Bundy

Here’s the sunrise on our last day on passage from New Caledonia to Bundaberg, Australia. If you read the blogs I posted during the slow passage, you already know that I whined about the lack of wind the whole way. Passage done, no one hurt and the boats in decent shape.

Next up was to get cleared into the country. We had arrived about mid-day on a Sunday. We had resigned ourselves to paying the overtime fees so we could get a slip in the marina and get off the boat. After contacting the Port of Bundaberg Marina we found out that no one from Customs was available to clear us and we had to anchor in the river till Monday morning with our yellow Q-flag flying. At least there would be no overtime.
Monday we headed into our assigned slip and started the cumbersome clearing process. Everyone were very friendly about clearing – its just a long and expensive process. This picture is of the most friendly drug and gun sniffing dog. He is decked out in his best boats shoes and had a nice sniff around our boat.
Customs and Immigration are combined as the Australian Border Force. No charge for them and they gave the boat a 12 month cruising permit.  That’s good for the boat but doesn’t cover Chris and I. We are on a 90 day visa renewable multiple times for another 90-days for up to one year. To renew you have to actually leave the country and come back in. We obtained this visa because we didn’t want to jump through the hoops for the straight 12-month visa.
Biosecurity is a fee-for-service organization. The odd part about it is that you can’t refuse their service. Seems like a good business to be in. They charge some fixed fees that get you to about $280aud. Then it’s an additional charge for each 15 minutes that they take searching your boat for termites. In our case that was about 2 and 1/2 hours of going over every bit of wood on the boat (or timber as they refer to it).
So far Australia is pretty much tied for the second most expensive check-in we’ve done (Galapagos out paces everyone). It is on top for the most invasive and time consuming. And that’s after 25 different checkins in other countries. At least it is all done with a cheery attitude.
 
While I think we were both disappointed that there were no Roos or Koalas at the dock to take our dock lines when we came into our slip, it wasn’t long till we came across a whole family. This pic is taken while we were walking to the food store in the field next door to it. Judging from the looks on their faces I think it was the first time they’ve seen anyone from Bellingham.

So you aren’t completely lost as to where Bundaberg is here’s a map. Bundy is about the middle of the east coast above the much larger area of Brisbane. If you aren’t sure where Australia is, just take your globe and turn it upside down. Australia will be prominent then. Bundaberg is an agricultural area with lots of sugar cane.

Its known world wide for Bundaberg Rum and Bundaberg sodas.

We had been warned that sometimes the Queensland coast gets strong afternoon thunder storms. On our second day in the slip this one started coming down the river the SW. We are about the 6th mast in from the right in this pic (taken by JAMS).

Turns out this was more like a once in 10 year thunder storm. We had sustained winds of 50 to 55kts. The maximum gust we measured was 67kts (77mph). That is a ton of wind and a new record for us that I don’t want to break. Chris and I were standing in the cockpit behind the dodger just kinda awestruck. The boat was healing over hard toward the dock and the visibility conditions were just a white out.
When the wind stopped this was the view off our stern. The catamaran Felix, a Lagoon 400, had broken free of the t-head dock along with another cat. They were pushed down on top of the adjacent dock. While powering hard to get around the end of the dock an 18-24 inch hole was gashed into the waterline mid-ships. The boat was beached on the sand you can see on the right.  At low tide it was patched and refloated. It is most likely an insurance right-off. Not a good ending for a cruise. The cruisers and the town folks all came out to help the owners both in recovering their cat and in helping them deal with the loss. The local restaurant gave them free meals, the Lighthouse Motel gave them a free room for a week,….

Chris has taken off for three weeks working in Kathmandu, Nepal on a quality assurance for birth control providers project. Me, I’m doing boat projects. Got the traveler off today so I can take it in to a machine shop to drill out a broken bolt. When Chris gets back we will start sailing down toward Sydney with a new found respect for the local weather.
Paul