Usually, the only time I get worried about a trip is at the start.  It's not that bad things happen at the start of voyages.  It's just that before I head out to sea, I have time to disasterize about what could go wrong.  While I'm making plans and contingency plans, the excitement builds up. All of that excitement adds to the apprehension that I feel as I get ready to head out into the Outback and Beyond.

It's impossible to prepare for every contingency, unless you have a billion dollars, a mega yacht, and support vessels going with you on the trip.  Eventually, reality pays a visit and I admit to myself that life is inherently risky and there are no guarantees.  I just have to take the good with the bad, and hope that the bad is not really that bad.  I decide to believe in myself, knowing that I have been a survivor in the past and probably I will make it through the challenges that I face on my new voyage.  So I raise my sails, push my fears into the back of my mind, and head out into the Outback and Beyond.

Sailing to Australia from New Caledonia involves a crossing of the Coral Sea.  You are north of the  Tasman Sea and you are able to avoid its frequently boisterous sailing conditions.  The Coral Sea is different from the Tasman.  It lies in the trade winds, and if you are sailing downwind to Australia, you have a good chance for an enjoyable trip.  As long as you don't make your passage in cyclone season, you probably will arrive safely in Australia.  I really did not have much apprehension about making the trip to Australia, since it would primarily be a downwind sleigh ride most of the way.  At least that is the theory.  An added plus was that it was not cyclone season and so the risk of severe weather would be low.

Exit Only has enough fuel to motor for fourteen-hundred miles at sea.  Since it was only six-hundred miles to Australia, we could motor the whole distance if necessary.  The last time we were in New Zealand, we added two bladder fuel tanks with a capacity of an additional two hundred liters of fuel.  That gave us six-hundred liters of fuel available for motoring and generating electrical power.  So fuel would not be a problem on this trip unless it was contaminated with water or sludge. 

After topping up our fuel and water tanks in Noumea, we began the ritual of checking weather faxes.  We always make sure that there are no major weather systems out there that could make our trip into an endurance contest.  We go sailing to have fun rather than to suffer.  Good weather makes good sailing and good fun.  On short trips that last only four or five days, weather fax pushes the odds of a good trip in your favor because you can choose a favorable weather window.

When the weather fax shouted go, we put the hammer down and motored out to the pass through the barrier reef.  Going through passes is probably the most dangerous thing that you do on a voyage in the South Pacific.  Weird currents and adverse winds can put you up on the reef if things don't go right when you are in the vicinity of the pass. 

Water often funnels through passes at a high rate of speed.  Currents can reach more than six knots in narrow passes.  If the water shallows significantly at the pass entrance, standing waves can form that make your entrance into a very bumpy and scary ride.  When the standing waves get large and when they are steep, it's like hitting a wall of water.  Waves come over the deck and a whole lot of rocking and rolling goes on in a very short time.  Sometimes people freak out when they hit the standing waves and in a state of panic they attempt maneuvers that put their boat in danger.

Even when there are no standing waves in the pass, you feel uncertain about what is going to happen as you motor through the eddys and whirlpools that surround your yacht.  You always feel better when you come out clear on the other side.

Our trip out of the pass at New Caledonia was unremarkable.  We carefully navigated our way around the reefs and islets inside the barrier reef as we worked up to the pass.  Once we were sure that we were in the right place and not attempting to go out a false passage, we aimed for the middle of the pass and kept going straight until we were more than a mile past the barrier reef. 

The barrier reef in New Caledonia is extremely large.  It is the second largest barrier reef in the world.  Once I get about ten miles away from the reef, I start to relax a bit.  At ten miles out, an adverse wind shift or strong currents won't threaten the yacht if I have some type of a problem on board that requires my attention.  I have time to deal with sails or other propulsion related issues because I have a ten mile safety margin. 

When we left Noumea, we checked out of customs mid-morning.  By motor sailing up to the pass, we made it through the pass by early afternoon.  Before the sun went down, we were well past our ten mile margin of safety and the barrier reef was no longer a worry.

Once clear of the reef, the Coral Sea stretches six-hundred miles to Australia.  In the middle of the coral Sea, there are some reefs and islets that are hazards to navigation.  These hazards are scattered over wide areas in a relatively narrow band that is oriented north and south.  Navigating through them either at day or night  is relatively easy as long as you use GPS to reach a waypoint that takes you safely through the hazards.  I picked one waypoint that was at least fifty miles from any known reefs and we set our course for that waypoint.  It did not matter whether we reached that waypoint in daylight or darkness because we knew that there were no obstructions to navigation in the area.

The trip across the Coral Sea was easy from a navigation point of view.  It is a downwind sail in the trade winds.  Only two waypoints were needed: one for the middle of the Coral Sea and one for Moreton Island which marks the entrance to Brisbane, Australia.

The southeast trade winds were blowing fifteen to twenty knots steady and we were on a broad reach heading for Oz.  We sailed on a port tack for five days.  The sailing was easy with a full genoa most of the time.  We adjusted the mainsail according to whether it was day or night.  In the daytime, we could comfortably carry a full mainsail, but at night we don't like to make sail changes, so we double reefed the mainsail before the sun went down.

