Nova Vida was ready for a cruise to New Caledonia by mid June 2005, but last minute problems experienced by two of her planned crew caused that trip to be postponed.  Instead, we made a school holiday trip to Keppel Bay and all places along the way, with three boys as crew.  Calvin Heidenreich (18), Jamie van Stiphout and Matt Harris (both 14) were the lucky ones to join the boat for this cruise.

We were later than we wanted in getting away on Tuesday June 21st, resulting in a trip down the Mary river in the dark.  But a bright moon made this easy compared with the challenges to face us later, and we reached the Kingfisher resort on Fraser Island before anchoring for the night.  The three boys launched El Ninio and went ashore to explore the resort next morning.  It was nearly 11 o'clock by the time they had tired of that, got the dinghy back onboard, and were ready to raise anchor and head north.

I had long wanted to explore Fraser Island's northern beaches, so we threaded our way between the Woody Islands and followed the shipping channel to Fairway beacon, then turned to starboard into Platypus Bay.  It was dusk by the time we were at Fairway beacon, but at least after we had made the turn we were able to get some sails up and turn off our motor.  The wind was coming from the north west at the time, and until then had been blowing from directly in front of Nova Vida, its usual direction.  A few hours later we cautiously approached the Fraser Island shore in the dark, and anchored off Arch Cliff for the night.

That wind remained strong all night, howling in our rigging and whipping up waves from which Fraser Island's western shore offered no shelter.  Nova Vida pitched and bucked at her anchor, making us all feel uncomfortable and glad when morning arrived.  But dawn revealed sizable breakers rolling onto the beach, giving us sufficient reason to avoid venturing ashore in a dinghy.  So we sailed northward parallel to the shore for a while to see what it was like, before starting up our motor again for the trip across Platypus Bay to Bundaberg.

It was on this leg of the voyage that seasickness first struck Jamie, and to a lesser extent Matt.  Calvin boasted that he never suffered from motion sickness, and it rarely affects me, but Jamie was miserable for the whole day.  We were all glad when we were able to tie up at the last remaining vacant berth at the Burnett Heads marina and treat ourselves to a hot shower and a comfortable night.

We spent the whole of the next day in the marina, allowing the boys time to catch a bus into Bundaberg city for shopping, and then to try fishing.  Calvin made two noteworthy purchases: Avomine motion sickness tablets for Jamie, and a couple of dance music CDs that were then played almost non-stop on the boat for the remainder of our trip.  Upon return to the marina Calvin also bought some bait and went out in El Ninio whilst Matt and Jamie cast lines into the water from the nearby public wharf, all of them determined to deplete the harbour's fish stocks if at all possible.

They were not without some success.  They caught around six or eight fish which Matt cleaned and I fried up for dinner, but the boys all offered their shares to me to eat once they discovered that small fish are full of tiny bones!  I managed to pick my way through the lot and thought they were delicious, perhaps thanks to early training at coping with the bony fish my father used to bring home years ago.  We were reminded of this fishy dinner for days afterwards, unfortunately, as fish scales somehow became scattered over the floor throughout the boat, and our fridge began to smell increasingly terrible once Calvin put his leftover bait inside.

On Sunday we set sail northwards again, after Matt and Jamie had swallowed a motion sickness tablet each.  The transformation it made to Jamie was amazing.  He was singing and dancing about the boat for hours as though he was high!  After an otherwise uneventful day we crept into the southern end of Bustard Bay, which sheltered us from the south west wind for the night.

Our next port of call was to be Gladstone, an easy day's sail from Bustard Bay.  Somewhere along the way there we noticed Jamie at the wheel, pretending to steer the boat which was, as usual, being guided by Oscar, our Simrad WP30 wheelpilot.  It was shortly after that that Oscar carked it, appearing to have become internally disengaged entirely from the steering mechanism.  Naturally Jamie got the blame.  He was therefore assigned the first shift at steering manually, a job we were all to get plenty of practise at for the remainder of the cruise.

