By becoming a PATRON you'll be supporting the creation of original content. Please consider joining our little community.
https://www.patreon.com/SailingLearningByDoing
Our Paypal: https://paypal.me/vernondeck?locale.x...

Sailing south down the east coast of Australia about a month too late. Battling against Southeast trade winds and non-stop current alone has proved to be pretty damn tiring. I'm making progress every day though and in this episode I reach Cooktown to buy a couple of jerry-cans of diesel before finally reaching the huge milestone of Cairns.
This is the last of the Solo to Australia series, hope you all enjoyed it.

NEW!!!
Get your Learning By Doing merch here!!!
https://teespring.com/stores/learningbydoing

SUBTECH
https://www.subtechsports.com
Promo code: teamsubtechvernon
Discount: 20% off (Free Shipping World wide)

Indiana Paddlesurf: https://shop.indiana-sup.ch
VERNON10X (10% discount code)

Please visit: http://www.vernondeck.com
INSTAGRAM: https://instagram.com/Vernondeck/
FACEBOOK: https://goo.gl/WNrSV5

Captions :

0:25
So we've got some sails up, we've got some wind but it won't be won't be long lived unfortunately.
0:35
We're sailing dead east now, straight across the top of Margaret Bay. We're just getting the
0:40
wind angle about right but it won't last long we've got about 10 miles to go still
0:49
at least that was sailing got the engine off last night was pretty good started off pretty
0:56
good anyway we were sailing for about six hours pretty good and then the wind started to ease and
1:04
come a bit closer so then motor sailing but still pretty good and then around 2am maybe
1:14
just went to [ __ ] like bad i was so angry i was screaming and yelling at the weather like
1:20
a crazy person it's this good thing about solo sailing no one can hear you so there's that was
1:27
from about three until five after a while i just went to sleep i was just like bugger if
1:32
we're barely moving and i'm just getting angry so i gotta just go to sleep and wake up and hopefully
1:37
it'll be over and yeah it was i slept two or three hours pretty good and uh pretty tired still though
1:46
well about two hours ago we turned a corner and i could motor sail and then we turned this corner
1:52
and then i could turn engine off and we should be good for another yeah another 10-12 miles
2:01
i'm just pulling into cape melville now this is uh yeah my next sort of
2:09
tick on the list of places but i'm not going to stop well i'm going to stop just for
2:14
20 minutes so i'm going to jump in the water quickly check under the boat
2:18
there's been a lot of seaweed in this uh big bay and before i suddenly just slowed to three
2:24
knots it was like what's going on and then i put it in reverse backed up a little bit
2:30
and then went forwards again a big lot of seaweed come flying out the back so i was obviously like
2:35
towing that around the keel or something and then yeah we're back up to the normal speed so
2:41
just want to check under the boat uh i'll take the scraper quickly make sure there's no muscles
2:47
and stuff and i need a shower anyway so i'll just combine that and then uh get on the move
2:54
again it's only 24 hours or something to cook town which will be the first town that i'll come across
3:00
and normally i wouldn't stop there but i have to now because i haven't got enough diesel anymore
3:04
to make it to cairns i miscalculated uh the amount of diesel i would use just because i've had to use
3:13
the engine more and i well i calculated for that but i just didn't calculate how hard i'd have to
3:19
push the engine how slow the boat would be going so it just meant more hours to get anywhere i'm
3:26
just about to jump in quickly and check under the boat make sure we don't have a bunch of weed and
3:30
whatever stuck around the propeller or keel it's just we've been passing through this bay
3:35
and there's been big big sort of floats of this big sphagnum weed or whatever oh there's the
3:39
autopilot beeping anyway i'm going to jump in quickly not too stoked to jump in here
3:44
there's sharks crocodiles and this tiny little uh jellyfish eric kanji or something like that that
3:49
can actually kill you so i've got a long-sleeved shirt on but i don't have any long pants on so
3:53
i don't want to be in here long and also there's this massive squall coming look at this
4:01
right job done i wanted to take the camera down and show you guys but there was
4:06
the water's so murky here it's just this cement color i couldn't see a hand in front of my face
