and friends everywhere and so we visited Langford near Bristol for a few days to catch up with friends who generously also let us stay in their gorgeous home. Bernie had a great walk on the beach on one occasion and I am living for this face.

Speaking of seeing wonderful people, we were able to catch up with my family as well who are living in London. They came all the way out to Bath to see us and we had a great lunch and look around Bath for a day.

At the pub in Bath. Bernie is suitably well behaved under the table – not.

In the meantime Away was being looked after by the good folk at Garcia and the few warranty issues we had found were being corrected – oh and I should mention we ordered a new room for the boat – its a conservatory! Well, its a set of canvas and clears for the outside area to turn it into essentially an outside room.

Yay our new outside room! Perfect for the cooler weather.

All the work gets done on the boat and it is signed off as good to go, Bernie gets put into a kennel for a few days (much to his dismay, but frankly at this point he can take one for the team), and we head back to France for our overnight stay – which is all we have left on our visa!

Driving on to the ferry at Portsmouth bound for Caen. We have only 2 days left on our European visa!

The Channel crossing is our next challenge in Away. We had timed our trip back so that we would have benign or decent weather to get back to the UK. We were planning to sail from Cherbourg to Portland Marina, which is in the harbour which hosted the sailing events for the London Olympics back in 2012. We’d done a recky on the harbour and felt pretty good about it.

We checked out from France at the cop shop in Cherbourg, managed a last minute French grocery shop (wine) and had an early night ready to leave the next day at sparrows fart (I mean 06:00 sharp).

So at 06:30 we left.

It was sad to leave beautiful France, but alas…

And headed out into the inky blackness, leaving the jewellery box of Cherbourg behind us. There are no crab pots in the dark, so we pointed towards our destination, and come what may, in 10 hours we’d be in the UK.

Adrian caught the photo of the day when the sun started rising.

‘Come what may’ was one of the worlds busiest shipping channels, but we played this video game with life (pictured) that looks like some sort of space invaders, except its real big ships and our relatively little boat… We are the black boat shape pointed north – the big ships are the triangle shaped outlines. We navigated this fine. The ships weren’t interested in chatting to us about navigation, which is okay because being quite introverted, we didn’t want to talk to them either (although we did try to be fair).

This is the first channel of west to east traffic, then further north is the east to west channel.

And the 10 hours turned into 11 hours… and then it turned out we messed up the tides and currents, it’ll be 12 hours.

We get our “Q” flag out at the 12 mile mark so that the UK authorities know we have come from another country and need to be checked in. Is a plain yellow flag that we need to fly on the starboard side. This is the first time we have flown this flag.

Once we are checked into the UK, we fly the red ensign flag as that is the appropriate flag for the UK. When we were in France, we flew the French flag on the starboard side, and as we change to subsequent countries, we will fly their flag. It is part of the rules of being a seafarer to fly the courtesy flag of the country you are sailing in. We fly the Australian flag off the stern as Away is registered in Australia. Sydney in fact – even though it has never been there.

Oh yes back to our passage. Sorry everyone… the 10 – 12 hours will actually be 14 hours of motor sailing and getting in just as the world turned dark because we used the wrong information for the strength of the tide – but we got to Portland! And we have learned some good lessons along the way.

Beautiful scenery as we sail along the coast.

I was willing the sun to stay up a little longer as we headed in to the harbour area at Portland.

So the whole family is here! And the authorities say we’re all allowed! Negative PCR tests, and Bernie has been collected from prison.

We’re here in Portland for a few days, and we are planning on changing plans at the moment. As usual.

Getting Away

August 15, 2021 / fiandadrian

By Fi

I’m genuinely not sure that the puns using the boat name are ever going to stop… but I expect they will have to because there are only so many variations using the word “Away” that my brain can compute.

Again, its been a while between posts but for good reason! We got Away! And its been hectic. I’ve taught the boat yard folks doing the handover with us a new phrase – “Drinking from the fire hose” – because that is how it has been feeling.