The entrance to Gladstone Harbour is via a long channel, one that we were to become thoroughly sick of as we were destined to pass along it six times on this cruise.  But the first time was interesting because it was then new to us, and the close proximity of big commercial shipping traffic proved quite exciting.  It was Calvin's watch as we entered the south channel for the first time, supervising Matt at the helm.  To make matters simple he told Matt to just follow the big ship directly in front of us, a strategy that worked fine for a few minutes until the big ship gave us a loud blast on its horn and loomed much closer than before, indicating that it was coming directly towards us instead of going our way!  Quick manouvering away from big ship number one!

Gladstone CBD is walking distance away from its marina, so we walked all the way to Tank Street and treated ourselves to a wonderful meal at one of the Chinese restaurants there on our first night.  We also did some supermarket shopping and staggered back to the boat carrying bags of stuff that would all be eaten within a couple of days.  We never went hungry on this trip!

A decision had to be made here whether to continue going north as we all wanted to do, or whether we had to commence our return to Maryborough so Matt and Jamie could be back there by the end of the school holidays.  Our progress to this point had been slowed by too many days spent in marinas!  So Matt and Jamie both phoned home, prepared with a story of how our autopilot needed to be fixed, to plead for a one week extension of their holiday.  Both announced the extension had been granted, so in an unhurried frame of mind, our cruise northward continued.

The next day (Tuesday) Calvin and I fixed the autopilot (or so we thought).  Another thing we did in Gladstone was clean out our fridge, and forever after banish smelly fishing bait from the boat.  Instead of bait we bought a trolling line fitted with a metal lure from the tackle shop just down from the marina.  According to the tackle shop proprietor, this line would catch lots of big fish, and by paying extra for the stainless steel version (nearly $50) we were assured the line would last a long time.

We departed Gladstone at 2pm Wednesday, planning to sail overnight to arrive at Rosslyn Bay sometime the next morning.  But as soon as we tried using the autopilot it became obvious it would not steer the boat, and after several tries we switched the thing off and resigned ourselves to steering manually for the rest of the trip.  It was with some trepidation that we headed out to sea, as a strong wind warning was current and seas to 3 metres were forecast.  But I knew Nova Vida could handle seas bigger than that and winds greater than the 30 knots predicted, so with the crew all dosed up with their seasickness tablets we should have been all right.

All went well until about 8 o'clock that night, by which time all the crew had retired to their bunks claiming sickness or headaches, leaving me alone to steer the boat.  The forecast strong wind was scarcely enough to keep the boat moving at 4 knots so it was no problem.  Showers of rain made things unpleasant and clouds darkened the night.  A light that I presumed was a ship appeared on the horizon up ahead.  Another shower of rain.  I noticed that the light up ahead was still on the same bearing as before, indicating that it might be a ship heading directly towards us.  I turned sixty degrees to starboard just in case, and paid increased attention to the light.  The wind was dying and becoming flukey, but at least the light gradually moved around to our port side, indicating that whatever it was it was no longer on a collision course.  I still could not recognize the light as being a ship, so I called Jamie up to take a look at it through binoculars.  He had no idea what it was, and neither did I when we swapped roles.  All I could see was what appeared to be several orange hued lights, with no red or green navigation lights to indicate a ship.  In the darkness of the night we could not tell whether the lights were stationery, moving, and if so in what direction, so leaving Jamie to steer, I went below to turn on our radar in the hope it would help.

When the radar screen lit up after 90 seconds it showed an alarming picture of an object, presumably a ship, curving around to a position directly ahead of our bow.  Without further delay I started our engine and hurried up to the cockpit where Jamie had started shreiking in terror.  He pointed at the rapidly approaching big ship hidden by our jib, and when I saw it I jammed our throttle lever as far forward as it would go and spun the steering wheel to perform quick manouver away from big ship number two!  It had been much too close!  Calvin chose this moment to appear sleepily from down below to enquire what all the noise was about, and was able to see the side-on view of a big ore carrier rushing silently through the night.

Soon after that narrow escape the wind died completely, so we lowered our sails and motored through the remainder of the night, to arrive at the picturesque Keppel Bay with the water as smooth as glass.  Unwisely perhaps, we lost all fear of strong wind warnings.  Jamie was promoted to Seaman First Class for his heroics during the night.