4:12
so you know there was a big chunk of weed wrapped around the hub and in between the blades of the
4:18
propeller so that wouldn't have been helping me for sure and when i went backwards i could feel
4:22
a vibration so i think it chopped off a lot of it but it wrapped it really tightly around the
4:26
hub so i'm glad i got that off and i just went around the waterline quickly with the scraper
4:30
and there's a lot of green slime weed on there i just scraped one line off but it won't make
4:35
much difference but the main thing will be that on the propeller that wouldn't have been good at all
4:38
oh i'm going to get cracking again look at this squall it's just chasing us
4:46
yeah fingers crossed it's coming from the north and the wind follows me it'd be freaking awesome
5:00
so
5:11
well you think i'm gonna get smacked by this thing i reckon so it's weird it's the first
5:18
one that's coming from the north east all the others that come from the south east
5:24
it's got to be a good thing i reckon it's uh i don't know something different
5:33
if anything that helps me on my way even if the waves are behind me that's still good
5:38
i don't really care if i get wet it's only a squall it'd be maximum two hours
5:45
but yeah all right we'll see we'll see i'll show you anyway maybe i'm just getting too tired now
5:52
after four days of no real sleep that i'm just like gone a bit crazy who knows you guys will
5:59
be the judges let me know in the comments below if you think i'm being irresponsible
6:09
all right we are moving i've got two reefs in the main and uh pretty small amount of head sail out
6:17
it's not necessary right now but i think it might be around the corner so i'm just uh
6:25
just being conservative but it's coming from well east is there so it's a bit quite a bit of
6:30
northeast and i'm gonna we're sort of nearly going into it now but i'm turning around this corner so
6:37
if it stays like this for a couple of hours i will be a happy chappie
6:41
even if it's rough and wild and raining huh some wind to be good anyway let's see what happens
6:52
normally you stay away from this sort of stuff there's a perfectly amazing anchor it's just
6:55
behind me but yeah i'm sick of motoring i am so sick of it right now look at this thing
7:08
it's a wild one seven knots floating along on flat seas with seven knots birthdays christmas
7:19
easter all come at once i mean it's probably gonna last an hour but still i'm enjoying it while i can
7:27
eating some sesame biscuits they make a lot of this sort of stuff in indonesia
7:32
i really like it it's not too sweet it's just got a lot of sesame seeds in it
7:37
they also make them with peanuts and with um whatever else coconut things like that canary nuts
7:43
really good ones almonds dutch almonds this is the last of this one though i just realized it's 1 30
7:49
in the afternoon now and i haven't eaten a single thing today had a coffee about two hours ago but
7:53
i haven't eaten a single thing and i've been awake since two in the morning so yeah i think
7:58
i'm running on uh i don't even know what reserves i guess maybe i'm gonna get skinny after this trip
8:07
i'm sort of surprised i'm still feeling quite good after four days of
8:11
not much sleep i mean i'm just getting bits and pieces here and there 20 minutes 30 minutes
8:16
i got a two full hour like an hour then an hour this morning which feels good because
8:22
then you really you wake up after the hour like oh that was deeper sleep
8:27
than just a 20 minute power nap but i guess all those little naps they combined i haven't been
8:32
counting how many hours over 24 hour period it is but i'm guessing it can't be more than six but
8:39
it does i mean obviously helps because i'm still functioning fine really right the wind's picked
8:45
up again let's do this let's make the most of this i'm going to try and go as fast as i can
8:51
stay with this little squall as long as i can still here
9:05
over here is the edge of it so it's it's sort of a bit out in front of us now i'm coming
9:12
in from the side oh yeah it's working seven knots sweet as well look at this
9:28
the worst of us behind us you can see here starting to break up you can see some of
9:32
these little clouds coming through starting to break up but we still got wind from the north
9:38
i've gone from two reefs and not much heads out to now full of boat sails we were a bit
9:45
overpowered a minute ago but uh i'm just twisting the mainsail when it gusts a bit
9:50
