Australia

August 10, 2006

The crew of DoodleBug arrived in Darwin last Friday and have been in Australia for the past week.

We have replaced the VHF radio that was fried by a near miss lightning strike off Thursday Island a few months ago, replaced the Genoa that was torn when we were sailing off Cooktown, sent the life raft away to be serviced and generally fixed a scad of minor stuff. We are now ready to provision for the Indian Ocean crossing but before we seriously begin this process, we have a little touristing to take care of. Yesterday morning (Thursday) we visited the Darwin WW II Oil storage tunnels. Here is the history lesson:

In 1911, Winston Churchill became First Lord of the Admiralty, which is the top position in the British navy. Germany had begun an arms race with Britain and Churchill made the decision to upgrade British battle ships then under construction, from 13.5 inch guns to 15 inch guns. By having 8 of 15 inch guns in four turrets, versus the then current policy of 10 of 13.5 inch guns in five turrets, the battleships would be more powerful and the space saved by the fifth turret could be used for an additional boiler (they were all steam driven). The ships could be therefore be made to go faster. The catch was that this would only work if they switched the fuel from coal to oil and this is exactly what they did. In 1922, three years after the war ended, it was decided to put an oil storage facility in Darwin to supplement the one in Singapore. This was just to supply fuel for the British fleet. Eleven storage tanks were built and as they were a naval facility, naturally they were painted white. This was a great color to spot from the air and greatly helped the Japanese airmen to bomb them in February of 1942. Pearl harbor had been attacked the previous December and the same Japanese task force that had accomplished this mission was now heading for Darwin. Australia had declared war on Japan and had even begun air patrols looking for the Japanese fleet - in fact the Catalina flying boat sent out on this mission was the first casualty in the Japanese attack.  It seems amazing to us who did not live through these times, that Darwin was nevertheless caught unawares and the subsequent attack became the "Australian Pearl Harbor".

The bulk of the oil storage was destroyed and the government began a project to construct underground oil storage in a series of huge tunnels. They were completed at vast effort and expense, right after the war ended and were never used for fuel oil. In the 1950s, a private company contracted to use two of the tunnels to store aviation jet fuel. The tunnels leaked spring water into the fuel storage at such a rate, that this project was soon abandoned. Now the tunnels make an interesting tourist attraction and a reminder of the role that Darwin played in WW II. The subway sized tunnels were dug by hand, lined with hand-mixed concrete and then further lined

with steel plate. The latter is rusting through and perforated in many places, particularly where ground water is penetrating. We were able to walk the length of these marvels of construction and view the collection of WW II photographs on the walls.

Our next stop was the Aviation Heritage center that continued our education of wartime Darwin. The center had great aircraft displays ranging from the earliest days of flight until modern times. The center stage of the exhibit was taken up with a monstrous B-52 bomber, one of only two on exhibit outside of the United States. Annette loves aircraft museums and fondly remembers watching the B-52s taking off at night from the island of Guam. She lived there for several of her teenage years. Although the huge B-52s were built as strategic nuclear bombers, they were used for the conventional bombing of North Vietnam in the 1960s.

After sating our senses with the tools of human destruction, we headed back to DoodleBug and watched a "White Breasted Sea Eagle" (beak to tail 30 inches) carrying away a struggling fruit bat (big) in its talons. Really cool to watch, although not so cool for the bat.

August 11, 2006

Friday was a work day when Ed serviced the diesel generator, the anchor windlass and the banks of batteries, while Annette took the rental car and driving mostly on the left, made a provisioning run into downtown Darwin. This is an important task, as on this trip segment we are provisioning for an assumed cruise of five months. We will not be at sea continuously for five months of course but our possible land-falls will be problematic for any re-supply. For example, it is much easier to drive a rental car from a modern supermarket in Darwin to the marina and then wheel a cart load of groceries up to a DoodleBug that is moored alongside the dock, than it would be to haul groceries across a muddy beach to a dinghy.