Rosslyn Bay turned on some splendid warm weather for us, but I spent a lot of our first day there catching up on sleep missed the night before.  The boys went exploring and rock climbing, managing to get themseves into only minor mischief.  For dinner that night it was my turn to cook, so I whipped up a big batch of macaroni cheese mixed with tomato, pineapple, and tinned fish which was an established favourite.  Sweets consisting of tinned peaches topped with ricecream finished an enjoyable meal.

Next day we all caught a bus into Yeppoon for shopping.  After re-stocking the boat the boys blew up the inflatable dinghy and departed for Yeppoon over water, whilst I became immersed in a book I bought that morning.  It was late in the afternoon when Calvin returned in the dinghy, minus Matt and Jamie who were walking back and didn't arrive until dark.  Apparently the inflatable was slowly deflating, and they didn't think it would carry them all back.

Matt cooked up potato fritters for dinner that night, which was followed by a big pot of rice cooked by Calvin and topped with condensed milk and more tinned fruit.  Delicious!  We all proved ourselves capable cooks on this trip, with Matt earning the distinction of Chief Cook.

Reluctantly, we started our journey back south to Maryborough next morning (Saturday), with a detour around Great Keppel Island to see what could be seen.  Calvin was towing our new trolling line behind the boat at every opportunity seeking a big fish.  We went only as far as Cape Capricorn that day, where we anchored in the early afternoon and went ashore to explore.  The time spent ashore in that remote location was one of the highlights of our trip, and provided several photo opportunities... which were ruined along with a lot of others when my trusty old Ricoh camera was accidently immersed in sea water.  The photos accompanying this report are a poor substitute for the ones ruined, but are the only ones we have, mostly taken with a toy digital about the size of a matchbox.

For breakfast next morning Matt whipped up a batch of corn fritters topped with golden syrup, a pleasant contribution to our early morning start.  Calvin was still trolling for the elusive fish as we motored back to Gladstone, where hot showers and another walk to the Chinese restaurants of Tank Street awaited us.

Winds were blowing persistently from the south east by this time, and with no change forecast we realised we would be motoring all the way back to Maryborough.  So with our tank topped up to the brim we departed Gladstone at 9am Monday, bound for Pancake Creek which we had heard described as a popular overnight stop.  Strong headwinds and high waves had the boat pitching vigorously most of the day, with occasional waves breaking over our foredeck.  It must have been one of these that dislodged our anchor from its resting bracket, dumping it over the side to dangle on its chain where it thumped into the side of the bow with every subsequent wave.  It took me a few minutes to discover the cause of that thumping noise, wherupon Calvin was able to retrieve the anchor and tie it securely back where it belonged... but not before the anchor had gouged big scores in the bow that would need repairing one day.

Our arrival at Pancake Creek was eventful in more ways than one.  As we approached the entrance a loud screeching from the engine warning system announced that the alternator had sheared off its single mounting bolt and was likely to break loose at any moment.  At almost the same time we ran aground on an unbeaconed sand bar!  Amidst a lively radio discussion seeking advice about the way off and around the sandbar, screeching from the engine warning system, and squealing from the now badly misaligned alternator belt we kept the engine running and after half an hour got ourselves unstuck and safely to the anchorage.  It was at this point that Calvin boasted of his foresight in handing over the steering to me just before we hit the sand bar, thereby making the grounding my fault!  As if the captain is not always to blame.

How were we to fix the alternator mounting?  We had no replacement bolt and the nearest repair facilities were a full day's travel away, either north or south.  We dared not attempt motoring south for a full day with the alternator loose, so the best option seemed to be a return to Gladstone, in a direction which we could easily sail.  VMR Gladstone suggested that to enable use of the motor for berthing we try temporarily restraining the alternator with something like masking tape, a material we thought hopelessly weak.  We used string and chewing gum instead.

As we sailed back to Gladstone making seven and a half knots at times Calvin was still trolling for the elusive fish.  By this time he noticed that the hook on our expensive stainless steel rig was going rusty, and it had still not produced a single fish.  Matt and Jamie took turns at frying up batches of potato chips which kept us all well fed until the potato supply ran out.