just to let the pressure off and uh yeah we're still doing six and a half so i'm just going
9:56
to keep going as far as i can with this with this good wind and i figure even if the wind stops now
10:04
it's still going to be the waves going that way which is way better than the opposite way
10:09
and if another one does come from the front it'll take longer to build up so
10:13
whatever happens it's all good and we've got i don't know probably 10 miles out of this one
10:21
with just sailing no engine and uh fast so yeah this is a bonus today real good bonus
10:28
it's given me some energy sitting up here in the v-berth just listening to the sound have a listen
10:44
oh is that not a beautiful sound skimming along at six and a half knots no engine ah so nice
10:54
this boat's composite hull so you hear the uh water quite quite loud through it there's no um
11:01
insulation on the inside all around here but i love it look out the back
11:19
downwind sailing it's not a constant uh speed we're doing
11:24
but it sort of comes and goes we go between four and a half and six and a half
11:30
it was gusting before so i actually put a reef in the mainsail
11:34
and then we're going a bit slow and i was like no we need to make as many miles as we can right now
11:38
so i took it out i think i've in the last 24 hours i've probably loaded and raised the
11:45
sail fully five or six times and put in and out 20 reefs getting sore shoulders anyway
11:57
yeah it's just trying to optimize trying to get as much as i can out of every puff or you know just
12:05
just trying to make it happen but we're on a good one with this we're on a good one let it keep
12:10
going this is some sort of record it's about seven o'clock at night and we've been sailing since
12:19
i want to say 12 or one pretty awesome had the motor running back there a little while
12:28
just uh to help out because there wasn't so much wind in between squalls but um yeah we're flying
12:34
along completely hard to the wind everything's sheeted on we've got one reef in the main we've
12:41
got our reefs in the head sail because this square is everywhere look at this big squall up there
12:51
big squares all over here
12:56
but they are coming from that way so i'm hoping that they've already swished across in front of me
13:05
by the time i get there and we're just getting their wind would be awesome yeah we're on 30
13:11
degrees but we're doing six knots and we haven't had the engine running much at all all afternoon
13:18
so yeah i think i don't have to worry too much about my diesel issues now i think i've probably
13:24
saved enough that we're going to make it to cooktown and if we can sail all through this night
13:30
i should probably shouldn't be saying this but if we could i might even be able to make it to cairns
13:37
who knows maybe this window keeps going all the way to ken's
13:41
probably just screwed it up now with the wind gods anyway i'm having dinner
13:48
this is one i cooked last night i always normally i always cook
13:52
double because it's just to go to the hassle of you know you're on the here you're healing over
13:57
and it's sort of a hassle to cut things up in that because you've got to hold on to everything
14:00
and it's flying around so it makes sense to cook enough for at least two or three meals
14:06
and uh yeah this is rice and potatoes and carrots and some like beef stew and then i
14:13
threw a bunch of well half a box of uh coconut cream on there just to make it a bit smooth
14:21
and it was amazing last night i was so happy when i ate it a bit spicy but it was really nice
14:27
like just having a good meal when you when you're sailing like non-stop like this it's really good
14:33
i didn't have any food today apart from some snacks i got those little round uh
14:40
i don't know i call like polystyrene crackers well i don't know like
14:44
like what yoga people eat i guess a little thin crackers that just made out of rice i think
14:50
i haven't had them for years because you never see them in indonesia but i bought some in
14:53
thursday island the sour cream version probably just full of chemicals but pretty good i just ate
15:00
half a bag of them and that's all i've had the whole day and two coffees so this rice meal is
15:07
going down a treat and yeah moods are up optimal right now optimal i'm a bit scared of all these
15:14
black black clouds in front of me because there's no moon right now it's uh yeah i guess it's it's
15:21
been a week and a half since full moon and it's uh the moon comes up at about three o'clock and
