Thursday, July 5, 2007

Pancake Creek


Moonrise in Pancake Creek

We've arrived at the land of cruising, our first true destination for this has been Pancake Creek. Since our last internet access, Maia left Bundaberg, traveling north to the Town of 1770, then to Pancake Creek for a good few days, and arriving in Gladstone on July 4th. Our Australian compatriots here do know that July 4th is American Independence. I can't say that we knew of any historically significant date for Australia, but then again that's not much of a surprise, is it? As I type, we are running the motor as we head into Galdstone harbor. Like most sailing days for us we are again pushing against the winds that continue to come directly from the direction we want to go (north west). We are nearly into the harbor though, so this blog post will likely be completed tomorrow, when we have sorted out our arrival in the marina.

Our visit to Pancake Creek was the start of real cruising for us. The weather finally broke, and it was warm enough during the day to go back to shorts and t-shirts, at least until late afternoon. The creek is quite picturesque, there were great beaches to walk along. We went on beautiful walks up to the light house on Bustard Head, found all kinds of things on the beach including a giant lizard, a cane toad, and kangaroo tracks. We got to know the friendly cruisers in the other boats, who had all kinds of things to show us. We learned from Sherry how to spot the Southern Cross in the sky every time. Heather and Pete taught us how to find small shrimp they call "Yabbies" to use as bait. This worked so well, Dave immediately caught his first fish that we could eat.




We were excited to find on our second day there that our friends from Brisbane, Frank and Jane on Escondido, had sailed into the creek and we had a great reunion with them. They proved they are true sailors by launching their dinghy with an oar as a mast and a jacket as a sail to sail over to us without using the engine or rowing. Against the quick running tide, this was quite a feat, good fun! On our last day in Pancake creek, Frank and Jane organized a cook out on the beach with all the boats in the marina. At this gathering all three of us were again the youngest people (save for a three cruising kids), earning us the nickname of "the kids" here. As the sun set on July 3rd, we reminded ourselves that we had really made it half way around the world to Australia, bought a cruising boat, and got it ready and out cruising. We basked in the sun and our feat.



Today Dave pulled up Maia's anchor at first light, about 6 a.m. Craig steered the boat carefully through the shallow water of the creek and Evvy passed around the coffee and tea to keep us warm. About 5-6 boats left our anchorage at Pancake creek this morning, most all of them motoring their way to Gladstone at the same time we did. (It felt a bit like we imagine the BaHaHa to be.) Our preference to sail rather than run the engine ALL the time means that we typically will use all the time we have in the day to stay out on the water, keeping the motor off until it becomes clear that we have to motor to arrive before darkness. Today was no exception, after Evvy got together a great lunch, we turned off the motor and sailed for hours afterwards, until the wind went light and the tide turned adverse, forcing us to use the "iron genoa".

Just as we left Bundaberg we found out that our US Coast Guard application was rejected for failure to have an address. In a wonderful show of bureaucracy, we learned of the problem with the address through a letter sent, you guessed it, through the mail! We are disappointed that we still have no time frame for when we might be able to get the paperwork needed to leave Australia.

In other news of bureaucracy, Evvy's Mom was set to join us here in Australia today, but she has been delayed because she still has not received her passport after months of waiting for it. She still hopes to reschedule, and the airlines are understanding about changing the time. We are off to explore Gladstone for a few days in hopes that Marguerite can soon join us.

7 comments:

Lucky Penguin said...

hot doggin. Shorts and t-shirts. The man may be trying to keep you down, but there is no way the three of you are gonna let that happen. Allen

Lucky Penguin said...

Hey how about a lat and long once in awhile so we can google you.......

Lucky Penguin said...

nice work "kids" I'm glad we've passed the title on to you!! oh and by the way about that arrow on top of your mast, we call it a Destination Direction Indicator. No matter what the damn weatherdude says, wind generally originates from wherever you want to go that day. sailor's law. sorry about Evvy's mom, don't even get us started on US bureaucratic bullshit, we would never shut up I guarantee you. good luck, hope you get to see her soon, big hugs to you. cpc

laura said...

so confusing about the CG application -- but your travels sound fantastic! and I can relate to endless upwind sailing -- on the trip across from hawaii to SF, we literally had only a half-hour of downwind. will have to back again sometime the "right" way...

hugs,
laura

Unknown said...

hi kids -- I'm glad I checked in right after a new post. Am liking the pictures; here's hoping it stays warm for you. cheers, elizabeth

craig&evvy said...

s/v Ute asked what happened to our sail in the last post where Dave was stitching. Nothing big, a small rip that was present when we bought the boat. The boat was missing a spreader boot, so there was a small hole. When we fixed the furler, we dropped the sail, so stitched at the same time.

Thanks for the Destination Direction, I think Johnny Depp has one of the those too - we saw the 3rd Pirates on our one movie night since we left.

Great to hear from all of you, we're putting the boat away again to sail out in the a.m. I wish we got internet access on the hook, but that's not to be here, so communication will be more sporadic. Days in the marina are pretty full, as you might imagine, still organizing a boat we've had for almost 2 months now. Unfortunately, long pants and sleaves are back, so we've got to get more North on!

Anonymous said...

So who is this David in the hat we see?