Our first two days on Away (Thursday and Friday), entailed getting to know the boat a little so we could sleep and cook and do the necessary. We also moved all our belongings (12 boxes plus suitcases) on to the boat and tried to get as much of it put into logical places. Easier said than done when the lockers are all different shapes and sizes, and also there is storage under storage, under beds, under floors etc.

We learned about the systems and did a lot of testing. Then we had the weekend to really unpack and settle in, and take the 25 minute walk to the shops over and over again for supplies, and the supplies we inevitably forget. I promise I will include some nice inside photos in a sec.

Day 3 and 4 were spent on the harbour here in Cherbourg, hoisting sails, testing the single line reefing system on our mail sail (used to reduce the amount of sail for windy conditions), testing the stay sail, the solent and the gennaker. All working so well and we love how the boat sails (thank goodness because prior to now, we didn’t actually know how it sailed).

Here you can see our beautiful red gennaker looking fabulous against the ocean and our black hull.

We also spent time doing some “close quarters manoeuvring” – or in other words, trying not to hit other peoples boats while we try to dock ours.

I was up first for close quarters work, and with the help from Kevin (our handover specialist) I parallel parked the boat a few times, using the bow thruster and getting the feel for the dual rudder system. I wasn’t allowed yet to reverse the boat into our slip, mainly because neither of us had seen it done before, and the space between the dock on one side is about 20cm, and the neighbours boat on the other side is about 20cm, so you can imagine Kevin preferred to show us how it was done, prior to either of us giving it a bash – literally. Apparently this is as tight a slip as we will see anywhere, so if we can reverse into this slip, we’re going to be well set up.

Here is Bernie and I happily looking out for crab pots while I helm on our first day sailing. Needless to say there are no photos of us doing close quarters manoeuvring we’re a little busy (read stressed).

Adrian was up the next day (our last day) to practice some manoeuvring as well, and we had a chance to ask some final questions. Not to be outdone by me, Adrian was this time allowed to reverse the boat into our slip, and did so like a champion. I have dubbed him the official reverse parker of the boat now. To be fair, a few days later I would have my own chance to reverse the boat in and would do so successfully.

Here we are after some successful docking practice. Successful meaning I managed to lasso the cleat on the dock by throwing the docking line over it from the boat while Adrian, driving the boat towards the dock, didn’t hit anything. Oh, and Bernie didn’t jump off the boat mid docking manoeuvre to say hi to everyone. Happy days.

So after completing the final systems check, both of us having helmed, docked and sailed the boat, we signed the paperwork and Away is officially our home. The next few days we spend working with Garcia on a few items that needed correcting (to be expected when building a new boat), fitting out the boat with our safety gear, moving our belongings around and around and around finding the best spots for things, and buying storage boxes – lots of storage boxes.

Again we didn’t think that would make interesting photos so here we are sailing again.

And we buy sheets and plates and storage boxes and towels and cookware and dog food and storage boxes and tools and glasses and baguettes and storage boxes and spices and a board for my magnets and hooks and storage boxes. Tiring stuff!

We also now have a book for the local area and the charts, so looking at the weather, we hope to be out exploring more of France next week or very soon thereafter. It will be excellent to get off the dock. The Fastnet race has been in town and Bernie INSISTS on jumping off and saying hello to every sailor that walks past. Horror for his introverted parents but he is having the best time. A lot of people also want to talk to us about Away and where we are from, if we like France and where we are planning to go. We feel quite popular, but it can get very busy.

Here are some nice photos of the interior and our first few days on the boat – hope you enjoy!

Sunny Yamba/Iluka, and on to the Sunshine State

July 21, 2020 / fiandadrian

By Fi

After arriving in Yamba, we took some time to explore the town. With the Queensland border still closed, we were in no rush and spent a few nights here. There is a great market on Wednesday mornings from 07:00 near the headland that sells local meat and veges, cured meats, gin, sushi, cheese and dairy, and so we stocked up on some yummy produce and groceries. Here is Adrian and Bernie enjoying a walk at the beach after visiting the markets.