15:25
then goes again so it's very very black and you can't see if the squirrel crowds around
15:31
you sort of the only way you can tell is if last night for a couple hours there was some
15:35
lots of stars you know okay if there's stars then it's clear but then otherwise yeah it's just black
15:44
but yeah all good all good all good all right probably see it tomorrow morning
16:10
roddy just pulled up at cooktown here we go first civilization i've seen in a week nearly
16:17
first internet and oh yeah very very calm day out here last night was just starry night first
16:25
i not i've had i came from around this point here up that way a lot of shipping around but
16:31
the shipping channels are much wider here than they are further north i didn't really have to
16:35
dodge anyone didn't have to really take care i could just go off to the side and uh not
16:41
be in anybody's way a lot of big fishing trawlers around there none of them have ais for some reason
16:47
i don't know if they don't want to give away their fishing grounds but like quite big ones 80 90 foot
16:52
and none of them have ais pretty crazy i mean obviously they're working so they're taking
16:56
care if i'm sleeping but a couple of times i woke up and they were like a couple of
17:00
them really close and like [ __ ] my alarm would normally go off you know five miles before and i'd
17:07
have 40 minutes time to to figure out what's going on but so i don't know i don't really like that
17:13
um that's a bit indo-style to me in australia all these commercial vessels should have ais
17:19
and i'm guessing they have got it they just don't they just don't transmit on so yeah all your
17:24
fishermen out there get your [ __ ] together who cares about your secret fishing spots
17:29
freaking dangerous so anyway the reason for me stopping here in cooktown i didn't plan to stop
17:33
here it's a lovely place and maybe marine and i'll stop here and and um check it out further when we
17:38
came up later this year this is where i mean cook town is captain cook his town i guess i already
17:44
know the history of it but obviously it's because of that um looks like an amazing place it's the
17:49
sort of last civilization before thursday island and that's quite a big gap six days sailing and uh
17:58
yeah i just came in here because i really need diesel i've only got 20 liters left
18:02
maybe 25 and i need more than that to get to cairns and i looked on google maps and it looks
18:08
like there's a fuel station real close to the thing here so i've anchored outside the harbour
18:14
all right now time to get busy put the ding in the water
18:33
so
18:48
i'm here on the fishing dock and there's actually a fuel wolf right here i'm so unused to this now
18:54
in indonesia i haven't seen seen anything like this in more than four years but yeah
18:59
you can pull up with the boat right here on these pontoons and fill up just like in a car
19:05
gas station it's probably very very expensive though just because it's they know that it's easy
19:10
the thing is it's closed i rung the number here but no one's answering
19:13
but it's not really early in the morning it's 10 o'clock so i don't know what's going on
19:18
but if i can bring the boat in here then i'll probably just fill right up because then i'll
19:22
be fine all the way down to oh who knows what's unders because i could get 200 liters here and
19:28
then i'd be good for a long long way and it's probably easier to hear than in cans but the
19:33
thing is if they don't turn up then i don't know where i'm going to get even if i only really need
19:38
40 liters to get to cairns but i don't know where i'm going to get otherwise
19:41
it's probably a tank station further in town but it's pretty far to walk with jerry cans just here
19:47
there's a cafe and they have pies and i haven't had a meat pie in years so i'm gonna go in there
19:51
and have a coffee and a meat pie for breakfast and deliberate think about the best way to do this
20:04
all right got my 40 liters of fuel there the dockside fuel thing wasn't going the guy got hit
20:12
by a trawler or something apparently he's injured so he's not working but i managed to meet while i
20:17
was having my coffee there was no pies they're all sold out but i had a cake a banoffee pie
20:22
banana and cream very fattening and very rich but well it was pretty nice don't get things like that
20:28
in indonesia so while i was having that i got chatting to this old fella a play called vince