This conservative approach to downwind  sailing usually gets us one-hundred and fifty relaxed miles in twenty-four hours.  If we flew a cruising spinnaker in the trade winds, it would be easy to do one-hundred and eighty miles a day, but we would not be relaxed.  Someone would have to tend to the sail and we would have to watch the wind more closely.  As it is, the person on watch only adjusts the roller furling genoa when the apparent wind gets over twenty-three knots..  Speed definitely is not the essence.  We are sailing in the Outback and Beyond, and comfort and safety are our highest priorities.   Because we don't push our catamaran hard, we don't break a lot of expensive gear and we are able to relax when we sail offshore.

The first couple of days at sea we don't eat much food.  Like most cruisers, we feel just a bit queasy for a few days as we adjust to the motion of the yacht.  Our middle ear gradually adjusts to the catamaran's motion and by the third day we are hungry and ready to eat.  That proved to be the case on this trip as well.  On day three, Donna fired up the stove and we had some delicious potato soup for lunch.  Potato soup always makes a good lunch when we are at sea.  It goes down good and it stays down.

The trade wind cumulus kept coming at us out of the south east for five days.  It is comforting to look off the port stern and see the ranks of friendly cumulus marching steadily in our direction.  Trade wind cumulus make good cruising companions.  They always bring a warm and friendly message with them, and they push a gentle sea in front of them giving the boat an easy motion as well.

We kept a sharp lookout for thunderheads, but none were to be found.  Giant cumulonimbus clouds are unpleasant guests that sometimes visit us in the low southern latitudes.  On this trip, those troublemakers kept their distance.  If the person on watch spots a cumulonimbus cloud, we turn on our radar and follow it on the radar display.  If necessary, we alter our course so that this unwelcome guest does not pay a visit.

The rhythm of life on our yacht is simple when we are on passage.  We maintain a watch around the clock, with each watch lasting for three hours.  The night watches are the hardest because we are sleepy.  In a way they are also the easiest, because you can see ships more easily at night because their running lights and deck lights make them visible a long way off.

When you are on watch, you go into the cockpit and check for ships and squalls every ten minutes.  When you are not on watch, you do whatever you want.  If you are on watch and the wind speed goes over twenty-three knots, we usually roll up some of the genoa to reduce the strain on the boat and to make the boat motion easier.  If boat speed drops below five knots, we usually turn on one engine to keep the boat moving.

We adjust the mainsail twice a day.  In the morning we shake out the reefs and increase the mainsail to power up the yacht to give us maximum speed during the daylight hours.  Just before sundown, we put a double reef in the mainsail so that we won't have to adjust the main during the hours of darkness.

As we sailed across the Coral Sea, we never saw a reef, island, yacht, or ship anywhere.  It was fair winds and following seas all the way across. 

Early on the fifth day at sea, we sighted the clouds over Moreton Island on the Australian coast.  At about six a.m., Moreton Island came into view. 

The best time of day to see your destination appear on the horizon is early in the morning.  That way you have plenty of time to reach your intended landfall before dark.  Many fearless sailors lose their yachts when they try to enter unfamiliar harbors at night.  I know of several boats that have been damaged or lost because they were sailing in or out of unfamiliar harbors at night.

Once we arrived in the vicinity of Moreton Island, we had a major decision to make.  Take the short cut to Scarborough, going around the northern end of Moreton Island or sail more than ten miles further north to pick up the ship's channel.  The ship's channel is more than fifty  miles long, but you don't have to worry about running aground if you stay in the channel.  The short cut takes about thirty miles off the trip, but the navigation is in unfamiliar waters that are quite shallow and if you make a mistake, you can run aground in Moreton Bay. 

We looked at the sky to check out the weather.  Unfortunately, the weather was squally and there was a serious possibility of having reduced visibility in squalls when navigating through the shortcut.  If the weather had been settled and the seas flat, I would have happily chosen the short cut.  That would have shortened our landfall by at least four hours.  We chose to head north for Colundra where the ship's channel began.  That was a disappointment.  Nevertheless, I never put my boat or crew at risk unnecessarily, and the extra miles that we had to sail guaranteed that we would have an uneventful arrival.

Once we reached the ship's channel I was glad that we had done it.  The weather had deteriorated and squalls were coming through that totally obscured navigational aids and made navigation difficult.  Because we were moving up the ship's channel, I was able to use the radar to identify the channel markers and proceed into port in conditions of reduced visibility.

Mid-afternoon we broke free from the ship's channel and headed directly to the Scarborough Marina.  We followed the navigational landmarks leading to the narrow marina entrance and then tied up at the custom's dock.  It had taken five days to make safe landfall in Australia and we were tired.  It happened to be the weekend and customs would not come unless we paid overtime charges.  We were happy just to tie up to the dock and bunk out.  We cleaned ourselves up, straightened up yacht and bunked out.  For the first time in five days, nothing was moving, and neither were we because we were sound asleep in our bunks.