We’d heard some stories as we travelled up the coast that Iluka was “packed full of boats waiting on the border” so we had been a little dubious about adding to the numbers, but on a sunny morning, we decided to pop over and have a look, and there was plenty of space for us to drop our anchor and visit one of NSW coastal town gems. This gorgeous beach is along one side of the anchorage. Behind me is the dock where we set our dingy to go ashore.

Iluka is a small coastal town, and the bay where we anchored is right next to the pub and the fish coop. Iluka prawns are some of the best we have tasted. We went for some walks around town, and out to the surf beach where Bernie got to play with his bumper things. Spotted this little guy eating at the side of the road too (Echidna). Iluka was a great town to keep us stocked up, and we also leaned a little on the Post Office in town as we needed to get a few things ordered for the inevitable boat jobs that we would have to do. The most pressing being the anchor light.

When we anchored in Iluka, and as dusk settled in, I turned on the anchor light, and to my dismay realised it wasn’t working. Fast forward a few days later, and we had enlisted the help of our friends on some other boats, and borrowed a bosuns chair (chair/harness device that I sit in to go up) and hoisted me up the mast to figure out the problem. It was about 3 hours later, and a lot of tools going up and down, and discussions, that we all realised the light had no serviceable parts and needed total replacing. It did need replacing anyways, after I mangled it trying to figure out how it worked whilst gripping on to the mast with my legs 14m up. This photo shows how I had to basically rip it off at one screw because the flat head screw was cheap and nasty and I couldn’t get the screwdriver to stay on to get it out. This was all fine in the end, and a week or so later we had our new light and up I went up again crimped the wires, tested it, and screwed it on. Works well now!

Around our time in Iluka we also cruised the Clarence River and wrote a post here: https://fiandadriansailing.com/travelling-inland-the-clarence-river/

As the dolphins circled around the bay night after night, we found ourselves settling in to the Iluka life, making friends, exploring the trails, trying out new recipes on the boat, and attempting new skills. In some respects, I stopped being cranky around this point about the Queensland border because we wouldn’t have had these experiences in this stunning little place, or perhaps even met some new friends for who’s friendship we are so grateful! Oh, also new toys – our new toys are two stand up paddle boards and this is my first attempt ever.

And one day, the news came that Queensland was opening up to us Southerners, and the race was on! The borders opened midday on the 10th of July, and whilst the weather window for our boat would have been okay-ish, we decided to let the bigger faster boats head up en masse and we’d see how they got on. Plus we could partake a little more in the delicious local seafood. All was fine and we planned our own passage for a few days later.

We planned to head north on the 14th of July, as the swells were quite low, which would mean leaving Yamba/Iluka over the river bar would be straightforward. We left at midday on a rainy and cool day, and planned to stop in at Byron Bay for the evening. During our travels, the whale activity was epic, and we saw many whales breaching, flapping around and playing quite close to us. Here you can see a whale just breaching out of the water. So awe inspiring. We finally dropped the anchor at 10pm in the rolly Byron Bay anchorage.

We had a little bit of sleep rolling around, and the next morning picked up the anchor at 06:30 for our final leg across the border and into the Gold Coast. I had been in touch with Maritime Safety Queensland to ensure our safe passage across the border, and had been assured that the authorities were aware of our approval to cross the border and we would have no troubles. It was so exciting off the Tweed Heads/Coolangatta coast line to know that we were entering Queensland finally and more adventures were to come, plus more whales, dolphins and the biggest turtle I have ever seen were there to welcome us! We travelled through the Gold Coast seaway late afternoon (shown here), and picked our way north to a marina we had booked arriving about 17:00. Big day and we were ecstatic to arrive in Queensland. The plan from here is to head into Moreton Bay and then further north to Mooloolaba and Noosa as weather permits, and as quickly as we are comfortable with.