The wind weakened as we approached Gladstone, making for a slow trip up the channel to the marina, entirely under sail this time and not so easily able to dodge big ships.  And of course our arrival coincided with the busiest time of day for commercial ship movements, with two ships overtaking us on the way in, another passing on its way out, and then one that seemed destined to be pushed into us by tugs as we slowly sailed past the wharf it was trying to get into.  Nevertheless we eventually reached the marina, motored in and berthed without any problems.  Commo's Diesel Services had our alternator mounting fixed before knock-off time that very day.

Meanwhile, another drama had been unfolding.  It seems Matt had not exactly told the truth about being granted a one week extension of his holidays, and had instead been told that he had to be home in time for school.  As it was now Tuesday, the first day back at school, Matt's mum had assigned Maryborough police the task of finding her missing boy and discovering why he had not returned.  As a result, Jamie's mum arrived at Gladstone by car shortly after we berthed, to whisk the two boys back to Maryborough and deliver in their place Calvin's brother Sam to help us sail the boat home.  To welcome Sam we could think of nothing more fitting than a meal at the Chinese restaurant in Tank Street.

So it was with a crew of three that we departed Gladstone next morning, headed for an overnight anchorage at the southern end of Bustard Bay, but not before we had topped up with diesel again, and Calvin had complained to the fishing tackle shop about the lack of success with our trolling rig.  For his pains he was given a new lure to try.

It was whilst motoring south through Bustard Bay that we wished we had a video camera onboard, for it was then that we were joined by an albatross that provided the funniest sights we had seen on the entire trip.  The bird seemed to want to rest by perching somewhere on our boat, but the lively pitching of the boat defied its attempts to find something suitable to cling to.  Several times it landed on our pulpit railing, only to fall off with a scrabbling of webbed feet as the railing bobbed up and down beneath it.  In frustration, the bird approached the spreaders halfway up our mast, where once again it landed.  But the spreaders were moving backward and forward enough to shake the bird off as soon as it folded its wings, and the gyrating rigging wires dealt the bird further blows as it took to flight again.  When last seen, the bird had settled for a safer resting place, on the water amongst the waves.

We anchored that night (Wednesday, July 6th) at the southern end of Bustard Bay, within sight of the Town of 1770.  A persistent swell had us rocking and rolling all night long, so we made an early start at the crack of dawn on Thursday to motor to Bundaberg.  Some interesting sights awaited us.  First came a large pod of dolphins that accompanied us for a while.  Then, slightly to starboard of our course, we spotted what looked like a pile of coloured floats bobbing around on the water.  Curiosity demanded a small detour to investigate, and when we got closer we discovered that the floats were actually a bunch of party balloons tied together with decorative string.  Calvin wasted no time in hooking them aboard to take home!

At Bundaberg's Burnett Heads Marina that night we renewed some friendships.  Sam being an amateur radio enthusiast, was glad to meet up with Robyn (pictured) and Wal, a couple we had met when on our earlier trip to Bundaberg over Easter and with whom he had kept in radio contact.  We also topped up our fuel tank again with 81 litres of diesel.  Persistent headwinds from the southeast blew directly on our bow for days, which was why we had not hoisted a sail since leaving Gladstone.  Inspection of our new fishing lure revealed that half its chrome plating had by now flaked off, exposing the dull plastic underneath.

As we motored the final leg of our cruise from Bundaberg back to the Mary River on Friday, Calvin tried once more to catch a fish with our trolling line.  A magnificent mackerel, 54cm long was his reward!  Apart from that, our final day was uneventful and we passed through River Heads shortly after nightfall.

By the time we reached the shallow part of the Mary River known as Horseshoe Bend we were all looking forward to getting home, and so we decided to attempt to motor upriver that night, all the way to Maryborough.  It was not an easy task as it was a dark night with no moon, there was lots of debris floating in the river from recent rains, an occasional dimly lit beacon could not be seen until almost too late, and finally, at Maryborough, big boats without any lights at all were anchored in the middle of the river!  But luck was with us and we survived the near disasters to reach our mooring at just one minute after midnight.

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