You can buy staples such as flour, beans and rice just about anywhere on the planet but we have found that a diet of preserved foods leaves our taste buds screaming for variety. Annette has stocked up on such items as anchovy paste to enhance sauces and salad dressing, canned hatch chili's from New Mexico to juice up the Tex-Mex and liquid smoke to add zest to marinades. It is notoriously difficult to operate a charcoal barbeque in a heavy sea and pan-frying on a gimbaled stovetop has to substitute. We have now accomplished about a third of the provisioning and will load the fresh produce in the last days before we take off.

August 12,2006

Today we visited the Darwin Museum and Art gallery. The museum was fun and had an exhibit of cyclone "Tracy" which stuck Darwin in 1975. The pictures and video of the devastation were impressive. The museum had also rigged before and after rooms with period furniture and debris respectively and had also rigged a blackened cellar with sound effects to reproduce the experience of the survivors huddled in their basements. I found myself thinking that it would have been better to be in that cellar than out at sea.

The art gallery had permanent exhibits of Aboriginal art as well as an exhibit of an annual national competition of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander art. Several of these pieces are for sale and I was glad to get Annette out of there before she felt the urge to add to her collection. Instead we toured around Darwin to seek out and replace a few odd boat spares that were used during the previous days servicing jobs. I bought Annette a "choke chicken" that she had been admiring. It is perhaps 12 inches tall and when placed on a flat surface does the "Chicken Dance" along with a shuffle and flapping of wings. If it is picked up by the neck, it produces loud squawking and choking sounds. Very entertaining. On Darwin TV we had watched as one of these chickens performed in the Australian Parliament during Prime Minister John Howard's speech. Just like Queen Victoria, he was not amused.

August 13,2006

Today we visited Crocodylus Park just west of Darwin. We arrived just before crocodile feeding time and stood around in the heat of the day, looking at a large pond surrounded by a wire fence. On the banks of the pond were hundreds of crocodiles in the 10 foot range. The crocs all looked as though they were made of weathered rubber and badly made at that. Perhaps the pond had been decorated with rubber crocs for the tourists? Nothing stirred except the onlookers. When the park guide came walking up the pathway carrying a galvanized bucket, the scene changed in a flash. The" rubber" crocs sprang to life and thrashed into the water, heading for the dock where we stood. The guide fed them pieces of raw chicken that were suspended in the air over the pond and the few crocs that had remained in the pond, launched themselves vertically from the water to take the chicken from the wire. The balance of the crocs had by now waddled ashore and stood patiently below the platform where the guide was standing. Just before our visit to the feeding exhibit, we had spent a few minutes killing time in  the adjacent museum. From the anatomical display, we had been amazed at how small the brain is in these ancient reptiles. We now listened as the guide explained that most of their behavior was reflexive. The crocs snapped instantly to a piece of thrown chicken and devoured it but if a piece of chicken landed away from their immediate range and stopped rolling i.e. stopped moving, they would ignore it.

The croc feeding was very educational and we decided to continue to avoid becoming a participant in the process. We moved on to the rest of the park and for the first time in our Australian visits, we found an exhibit of Cassowaries. These are large flightless birds like emus, with a strange dull

yellow protuberance (casque) on their head and a bright red and blue wattle with blue feathers around the neck. They are reputed to be very aggressive and dangerous towards hikers when approached in the wild. However, the pair we saw just glared at us from behind a wire fence.

The small zoo was fun to visit and as we were leaving, the croc feeding guide was near the exit holding a pair of young crocs. We each got to hold a "baby" croc. The last time Annette tried this,

there was blood everywhere. This attempt was much more successful, as these crocodiles had their jaws banded shut.

That evening we had been invited to a barbeque at the home of Chris and Marie. Marie is the sister of Houston friend John Stein. We had found a graying, weathered piece of computer printout on board DoodleBug last week and had deciphered a note from John to his sister, mentioning our visit to Darwin. Chris and Marie had found DoodleBug at the marina dock, just after we had left in May and had left a note. We had a great evening sitting in their back yard, eating delicious barbeque and listening to the chatter of the fruit bats in the nearby trees. The abundant evidence of bat droppings all over the ground was sufficient reminder to carefully monitor our plates before eating.