Bernie is doing well! And so photogenic.

Exploring the Coffs Coast

June 24, 2020 / fiandadrian

By Fi

We arrived in Coffs Harbour International Marina on the 22nd of May, and as of writing this a month later, we’re still enjoying the atmosphere and the weather here in Coffs. We’re in no hurry to move, as the borders are still closed, and we’re waiting for the perfect weather window to head north to Yamba. Both Adrian and I have spent time on the Coffs Coast in the past. Me as a toddler learning how to swim and ride my bike, staying at my grandparents house in Toormina, and Adrian as a young adult training for the Canoe Polo team, and working a part time job when his parents lived near here. We were both keen to see some of the places we knew and loved.

But first, friends! With COVID19 restrictions relaxing a little, we had a welcome visit from some friends! We spent one day with some friends having little boat tours, eating some yummy burgers at the local chargrilled burger place called “Attitude”, and soaking up the warm winter weather with an icecream and going for a walk’along the jetty and foreshores discovering the history of the place. Then another day more friends and more boat tours! Was so great to see people!

“Coffs” was “discovered” by Europeans, namely John Korff, originally as a safe haven in 1847. Soon after, its proximity to fine timber was realised, and given the troubles of getting large logs onto large ships off the beach, a jetty was proposed. The jetty here was completed in 1893 (after a few set backs given the NSW coast’s ability to pick up the waves and winds and storm down on these settlements). Soon after this the walls of the harbour were also constructed, evolving into the marina and harbour we now see. There’s a load more history and well worth the trip here.

We hired some bikes, and took a loop ride around Coffs Creek which was gorgeous, and the next day did the 20km round trip to Boambee Creek, where I spent idealic summers learning to swim, discovering the crabs and fish, going for explorations with my cousins over the railway bridge and out to the scary surf beach. It all seemed a lot smaller now I’m grown. Bernie ran next to Adrian the whole way, and had a swim with us at Boambee Creek, and was still wanting more when we got back to the boat.

The next day we left for a quick trip to Sydney to see family, and on our way back north we couldn’t pass up an opportunity to visit Scotts Head. This is very close to where Adrian’s family lived and we got to catch up with more friends! The beach is off leash and so the doggies had a great time eating sand and chasing balls. We also took Bernie out to visit Eungai Creek Buffalo farm for lunch. Well worth the trip. We had their persian fetta, buffalo lasagne, and a buffalo curry for lunch, and took home some milk (which is delightfully creamy), extra feta and some steaks. So freaking yummy.

So then we were back in comfy warm Coffs, settling in to a routine of dog walking, boat jobs and making some yummy food with our haul from Sydney and the Buffalo farm. Here’s Bernie and I enjoying the off leash area at Coffs Creek. We still have his floating fetch things (“bumpers”) from when we were trying to teach him to be a proper gun dog. Given we all failed at gun dog stuff, the bumpers make great fetch toys. The Sunday marina markets here are excellent and we’ve loved the fresh veges, macadamia nut spread, pickled garlic, cured meats, bananas and avos. Adrian’s also taken some time to connect our AIS (the system that means we can see other boats and they can see us) to our old, but big VHF antenna, make the outside speakers work with the VHF radio and also install me a new magnet board so I can collect magnets because I love it, and I don’t know why – but every place we go I get a magnet, for years now. I have hundreds and just started a new board for our cruise.

After all the land based travelling, both of us were keen to get out on to the water again, and so we planned a nice day to sail out to South Solitary Island to do a loop and take a look. The island, whilst not overly “remote” (you can see it from land easily) would have been a harsh place to live when people were occupying it. The shore is basically sheer cliffs all around, and to get people and goods onto the island, they had to pick calm seas and also build a large crane, the remnants of which still remain. Now, if there is work to be done, or the rare tourist is booked to visit the island, a helicopter is used. The island has a lighthouse, and it is the lighthouse keeper and their families that occupied this island for almost 100 years up until 1975 when the lighthouse was automated. It is a very special marine sanctuary as well, and given how it is fed from the East Coast Australian Current, contains a variety of temperate, sub tropical and tropical species. We saw a green sea turtle and numerous whales and birds on our quick trip.

