Illawarra

Hey there,

This is the last blog post for this sailing trip so I decided I would do a QUIZ!!!! 

THE QUIZ

What is Tomas’s favourite ice-cream flavour?

What are Tomas’s interests?

Does Rod get sea sick?

How many stripes does the nudie branch have?

What was the Biosecurity dogs name?

What is the Lord Howe Island stick insect called?

What is the name of our boat?

Was the sea urchin happy or angry?

 

I’m up to $1170 in my turtle rehab campaign so thank you everyone who has donated. I am completing the campaign on the 25/11/18. All those generous donations will be going to sponsor a specific turtle, we’re going to find out which actual turtle that will be soon.

So once again thanks everyone who donated. If anyone would still like to donate here is the link:

https://www.gofundme.com/sailing-to-save-the-turtles&rcid=r01-154253294446-6c3e6c4343874e7c&pc=ot_co_campmgmt_w

 

I’ll be back on my blog next time I’m on a sailing adventure.

Signing out

Seb

We tried to sail out to Lord Howe Island again. Two days out we had been against the winds and making no progress so we had to turn back, there was no way we were going to get there before a cold front was going to hit (with lots of wind). We were 100 nautical miles out from Australia!!! We saw five albatrosses  and one of them flew past only five to ten meters away from the boat!!! It looked straight at me (I think) and I got the feeling it would of been saying “what are you doing out here!!!”  It was amazing, I’d always wanted to see an albatross. This next photo is of me in the middle of the ocean with almost 5kms of water underneath me (and probably some giant squid).

This next photo is a map of the of the bottom of the ocean!!! All those lines on the left is showing the sea bed rising sharply up to the Continental Shelf. It rises from 4700m to 100m!!!The pink lines show where our boat went, the one you can see with the pointy end is of out first attempt and shows where we had to turn around with all the broken things.

The photo on top is of my dad and I sleeping  and underneath is of me sitting on the deck listening to audiobooks. That’s how I spend most days on the big ocean.

The trips over!!! We’re back in Yamba, Dad’s favourite mooring place on the east coast. There will be one more blog post which will include a quiz and information on what the donation money is going to be used at the Cairns Turtle Rehabilitation Centre. I’m up to $925 which is so amazing!!! Thanks everyone who has donated.

https://www.gofundme.com/sailing-to-save-the-turtles&rcid=r01-154223575392-c93c1609803543c7&pc=ot_co_campmgmt_w

We are back in Coffs Harbour because the boat is fixed! We’re going to head out and go wherever the wind takes us!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! A bit of an adventure (like we haven’t had enough). It’s not all fun on the boat! Yesterday I had to wash all the ropes and they were mouldy and stank of diesel!

Here are some last minute photos of Lord Howe Island.

These next photos are of feeding the fish on Ned’s Beach. One of them bit my finger and drew blood!

These next photos are of the Lord Howe Island Wood Hen. The Wood Hen almost became extinct!!! They did a super successful breeding program and now they are walking on the sides of the roads.

I’ll let you know where we end up in a few days time.

Even more AWESOME stuff is about to be posted on this blog. I’ll start off with the Mutton birds (shearwaters). So make sure you have your nose peg, your ear muffs and your umbrella because it’s about to start raining them from the sky! We watched them come in from the sea one night. There were hundreds and thousands of them!  When ever they tried (and I mean tried not succeeded) they would usually ram head first into the ground (if they are lucky), a tree or you and then scurry of into there burrows.

We watched the biosecurity dogs getting trained. It was super and I MEAN super cool. The dogs would follow the scent to find introduced animals like rats, frogs and lizards. Guess what, the dogs name was Sebbi!

 

This is Darcie, one of the rangers on Lord Howe who I (yes me) got to interview about my dream job because she has (lucky her) has that dream job.

What does your job involve? Half time ranger and half time on biosecurity where I train and work with the biosecurity dogs.

What’s the best thing about being a ranger on Lord Howe Island? Getting to look after all the different birds and animals on the island and getting to meet interesting people.

How do you get to be a ranger on Lord Howe Island? I studied biology and university. Did some bush regeneration and some environmental campaigning. And had some good luck!!!

What’s the most satisfying project you’ve done on the island? The rodent eradication program, the woodhen survey and working with volunteers environmental projects. Also, working with the biosecurity dogs.

What is your favourite place on Lord Howe Island? Snorkelling at Middle Beach

Favourite ice-cream flavour? Hokey pokey and chocolate!