August 15, 2006

We spent yesterday doing boat chores and this morning headed out of town to Kakadu National park. The first stop was on the Adelaide River near Fogg dam. We drove on a dirt road through the blackened stubble of the burning of former rice paddocks. Our destination was a tour of the Adelaide river with "Jumping Crocodiles". Tom, our tour guide motored out into the swift current of this tidal river in a small flat bottomed aluminum boat, while we scanned the water and banks for saltwater crocodiles. We did not have long to wait. These huge predators swam directly out to the side of our boat and waited patiently, while Tom attached a chunk of raw buffalo meat to a heavy wire attached to a wooden pole. The crocs then launched themselves vertically to take the proffered meat and were 4 or 5 feet out of the water when their jaws snapped shut. This

exhibition was repeated several times, while the crocs were close enough that we could have reached out an arm and touched them - that is if we hadn't already witnessed how fast they could move.

We learned that the Adelaide river is home to about 5,000 "salties" of which perhaps two thirds are female. The crocs fight each other and inflict terrible wounds on each other. They also have remarkable powers of recovery as were evidenced by the deep scars on several of the crocodiles we saw.

The Adelaide river is also home to such birds as white breasted eagles, whistling kites and rainbow bee eaters. Tom placed small pieces of buffalo meat on a wooden platter, that was then floated 

clear of the boat. The kites swooped in rapid succession and within seconds the platter was emptied. The birds were such skilful fliers that both the kites and eagles were able to catch thrown morsels of meat in their talons, while in flight. Tom explained that the dam and abandoned jetty were all part of an elaborate commercial attempt to grow rice along the river. The rice attracted vast numbers of Magpie geese, that devoured the crops. The rice growers hired hunters to kill the geese but they were such voracious eaters, they supposedly ignored the hail of bullets thinning their ranks and just kept eating. In the end the rice growers were defeated and abandoned the enterprise. I was amused to hear this story, as a few days ago, I had looked at an exhibit of magpie geese at the Darwin museum. The legend ran that they used to exist in thousands in the Darwin area but their numbers had suddenly declined for some unknown reason. Now why do you suppose that happened?

After we returned to the dock there was a line for the ladies toilet and Annette said she wanted to use the boy's facilities. I told her that they were not occupied but that she could not use them. Unlike the ladies potty that had a toilet bowl and hand basin, the boy's facilities were a real outback affair - a length of angle iron nailed to the wall with the lower end hanging over the river!

The highway to Kakadu was almost devoid of traffic with the exception of "road trains". These are trucks pulling four trailers behind the tractor and are still an amazing sight to us, even though we had seen similar "trains" in the outback west of Bundaberg. We stopped at famous "Bark Hut Inn" for the worst sandwich in Australia and then continued east into the park At the park entrance there were two rangers conducting a survey of tourists. They asked the usual questions but in turn Annette told them that she too had a question. She then demanded to know who thought of the idea of putting cheese and carrots in a fish sandwich? We moved on before my spouse provoked an international incident.

One interesting sight on the highway were the huge termite mounds that towered between the

trees reaching 12 feet or more in height. We also passed through plantations of Pandanus trees with smaller termite mounds, two or three feet high scattered amongst the trees. This combination looked like it could have easily belonged on an alien planet. A wonderful drive.