Speaking of protect marine areas, the Coffs Harbour Marina is also a protected area, and there are strict rules on fishing and pollution in the marina. These rules have meant that on our little walks out of the marina we have seen an abundance of marine life in the clear marina waters. We have seen spotted eagle rays, mullet, bream, mangrove jacks, flathead, dolphins and a bunch of colourful tropical looking fish that I wouldn’t hazard a guess of the name. Apparently wobbegong sharks also frequent the marina. We never could get a good photo, so here is a beautiful sunset.

We also took time out to visit the botanic gardens. Once a dilapidated landfill site, the place has been transformed into a wonderland of landscaped gardens and plants from all over the world. I was particularly in love with the super healthy roses, and Adrian took this fantastic picture of an upturned tree. There was even a family connection as John Wriggly (Adrian’s mothers cousin) created the original design for the botanic gardens in 1979.

Every day we are planning our trip to Yamba by checking the weather in PredictWind (our weather program). It will be a longish day – about 12 hours, and we need to time it perfectly to get through the Yamba bar at the best time of tide, which is 3 hours after low tide. This is when the waters are at their best to navigate over the sand bar, and into the Clarence river. Coffs has treated us so well, and I can see why we so easily spent a whole month here!

First week out – living on a small boat

April 17, 2020 / fiandadrian

Our first week cruising around Pittwater enabled us to really get to know “Addictive” even better, plus experience how we can change from living in a nice sized house to a small boat. We were able to get more comfortable with our battery consumption, water consumption and food consumption.

We discovered we don’t eat as much as we thought we would (always good to overcater), but that the fresh food we were able to store served us well and there was no wastage. We used about 50 litres of water, which tells me we likely weren’t drinking enough! The batteries can support us easily on sunny days, but a few days of cloud will mean we would need to have run the motor, which we likely will anyways as you can’t sail all the time.

We tried fishing, and discovered we’re not at all that good, although we had success with our crab pot and got a fantastic sized blue swimmer crab which was great with a lemon soy dressing, shallots and some rice noodles. We bent a few forks trying to get the meat out so we’ve since purchased some proper crab eating implements with the hope we can catch some more. Adrian also had some oysters we shucked off the rocks in a little bay which were fresh and delicious! Given he survived, I’m planning to try them next time.

Bernie is settling in really well and having no toilet issues at all, and getting some good swimming exercise. He adores the water, but I don’t so adore salty wet dog inside much to his dismay. We need to keep absolutely on top of this as he’ll bring a tonne of salt and dirt into our small living area which won’t be nice, so he gets rinsed off, made to sit outside until dry, then groomed a little before I’ll let him inside. He’s handling it fine. I’d have to do a whole separate post about doing his business. Its been a journey.

So in conclusion, things are going well and all our preparations have paid off. We definitely need some more guidance on fishing techniques, locations and lures and fortunately have a wealth of knowledge available in my step dad who has since given us two tackle boxes of his fishing gear, and some much needed words of advice. So here’s to the coming weeks and catching some actual fish! Fishing challenge to be continued…

Waiting…

March 27, 2020 / fiandadrian

The world is shrinking every day. First there was doubt about getting into WA, then Queensland shut down and it now seems even NSW may not welcome travelling sailors.

We get Addictive back from the riggers on Monday when the mast goes back up. New chain plates, rigging and an aerial on top of the mast. Sounds expensive. It is, but better than worrying about it failing at the worst moment.

Our current plan is to stay around Pittwater and do some coastal trips as weather and lockdowns allow until the picture becomes clearer. Improving our fishing and blogging skills are high on the priority list.