Sailing Gold Coast to Melbourne!

One week ago I replied to an ad on the internet looking for people to help deliver a boat from gold coast to Melbourne, I replied with my experienced and prayed I would get a call back. Today I am sitting on a 43ft catamaran and leave in a couple hours for a 6-10 day sailing voyage down the coast of Australia. How I have been so lucky on this trip I don't know but let the adventure start again. 

43 ft Catamaran in Gold Coast, Australia

Day 1 update: Leaving the harbor was a bit hairy, 12ft swells chop and wind for the first couple hours. Had a seagull hope on the boat and hung out till the morning for a free ride. I got some sleep before I had night watch from 8-11pm and then 2-5am wasn't to bad. Woke up to a delicious omelet breakfast and the sun rising on the horizon. Pod of dolphins followed us for 10 minutes a bit ago it was beautiful. Were cruising about 15-20 miles off shore, motor sailing at about 6 knots, the sea is a lot calmer today and the sun's out! Should pull into Sydney harbor by Sunday morning, get some fuel an some more supplies.

Day 3 update: the last 24 hours have been quite interesting, other than making good timing from gold coast to Sydney. Had watch this am from 5-8 and witnessed by far the most beautiful sunrise I have very seen in my life, photos wouldn't do it justice. After a quick nap some fighter planes flew over head doing some training maneuvers, followed by a pod of 100 pilot whales! Later on after playing a couple cards games we noticed a storm with a waterspout following us from behind, so we prepared for the worst. There are a couple in cyclones in the area that we have somehow have been barely dodging, just before sunset our port engine went out. For dinner I prepared a huge pot of spaghetti Bolognase, then we worked on the engine while still motoring towards Sydney about 50 miles away at the time. After an hour of helping work on the engine I bunked down for a nap before my watch later that night. Woke up to lightning storms all around us, the port engine running again, and the wind howling. Had to immediately attach lifelines to myself to stay on the boat and reef the sails to make them smaller so the wind wouldn't toss the boat around as much. We rode out the wind for awhile, it's now 3am and were about 5 miles away from entering Sydney harbor finishing our first leg, going to anchor for the night, get some sleep, gas up in the morning, and head out again! An amazing experience so far and it's not even half over yet, the craziest leg is yet to come, the bass strait....known as one of the worst seas in the world, but luck has been on our side so far!
 

Off the coast of New South Wales, most beautiful sunsets ever!

Day 5 update: Yesterday we got into Sydney harbor at 5 am, tied up to a mooring and all got some good sleep, since we had been non stop sailing for 3 days. After waking up and getting some breakfast, the captain and I bleed the fuel system of the port engine which was the problem why it was acting up and cutting out on us the day before. When finished we headed to shore to get some food from the store, a weather update, refueled, filled up the water tank, and lastly cruised by the Sydney opera house for a quick photo session! We departed the harbor around 5pm yesterday and headed south into some moderately choppy conditions, was a pretty low key night but made some good miles. All day today was quite bumpy and not to eventful, except we tried to get close to an island that had said in the book there are little penguin species and fur seals that live there. We didn't see any which was disappointing, but at least we tried, about 24 hrs after leaving Sydney we had sailed about 200 miles which is much better than we expected. It is now a Lil after 1am on Saturday morning and the wind is howling, but we are cruising at about 10 knots, hopefully making it into the bass strait by sunrise! Some crazy conditions out here, couple good knock arounds, some how have yet to be sea sick, and been dodging some storms passing by us as if were in a lil bubble. At the moment we are on course to make it to Melbourne Sunday evening or early Monday morning which would be a great accomplishment! Wish us luck 

The Tasman Sea is relentless

Day 6 update: About 2 hours after the last update I had posted shit went haywire, our so called safe bubble we have had all trip pop'd. We got around the southeast corner of Australia where New South Wales and Victoria border is, heading towards the bass strait right into a storm.... 8-12 ft swell and whitecaps smashing over the bow. The boat was rocking all over the place, water washing through the cockpit, and pots flying off the stove. Haven't had much of an appetite in the last couple days and it finally caught up to me this morning during my 5-8am watch had to throw up twice, then finally got to bed when my shift ended. Took about 30 minutes to get to sleep since waves hitting the side of the boat makes the inside of my cabin sound like a warzone. Trying to fall asleep in the seas were in is equivalent to trying to sleep in the back of a trophy truck doing an offroad race, but sleep is the only way to feel better and get rid of the stomach ache and nausea feeling. After waking up and being on watch again around 11am the sea had gotten worse, we had to bring the sails in(reef them) and slow down. Were not making much head way since the wind and swell is not in our favor, making it so we have to zig zag(tack) back and forth taking 3 times as long to go towards our destination. We've decided to head towards land and hug the coast a bit more in case we need to go for shelter (even tho the closest sheltered inlet is 80 miles away). Waking up after another small nap around 6pm the Tasman sea has calmed to a bare-able chop, wind has changed south (to our favor) and were finally making headway again. Got a bit of pasta and garlic bread for dinner in me and couple waters, crew and myself are hoping it stays like this throughout the night so we don't have to head for refuge and can just get to Melbourne on schedule! As crazy as this has been and even during the times of feeling like shit these couple days I wouldn't change this voyage at all, it has showed me mother nature and the sea in its most raw form, which not to many people get to experience. It has also got me thinking about my career path I have been working towards (becoming a captain), not that I don't want to anymore but that I need more experience just like these voyages. Being on a boat miles off the coast not being able to see land and at the mercy of the sea's raw power is the most adrenaline and mixed emotional excitement I've ever had in my life!

