Oz Circumnavigation

"For the truth is that I already know as much about my fate as I need to know. The day will come when I will die. So the only matter of consequence before me is what I will do with my allotted time. I can remain on shore, paralyzed with fear, or I can raise my sails and dip and soar in the breeze."
Richard Bode

Bundaberg to Gold Coast - Queensland Nov 2009

Our son James and I flew up to Bundaberg, boarded SKIE and immediately as we arrived, shot south to Southport on the Gold Coast, taking 35 hours and claiming Seaway Tower at 2300 hrs the next night.

James (aged 30) has spent a lot of hours on the boat to date (over 4000 nm) and has been an enormous help for deliveries, but being a sole parent to Chloe (7 yr old) and a racehorse trainer, he is restricted to time constraints.

One of the main reasons to get to the Gold Coast so quickly was to arrange for the boat to be hauled for the first time since she went into the water brand new 30 months ago.

This was to apply new bottom paint, Prop Speed, check running gear, replace zinc anodes, cut and polish all fibreglass, brights, and attend to 70 items for servicing, inspecting, repairs, and a full internal detail. I think the old girl deserved it after 16,000 nm.

Whilst this was being done I reflected on how kind and generous she has been to us, and a supreme testament to the boat building integrity of PAE, the makers of Nordhavn, and wondered why we shouldn't continue on with what she was built for, and see the rest of the world.

I mentioned previously that we met the triple circumnavigators Wolfgang and Heidi Hass in Bundaberg, and Wolfgang pulled me aside to share some of his personal wisdom and life philosophy.

He asked me to imagine a one metre long wooden ruler, cut it off at a point that represents my life expectancy i.e. 80 years = 800 mm, then mark off my current age i.e. 66 = 660 mm, then paint it black up to this point, then red for the following 140 mm. It is scary to say the least, particularly when you work out how quickly the red section left went so quickly looking back.

At 100 mm ago I was 56, and surely that was only just yesterday.

After a deep and meaningful discussion with Margaret back home over a couple of bottles of wine, she gave an emphatic thumbs up without any hesitation, and so our quest for SKIE (spending the kids inheritance early) is going to take on a serious hammering.

We have booked SKIE onto the Dockwise yacht transporter Super Servant 3 and she departs Brisbane on Jan 30th 2010, and float off in Ensenada Mexico, 20 days later. We will meet her when she arrives having crossed the Pacific nibbling canapes on a Qantas flight.

She will be then steamed by a professional delivery crew north to Victoria BC, Canada, and then further to Alaska for the NH summer.

From then on the next major goal will be to Dockwise her again to Palma Mallorca in the Med in 2011 or 2012.

Having 16,000 nm under the belt always at the helm I have nothing to prove to myself by crossing big oceans, so the boat is all now all about about milking destinations to their fullest, and taking the tough, unpredictable, and sometimes boring parts out of the equation.

I owe this sage advice to my good friend Milt Baker a fellow Nordhavn owner from the US, to follow his lead coming back from the Med to the US, and also the example of another US friend Christine Bauman, who is bringing her N55 on the same boat to Australia from the Med this coming January.

I am aptly reminded of the header quotation on this page from Richard Bode.

Juneau, Alaska