Another beautiful day. Who knew that Bundaberg is San Diego South? At least this week.
I chose Bundaberg as my port of entry based on recommendations from two sailing friends, Dan and David, who entered here last year. I second their recommendations. The approach is simple and free of hazard. The marina quiet. The staff friendly.
The marina is near the mouth of the river. The town of Bundaberg several miles upstream. In between are fields of sugar cane.
There is a boat yard here with travel lift that I have not needed, a small but well-stocked chandlery, a good restaurant, from which the above photo was taken, which makes excellent thin crust pizza, and a takeaway shop where a few days ago I bought a fish burger bigger than GANNET.
Wanting something fresh which I won’t have for the next few weeks, I just ate a Greek salad with chicken at the restaurant for lunch, and I’ll go back and order a pizza for dinner, planning to eat the leftovers for lunch and dinner tomorrow underway.
I’ll try to remember to activate the Yellowbrick this evening. While I’m outside the reef, it will be set to update every six hours. Once I move inside and am only day sailing, I will make the updates more frequent, perhaps every two hours or even one.
If I can I will post a journal entry from near Cairns or Port Douglas. If I can’t you won’t hear from me until three or four weeks from now in Darwin.
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When I left New Zealand, Gary at Customs informed me that there is now a clearance charge and that an invoice would be emailed to me that could be paid online.
I found the invoice upon arrival. It was for $3.43 NZ, which included a $0.06 bank processing fee. This comes to $2.36 US, less than 1% of the charge for agriculture inspection on entering Australia, and hardly seems worth the trouble.
Perhaps this is just the initial wedge in the door.
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David, the sailing obstetrician, drove down yesterday from Gladstone, where he has been working, and kindly took me for an excellent lunch and then drove me to do some final provisioning. I thank him again.
David had seen GANNET from a distance, but had never been aboard. After he climbed into the Great Cabin he said that it is more cramped than he had expected from seeing photographs. So be advised that no matter how small you think GANNET is, she may be smaller.
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David also observed that I have recently been using the word ‘love’ frequently in the journal.
I was not aware of this and so searched both the passage log and journal entries for March, April and May.
I found that I love a boat diving into darkness, the way GANNET accelerates, being in Opua, and being with Carol.
I confess: I am an old lover.
See you in a while.