August 16, 2006

We spent last night at the Aurora Lodge on the South Alligator River and awoke in the morning to find a kangaroo grazing just outside the cabin door. Annette chased it all over the hotel grounds,

until it finally stopped long enough for her to take it's picture. We now needed breakfast but this was a huge disappointment. We have always enjoyed the "Big Breakies" of Australia - our favorite meal! The "over the top" Australian breakfast might have steak, as well as fabulous bacon, eggs, mushrooms, baked beans, potato cakes, sausages and toast. The Aurora Lodge version of breakfast was cold, tasteless and over-priced and we grumpily headed off towards Ubirr, one of the most important sites for Aboriginal rock-art. The access road passed beside huge basalt outcroppings on the way to the art site and we arrived at a parking lot below a towering monolithic rock. There was a pathway that wound itself through the exotic vegetation and led to the different sites that had elaborate and ancient aboriginal paintings on the protected rock faces and overhangs. Some of these paintings were deemed to be several thousand years old and were of different and identifiable species of fish, turtles and

stick figures symbolic of various human activities. I was struck by how much more elaborate, complex and detailed these paintings are compared with the Anasazi Pueblo Indian Art of the American Southwest (at sites such as Bandolier near Santa Fe, New Mexico). The aborigines are determined to be one of the earth's more ancient human strains, were hunter-gatherers, and yet had produced elaborate and contiguous multi-hued paintings. Several of the paintings showed the detail of the internal organs of the animal depicted and are classified as "X-Ray pictures".

We next climbed the dominating rock, commanding a magnificent view of wetlands below, with Arnhem Land off on the horizon. Kangaroos could be seen hopping around on the distant plains. The guide book noted that several of the scenes from the movie "Crocodile Dundee" were shot at this location.

Next stop was the Ranger Uranium mine at Jabiru. Just like the worthless land the American Indians were given as reservations - later found to be sitting upon oil fields, the Australian Aborigines find themselves sitting on the bulk of the world's uranium deposits. When we arrived at the mine tour booking office, we were informed that they had ceased providing tours some two months before our arrival. Nevertheless we were able to drive up to the entrance to the mine facilities and view the huge pit with mammoth dump trucks hauling the ore from the pit to the processing plant.

Back to Darwin for the next round of DoodleBug provisioning!

August 17 - 20, 2006

We spent the balance of this week working on boat chores. We had found the hotels in Kakadu uniformly booked solid, so we wisely decided to make a few reservations in advance of our next road trip. I spent the morning at a travel agent and lined up a flight back from Alice Springs to Darwin, plus hotels along the way, while Annette did her second round of major provisioning at the nearby

supermarket. She works from a detailed list based upon an exhaustive inventory of what is aboard and carefully organizes the storage so that I can find nothing. I think she deliberately hides the cookies and "salt and vinegar" flavor potato chips. We will leave the final provisioning of perishables until the last day or so before we set sail. Back at DoodleBug, I finally got around to climbing the main mast and replacing the AM/FM radio antenna which has been broken for the past two years. After much effort, we were able to improve our AM radio reception from one station to two, thereby doubling our listening options. At least I checked the condition of the fixed rigging and entertained our marina neighbors whilst I dangled high above the deck (note picture of sun shining out of derriere).

Another timely chore was to replace the fresh water pump. This provides pressurized water when you open a faucet or turn on the shower. The original pump had been getting crankier every time we returned to DoodleBug after a land break. Each year it has taken some cajoling to get the pressure switch to function. I bought a replacement pump at the local marina supply just days ago and when packing this away amongst the spare parts storage, I read that the new accumulator tank was pre-charged at the factory to 10 psi. I thought, "You know, I have never checked the pressure in the existing tank". I performed this task and found it was zero psi. I dug out the bicycle pump (used for inflating fenders - no bicycle on board) and began to pump up the accumulator tank. There was a momentary satisfactory rush of air and then the tank began spraying water in all directions, thoroughly soaking me and the engine compartment. I now found myself having to install the "new" pump about three days after having named it "spare".

Working at the marina in Darwin has been more challenging than other work-sites we have visited, in that this area until recently was a mangrove swamp. It is now a lagoon controlled by lock gates and surrounded by million dollar homes. Unfortunately the resident sand flies are not aware of this change of status and believe that they live here. In early morning and early evening they form a vicious, biting swarm. They are "grain of pepper" sized but have a ferocious bite and leave you itching for days. Local myth has it that doses of vitamin B1 will ward them off. The pharmacist was glad to sell Annette a large supply that she has been force feeding to us for days. The pharmacist is now happy, the bugs are happy but we are not. Again a failure to communicate, as nobody has bothered to tell the bugs that they don't like B1. Now you can appreciate why us sailors long for the open sea!