Lighthouse island somewhere in the Tasman Sea

Day 8 update: Haven't had any signal for the last couple days here in the Tasman sea about 30-45 miles off shore. After my last update we had a pretty calm morning, then later that day got hit by another decent storm, not as bad as the one I described before, but still a good amount of chop to knock shit around. Yesterday evening I got a pretty good nap in before getting some food in my stomach as well. Watch last night from 11pm - 2am was pretty bumpy, with a bit of action, dodging couple islands, a ferry, and fishing boat while heading around South East Point. As the rest of the crew has been sipping away at hot tea or coffee on night watch, I've been living of the delicious lil cup of noodle packets you dump into a mug then fill the rest with hot water, been keep me alive haha. It's been really fun navigating at night reading the chart and GPS, looking for the lighthouses and there light patterns. Then putting all that together to find out where you are on the chart and what points of references you need to stay between to navigate through safely. I've always loved navigation, maps, and geography for that matter so doing all of that while on the ocean has been a lot of fun! Last night the captain didn't wake us for our 5am watch and I didn't notice till I awoke at 7:30am, but he had it under control as well as getting us sailing at 11 knots for a couple hours. It's now 9am on Monday morning, were 83 miles from the entrance of Port Phillips (Melbourne), if we keep up our current speed should get to the entrance around 9pm tonight. Which would be good timing since the tide rising will help us get through the inlet which acts like a river since it's so narrow. After entering the inlet we would still have roughly 30 miles to the Marina we are delivering to, the bay which Melbourne sits on is huge and might as well be a sea of it's own, but at least we will be sheltered from the swell and be able to make good time once inside. So as of now our ETA to arriving at the docks ending our voyage is 2am tonight if everything goes to plan, that's about 17 hours from now, fingers crossed. Oh and we had a pretty epic rainbow pop up after sunrise this am so hopefully that will give us some good luck for the rest of the day.

Leaving Sydney and camping up the coast!

Hey everybody first off sorry for not getting to update the blog as often as I did last trip. This adventure has been awesome and totally different since were camping every night now. So as the first blog said we bought a van, 1991 Mitsubishi Express, stick shift, sliding door, everything locks, windows work, no leaks in ceiling. Were stoked, we spent 5 days setting it up to road trip up the coast to Brisbane, gutted the whole thing and started from scratch. Im trying to upload an awesome video i made of the restoration but haven't gotten decent internet to do so, but please stay posted!

After we set off from our friend Troy's house, which is about an hour and half south of sydney, we adventured to pick up the last couple things we needed for the van which included, an esky (what they call an ice chest here in aus), solar panel, and an extra battery. Found a nice lil park next to the harbor to setup camp for the first night, cooked up some pasta, threw the discs around, and watched a rugby team's late night practice.

Palm Beach, just before it started pouring rain!

The next morning we were up early and after a bowl of cereal headed towards the coast to check out the harbor and some of the sights on our way to Narrabeen! I have a couple friends in Narrabeen that I met while traveling in Indo last year. They met us for lunch and we chatted about our trip to Indo last year, there lives here in Sydney and any cool spots they could tell us about up the coast. They pointed us to a place  up the peninsula a bit, we got there and it was beautiful harbor with huge green lush mountains on one side then beach and hikes trails on the other. As we got set up and took a dip in the water it just started pouring, didn't stop for about an hour, we watched a movie and went to find camp. My buddy showed us a super legit camping spot in Narrabeen on the beach that we went back to to setup and cook diner for the night. It had now been raining on us on and off for about 5 days, we were pretty over it, but finished dinner, watched a movie and crashed out.  

Camping on the beach, next morning was beautiful, see below!

After the rain had finally stopped

Waking up the next morning it was finally beautiful, sunny, no wind, and a couple waves just out front. As I went for a surf Bryce went on a run down the the coastline trail hugging the cliffs going through the forest and rocks. Waves were small but water was warm and crystal clear and it was finally sunny so I didn't care! We got a bit of a later start but hit the road in no hurry which has been the idea of this trip so far, only doing about 80-100km fast (50-65mph) on they hwys. After a stretch of drving stopped off to jump in the water, fun little waves to body surf while parents were cheering on there kids doing a paddle around a buoy. The kids were in a program through the surf club similar to junior lifeguards like we have in the states. But here in Australia every good size beach has a surf club where the community has meetings, they serve food daily, have public restrooms/showers, and there always right on the beach! It was getting late so I looked on the maps and found a spot that looked like it could be perfect to crash for the night, and if you see the photo below, it was!

