Tall Ship Adventures - 16. TSA Chapter 16

Leaving Lord Howe Island, we would head west to Port Macquarie, which was due west and would take us just over a day to get there, once there we could deal with all our customs and passport requirements, and allow our guests to have a good look around while we get supplies.

From Port Macquarie, we decided to head south to our next destination of George Town, just north of Launceston, Tasmania. It would take us about two and a half days to reach, where we may take a few day’s rest, and allow the guests to do some exploring of Tasmania before we resume our journey to Geelong.

I had telephoned Mum and Dad before leaving Marsden Cove, to let them of the change of direction, to see Lord Howe Island, and also Tasmania, before resuming our journey west to WA, and they were pleased to hear that we had paying guests on board, and that we were taking our time to visit a few places on the way.

Once the guests were back onboard, we set off once again, heading north than Northwest for Lord Howe Island, this is when we started to experience the open ocean in the yacht for the first time, and the Stingray seemed to perform brilliantly, even though the days were very long, but we were glad about the offer from the Commodore and Captain Jackson offering to do three hour shifts at the helm, which meant that Carter, Jordan and myself, only had to do six hour shifts to cover the full day of sailing.

Carter said that he would do the 0200 to 0800 shift when our guests would take over for the next six hours, I would take over at 1400 hours, and finish at 2000 hours, where Jordan would do the late-night shift. For the first day, everything went very smoothly, and instead of them doing three-hour shifts, Commodore Kingsley and Captain Jackson did two-hour shifts each, with Tim under supervision doing a two-hour shift as a trainee helmsman.

The decision to go to Lord Howe Island was a great success, as it is a very beautiful place and has a lot of interesting history to the island, and we ended up staying for two full days there, before continuing west to Port Macquarie on mainland Australia.

During this stage of the journey, we hit a nasty storm just half an hour after the end of my shift at the helm, and I headed back up to the flybridge to help Jordan in any way as we went through this storm, which lasted for a good four hours, and Beatrice came up and brought hot drinks to us to keep us warm inside.

By the time Carter took over at the helm, most of the storm had passed, and cold and hungry, we headed down to our cabins to shower and warm up, before heading to bed to get some well-earned rest, I slept very well once the weather had calmed right down, and only woke up when I heard the sounds of bells and a horn from a boat or ship.

I took another shower, and once dressed, I headed up to the main deck, where most of the crew and the guests were seated in the saloon. “Good Morning Zac, I hear you experienced quite a rough night last night, how do you feel now?” Commodore Kingsley asked me. “I am feeling better thanks, but it wasn’t that much different than the storms we went through when I was on the tall ships,” I replied, as I looked forward and saw that we were fast approaching land.

Once we had moored at Port Macquarie, and had passed through customs and passport control, the guests headed off to explore some more, while Carter, Jordan and I began to do a full inspection of the yacht to see if we had received any damage from the storm, and we found nothing major, but we did replace a few items, that had received a bit of damage from wear and tear.

By the time we were done, Beatrice and Angela had returned with more supplies, and we all got busy to get it all on board and stowed away, before servicing the guest cabins, so they were clean and tidy for their return, while Tim and I were busy getting the outside of the yacht nice and sparkling clean, before the guests returned, which ended up been just before sunset.

While we had been for the guests to return, we as crew just relaxed and enjoyed chatting, or going off a reading a book, as the ladies did, out on the main forward deck. Tim mentioned that he was enjoying hanging out and spending time with his little bro, without the worries of what is happening back home on the cattle station, and Jordan mentioned that he was enjoying time with all of his crew and his new yacht.

After dinner was over that evening, with the guests back on board, we set off once more, now heading south, with our destination of Tasmania, which we hoped we would reach in about two and half days.

It was quite a surprise, when we had good seas and even better winds, that pushed us along at a high speed down the eastern coast of Australia, and we didn’t hit any rough weather until we had entered the Bass Strait, where the seas became a bit choppy.

With the good winds that we had going down the East coast, we arrived at Georgetown just over two days after leaving Port Macquarie, arriving a little after 9 pm, where we moored at the marina for our 1 ½ day stay on the island. We ended up staying for three days, at the request of our guests, which I was happy to do, as I didn’t have a set time to be back home until it was time to start school again in early February, which is still a good two weeks away.

From northern Tasmania, we headed northwest for Geelong, which will be just a short one-day of sailing. By now with us covering such a long distance together, the crew were all working very well, with no issues whatsoever, which is a good thing to see on a small yacht like this one.

On the nights that Jordan and I sat at the helm after my shift, we discussed how good things have turned out since learning about inheriting this wonderful yacht. After spending just six hours in Geelong, where our guests had departed the yacht with their thanks and a nice big fat stash of cash for payment for the twelve days they spent with us, we set off once more, this time in the late afternoon, for our two-day journey around the bottom of the Australian coast and into Port Lincoln, and as we had expected, it was a bit of a rough journey.

Now with no guests to worry about, the crew still kept busy with cleaning the guest cabins, doing the laundry and doing general cleaning duties to keep the yacht in good order. Jordan, Carter and Tim had agreed that we all deserved a bit of a break, and when we did arrive in the South Australian port town, we would have three days of rest and recreation, with the assistance of some of the pay that Jordan received, he would be paying for all of our meals on the mainland, so that the inhouse crew didn’t have to do any cooking and galley cleaning.

While in Port Lincoln, two crew members would be on board all the time, to ensure that the yacht was secure and no one trespasses, since it was still the summer holidays, and there were a lot of tourists in the area, and the marinas are always a hot spot for crime, and unfortunately there are no boat pens available where there are security gates.

With a total of six crew, we would take it in shifts of two, on the yacht during our stay in Port Lincoln, and at night this would be reduced to one per shift, with all external doors and windows locked to remain secure at all times. Unfortunately, our timing of arrival was a little bad, with it being the Australia Day long weekend, where a lot of parties are happening, with an excessive amount of beer and other alcohol drinking happening.

We did discuss the option of cutting our visit down to just two days, instead of three, but then we would miss out on watching the traditional Australia Day fireworks display, after some more discussions about it, we decided that we would stay and watch the fireworks, but we would do it out at anchor away from shore, and well away from the tourists, and after looking at the maps of the area, we chose to anchor in Proper Bay, at the south end of the city, just south of the Port Lincoln Racing Track and a light industrial area.

After just one afternoon of seeing how many access the marina area and walking u and down the access jetties to the yachts, Jordan decided that it was too much of a risk to his expensive catamaran, and once we had everyone on board again, we left the mooring pen that we were assigned, and headed for Proper Bay, and anchored 700 metres offshore, where we knew that we could have better security of the yacht.

It was decided between Tim and Jordan, that the crew would go ashore in teams of two or three at a time so that there were always three people on the yacht, and that we would use the rib dinghy for transport between the yacht and the mainland, and it is just four kilometres to the centre of town.

While enjoying breakfast on the flybridge the morning after we arrived, the satellite phone came to life with a call for our yacht, Tim stood and walked over to the helm to take the call, and the caller ID said that it was the main office of the Marina. “This is Tim Sanderson, older brother to Jordan, the owner of this yacht, how may I assist you,” Tim Good, Mr said answering the call.

“Mr Sanderson, we have a special request for your brother the yacht owner. We have some VIPs arriving on a flight from Adelaide very shortly, and they have informed us they would like to stay a day or two. The problem is, as you may have guessed that there is no executive-style accommodation available at all in Port Lincoln”.