August 21, 2006 

This morning we headed our rental car "down the track" towards Alice Springs. Over the years I have looked at the map of Australia and have been fascinated with the solitary town stuck in the middle of the continent. This must be near the bar at "Walkabout Creek" where Mick Dundee hurled his knife. I remember stories of Australian road building as in, "We give the grader driver a compass bearing in the morning and he sets off". Reality was a little different, although the highway was for the most part, ruler straight. It was a two lane highway and from Darwin to our first stop at Tennant Creek, there was thick vegetation with tall grasses, bushes and tall trees. In 600 miles we saw 2 live kangaroos, a bustard (large stork like bird) and a large snake about to attempt passage of the highway. There was also very little road kill. At a refueling stop we had an enterprising "Magpie Lark" hop onto the hood of the rental car and begin cleaning off the dead bugs from the windshield and outside mirrors. The systematic way this bird scoured the exposed frontal sections of the vehicle indicated that this was not it's first meal from a Ford. We however spent the night at the Eldorado Motor Inn at Tennant Creek where we were delighted with two excellent steaks for supper.

August 22, 2006

About 60 miles south of Tennant Creek lies a fascinating rock formation called "the Devil's Marbles". The formation forms huge rounded boulders that are found balancing upon each other in

unlikely positions. We wandered over the site and occasionally had to wait to take photos, standing in line behind the swarm of Japanese tourists that had magically appeared. There had been almost no traffic on the highway in the early morning so where they had sprung from is a mystery. As we continued south towards "Alice", the vegetation began to thin out with stubby trees and patches of bare red earth now visible. We were forced to dodge the occasional Australian version of a tumble weed as it rolled across the highway. The landscape was vaguely familiar and then I realized that it resembles Western Oklahoma. All that are missing are the cactus. Of course an alien arriving here by flying saucer would naturally conclude that the dominant life form is the termite. Some areas had termite mounds perhaps 6 to 8 feet high and no more than 30 feet apart in any direction.

We arrived in Alice Springs in early afternoon and spent the day visiting the many downtown art galleries that specialize in Aboriginal art (Annette liked www.redsandart.com.au and www.mbantua.com.au ). This exercise rejuvenated Annette's shopping muscles (she didn't actually buy anything) and we followed this experience with a fabulous meal at the Red Ochre restaurant on the Todd Street mall www.RedochreAlice.com.au .

August 23, 2006 

Our destination was now "Ayer's Rock" or by it's politically correct Aboriginal name, "Uluru".  We arrived in early afternoon, dumped our bags at the hotel and headed over to the Uluru - Kata Tjuta National Park cultural center. The cultural center had lots of posters on Aboriginal history, culture and the like but there was not a single Aboriginal in sight, nor in fact did we see any Aboriginal representative over the several days of our visit. I mention this as we were hammered endlessly that our status was as guests of the Aborigines, albeit as paying guests to the tune of $50 in park fees. It was approaching late afternoon and after circumnavigating this

astonishing monolithic rock formation, we headed off to the designated "sunset viewing area". The rock did indeed exhibit the most dramatic hues as the sun sank lower in the horizon. These fluorescent reds and ochres were contrasted against the cloudless blue of an Australian "dry" season.

August 24, 2006

We had arranged for a wake up call for 0500 hours and by 0550 hours were waiting in the darkness at a barrier closing off the National Park entrance. A surly looking park employee worked in the lighted office, counting and recounting entrance tickets and with the skill exceeding that of a Santa Fe restaurant employee, never making eye contact with the customers lined up outside. At precisely 0600 hours to the second, she raised the barrier and allowed us to enter the park. We drove over to the area designated "sunrise viewing" and sat in the warmth of the car until the sun hit Uluru and forced us outside to take photographs.