Camping outside of Newcastle, no photoshop needed!

After waking up on the lake and making some breakfast sandwiches we went to a disc golf course nearby, it was a super chill lil course with no one around! We got 18 holes in and had a goal to find a laundry place since we hadn't been able to the last couple days, found one and also got our laptops a little charged as well! While waiting we snagged a wrap for lunch at a lil spot around the corner, wraps are huge here in Aus basically its a burrito but inside they put either chicken, beef, or schnitzel (breaded chicken also very popular here). Most commonly they will also add tomato, carrot, cheese, some sort of salad, as well as all sorts of different dressings if your into that. Another cool thing is a couple towns we have been to have free Wi-Fi on a couple hundred meter stretch of the main city street near food, malls, and pubs it's genius! We heard there was a surf comp at the local beach so went to check it out, waves weren't to good, so decided to break out the solar panel and try to hook it up to the battery and inverter we had previously bought. It wasn't working out so we took the battery to a couple mechanics that told us it had a bad cell and wouldn't help us out to make a deal on a battery, we finally found a shop with these two legends pictured below!

They helped us with so much I could never thank them enough! We rolled up there with a shit battery and asked if he could check it for us, he assessed the battery and said it was shot and could not be used for our inverter and solar panel setup we wanted. So I chatted with him for a bit and we came to terms to buy a used battery twice the size of the one we had for $50, new ones here are $150! Right then his business partner rolled up in the work van, and offered to help us wire up the inverter to our new battery, he let us use his tools and some parts we needed no charge! We were all ready to go when I started checking out the boxes you can store the battery in thinking it was a good idea to keep it contained. An hour later and we have a piece of wood screwed down to the floor behind the driver seat, battery box strapped down with our new battery inside, inverter attached to the outside, and solar panel wires hooked up and ready to go! We were now set up to power our phones and laptops from an extra battery that gets charged from the solar panel! We thanked them so much and had a couple more laughs as we set out to find camp for the night.....

It was one of those times where I looked on the map and said hey that looks like a cool spot, and it ended up being legendary. Coming down a little dirt road and over a hill to see miles of dunes and a car park on the sand steps from the beach.

There were camels on the beach when we arrived, waiting for a group of people for a sunset ride, we set up camp on the sand with the beach 150 yards away and huge dunes surrounding us. After walking down to the water we starting chatting with some campers next to us, they told me about an app called wikiCamps (iphone and android, link here) which I ended up downloading. The app shows you all camp sites in Australia, with details about them, a comment section, rating system, pictures, and amenities they have all user base driven! Cooked yet another great meal with steak, potatoes, and corn while watching the camels riding over the dunes with the sun setting in the background!


There's nothing like waking up to the sun shining through the window, the sound of waves crashing in the background, then realizing your in the middle of Australia! It has honestly only been two weeks in this amazing country and everyday is something or someone new around every corner it makes me stoked to be alive everyday.

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Thanks for reading, stay tuned :)

Day 1 down under

Hey friends, family, and followers wanted to say thanks again to everyone for all the support and good luck we have been getting from everyone it means a lot! After a couple sleeping pills, neck aches, airplane food, and 24 hours of traveling we made it to Sydney and got picked up from my friend Troy. The 45 minute drive south of Sydney to the town he lives in was awesome not to much traffic and an immediate change of scenery.
The landscape where we are located at the moment just south of Sydney reminds me of Big Sur, roads right next to the ocean with big cliffs, lots of trees, and picturesque sand beaches filling in the valleys. After we grabbed a bit to eat, got a quick tour of his hometown, dropped our bags off we head straight for a dip in the ocean which is a 2 minute walk from his house.
After having a bit of fun and refreshing ourselves in the southern hemisphere water we hoped in the car again for a cruise to the next town to grab a couple beers. We finished off the night relaxing and chatting on the balcony which looks through a valley towards the beach, couldn't have pictured a better first day. Watch the quick clip below and ill update everyone on the next adventure!

And the time has come.....

...to leave home again and live what I dream about, this time with my best friend of 21 years Bryce! We have been planning an adventure like this since we were kids and the thought of being on a plane in a couple hours headed to a foreign land with no plans send shivers down my body. I could think for hours about what I ,want to do and where I want to go when we get there. but on this adventure were going with what ever happens at that moment and that's when you really feel alive. Once again thank you to all friends and family that has support Bryce and myself on this adventure, we love you all!

Don't Just Be Alive, Be Living........