She showed me some Phasmids (the Lord Howe stick insect). They thought they were extinct and then found a small population of them on Balls Pyramid (a “rock” out in the ocean). Try and find the baby one.

 

We saw some Tropic Birds doing acrobatics in the air!

We went snorkelling around a wreck. There were tonnes of fish of all sizes and we saw a moray eel and of course a turtle!

Now try to find the fish in the next photo.

Now here’s two very grumpy creatures. The fish was guarding its territory with its life and zooming up at us whenever we got close and the sea urchin had iridescent spots on it and we were lucky to get it on a bad hair day!

More fish!

By the way this is what Lord Howe Island looks like.

 

That’s it for this episode!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! Thank goodness, that was long.

 

We’re at Lord Howe Island!!! We ended up having to take two  flights to get here. Our first flight arrived at Sydney. We saw some friends and stayed at with them for a night. We have been at Lord Howe for two days and have already seen a bunch of amazing creatures and a turtle! Yesterday we went on a walk along the cliff tops and saw lots (as in hundreds) of of White and Sooty Terns.

Now look at these amazing creatures.

These are a sea urchin and a giant clam. Today we did a big walk up one of the mountains. There was a beautiful rainforest and at the top we ended up at a place called Goat Cave! I swung on some huge Banyan tree vines and had very sore hands afterwards. So fun!!!

And just to remind everyone to donate to the turtle campaign. Here is something we found in the Lagoon.

I’m over $600! Thanks everyone who donated.

https://www.gofundme.com/sailing-to-save-the-turtles&rcid=r01-154097937932-67faec0a225b494d&pc=ot_co_campmgmt_w

I’ve got some good news and some very bad news. I’ll start with the good news. We’ve got a new crew member who’s name is Rod. Here are some fun facts about him.

 favourite ice-cream flavours are: Vanilla and Hazelnut chocolate.

Interests: Bike riding; running, camping and ice-cream.

Most satisfying moment: While volunteering for the SES finding two guys who had been lost in the bush for three days.

Biggest adventure: Riding his push-bike along the Gibb River Road in the Kimberley.

Do you get sea sick?: YES!!!

We saw some huge jellyfish in the Yamba marina and bought so much chocolate we needed a 30cm by 20cm by 15cm container to hold it all! We need the chocolate for our over night sails.

And now for the bad news! We hit something in the water at night so now there’s a crack in the steering block and our AUTOPILOT snapped so we had to come back to Coffs Harbour to get it looked at. We don’t know if we will be able to sail anymore unless we can get the steering fixed fast! It’s a DISASTER!!!

I’ll keep you posted as soon as I know more.

UPDATE!!!

We are catching a plane to Lord Howe Island!!! We’re going because the boat is out of order for a week. Not quite the same but still…………….

Next update at Lord Howe Island.

Hey everyone,

We’ve got a new crew member onboard called Tomas. We collected him in the gold coast (not a wilderness experience!!!), we did some amazing stuff at the Gold Coast but I’ll talk about that a bit later. Here are some fun facts about Tomas.

Intertests: astrology & numerology

Favourite ice-cream flavour: pineapple or cherry

Best adventure: riding a motorcycle around Australia

Scariest moment: having a volcano erupt in Costa Rica and almost get hit by flying volcanic rocks!

Best thing to happen to him: His daughter Grace

We’re picking up another crew member Rod in Yamba tomorrow and I will interview him later.

Now onto what I’ve been doing. We stopped in the Gold Coast for a day and I went to Wet’n’Wild (a water park)!!! It was super fun, we went on every ride that was open. Some of the rides were soooooo scary! My favourite ride was the Tornado.

After that we had to sail 100 nautical miles down the coast to get to Yamba. On the way down we saw lots of whales and dolphins. At one point we had 13 dolphins at the front of the boat!

I got my boating license so I can drive our dinghy by myself.

 

Tomorrow we’re heading off on our big 3 day sail over to Lord Howe Island. I’m feeling very nervous, we’re going to be out in the big ocean! I’ll post again in 3-4 days when we actually get there.

And once again, if you want to donate to my turtle rehabilitation campaign just click on my GoFundMe link. I’m up to $445! Thanks to everybody who has donated so far.

https://www.gofundme.com/sailing-to-save-the-turtles&rcid=r01-154097937932-67faec0a225b494d&pc=ot_co_campmgmt_w