We had planned to climb "the rock" and were pleased to see that the gate accessing the trail to the summit was now open. It is closed for high winds and had been in this state upon our arrival yesterday. The climb to the summit was very steep but with awesome views in all directions.  It was indeed very windy on the upper slopes of the 1,140 foot climb but the surface had tremendous friction and we did not feel threatened by being swept to oblivion. This was a very fine ramble and we reluctantly descended to seek breakfast.

That evening we had booked a "Sunset Camel Tour" of the rock and thoroughly enjoyed riding one of the estimated 700,000 camels in Australia. Camels were originally imported to assist in exploration of the Australian western deserts and have thrived in this environment to the extent that the only wild herds on the planet are to be found here. 

Our camel was very well behaved and we regarded this ride as training for our eventual arrival in the Middle East.

August 25, 2006

We left our hotel in the darkness of early morning and after passing the hotel entrance sign for the second time, we finally found the road to Alice Springs and agreed that the signage could be improved. We braked hard to avoid a large kangaroo on the roadside verge but saw no other obstacles until after daybreak. The only other vehicles we passed were two "road trains". These trucks have huge kangaroo bars on the front and do not brake for livestock. The drive to Alice was pleasant and we saw some eight very large black "wedgetail" eagles, plus a lone dingo, that were feasting on roo's that weren't missed by fellow travelers. A dead camel on the road side reminded us of larger road hazards and we swerved to dodge a kamikaze cow that blundered into our path. After this, the flight from Alice to Darwin was remarkably uneventful and we returned to find DoodleBug bobbing peacefully at the marina with its protective cloud of sand-flies.

August 26, 2006 - September 3, 2006
The final week of preparation! This has been a "serious" preparation for us this time. Of course every time we leave the dock we make "serious" departure preparations and go through a checklist - we don't want to do something dumb and hurt either ourselves or DoodleBug - but on this leg of the trip we cannot plan on resupplying over the next five months. We know that we can get diesel and foodstuffs across the Indian Ocean but this will be the last opportunity to buy the specialized items - like the size "N" battery for the ship's clock, "my" brand of shaving cream, anti-malaria medication, and pick up propane refills as well as the odd chandlery item. A potential supply hazard is that we may simply be prevented from landing at a future stopover by weather conditions.

We have also been monitoring the internet accessible weather services and lining up frequency and transmission times for high frequency radio weather reports. We have inspected the fuelling dock and our proposed Sunday night anchorage site from the land and we have been packing and stowing all of the items that have escaped from their designated storage locations and have been roaming freely around DoodleBug for the past few months that she has been dockside.

It hasn't all been work and on Sunday evening we enjoyed dinner with Fiona (We had met her friend Louisa who was kayaking in the Whitsunday Islands in April). We went first to the Darwin Botanical gardens where we watched a performance by "Strange Fruit". These are a group of eight mimes / dance / acrobatic performers. The costumed four men and four women each climbed a fiberglass pole that were perhaps 20 feet high. By

imperceptible weight shifting by the performers they were able to cause the poles to bend and sway in perfect synchronicity. It was dark by this time and the bright costumes of the performers almost glowed in their spotlights such that they looked more like "Strange Flowers" than "Strange Fruit". I have never witnessed a dance more exotic and bizarre - somewhat like an aerial ballet. After the performance we had a fabulous dinner at Pee Wee's, a beachside restaurant that is on the opposite side of Fannie Bay from downtown Darwin.

Our original plan was to leave Bayview Marina on Thursday at high tide. We had an appointment to pick up fuel later Thursday morning and anchor out overnight off the Darwin Sailing Club in Fannie Bay. Unfortunately a parts shipment from the USA failed to arrive until late Wednesday and all is now pushed back over the week-end. Current plans will have us leave the marina on Sunday morning and depart Darwin on Monday morning after refueling, picking up duty free and clearing Customs. We will probably have very light winds for a couple of days as we head west and are considering stopping over at Ashmore Reef if conditions permit. This reef lies some 520 miles west of Darwin and is an Australian National Nature Reserve with only a small area open to public access.