20:34
and uh yeah he used to sail back in the day build his own boat and then he was with another guy a
20:38
local here and uh i told them i need to get fuel and they said oh we've got the land cruiser out
20:43
back throw your jerry cans in so we we trundled off down to the servo i have to get my australian
20:48
lingo back the service station here is called a servo and i went down there and got 40 liters
20:53
of fuel two jerry cans that's plenty enough to get to cairns and they'll fill up properly
20:57
down there so i'm just putting this first one in now the day tank here holds 30 liters and
21:04
it wasn't empty so that'll be falling out actually that'll nearly get me to cairns
21:08
and then i'm going to get going it's still nice there's a bit of a bit of a breeze and we'll just
21:13
get moving it's about 21 hours from here to cairns i think so we'll get down there early uh tomorrow
21:18
morning sometime freaking stoked the weather windows are lining up good and we're off again
21:27
bye bye cook down i only had about an hour there on land but it looked like an
21:33
interesting place like small town australia at its best definitely are going to go back there
21:40
take marie there probably when we came up back up this way in a few months
21:44
anyway no stop for me right now i'll take this good weather and head to cairns
21:53
a big leg getting to cairns huge huge weight off my shoulders i'm not there yet but i can feel
21:59
it actually getting to here is already that was going to be the hardest leg from thursday island
22:04
down to here uh no help if the engine would or gearbox or prop or something would have
22:10
died during that leg i'd really be screwed there's nothing in between nothing at all
22:14
no other sailboats nowhere to stop no phone connection no radio connection there's some
22:20
big ships passing so potentially you could contact them but they can't really help you
22:24
so uh big weight off my shoulders to get past that leg by myself you know and um from now on like
22:31
you know it's possible just to do 70 80 mile day hops basically all the way to brisbane nelly
22:38
so uh well yeah even from here i could stop at port douglas then cairns i could
22:43
break it up but i won't but so yeah that's a big weight off my shoulders it definitely um
22:50
definitely good to get here and with no problems the boat's just been running just ticking along
22:55
uh i put more hours on the engine in this last two weeks than i have in the last two years
23:01
but she's just ticking along i had to put a bit of oil in it like normal and
23:05
just been checking it over but it's just been running amazingly and uh i'm gonna give it all
23:10
some tlc as soon as i haul out pay it back for how she's been treating me anyway i'm
23:17
just about to pass back into the blue water look at this it's a big river system up in cooktown
23:42
so
23:50
all right a little bit of breeze i might be able to use it once i turn around this corner
23:56
i'll pull up the sail anyway and see how we go anyway not much to talk about now
24:01
just going to blast off down here it's going to feel funny pulling into the big
24:06
smoke cairns it's not a very big city but still you know they've got traffic lights
24:13
traffic lights that's that's civilization pure so many people you've got to control the cars
24:21
yeah all right we'll see you later
24:37
this guy's name was sea master it wasn't one of the really big entertainer ships that was only
24:42
510 meters but he's doing 18 knots the bigger ones are 950 feet which is nearly double that i
24:51
had my sails up and he on the radio was like oh i'll get out of your way you stay where you are
24:56
and i was like hell no i'll turn don't worry so i just jumped over to the side a little bit and
25:01
threw the drone up and got his shots you see here i've passed about 30 of these guys but
25:07
it might have been at night so i haven't really seen them you just see the lights and they and
25:10
doing 18 or 20 knots i just like five minutes later they're gone it's the first one i've really
25:15
been able to fly the drone and film ew sunset it is just a glass off out here look at this
25:33
i got the drain up right now look at us
25:39
thought i'd fire the drone up for sunset sun's just gone behind that hill
25:43
but yeah he couldn't get a karma calm evening right now i've just been downstairs uh watching
25:49
some videos that i downloaded while i was in in cooktown supercross usa ama supercross
25:56
yeah sunset [ __ ] it's nice and it's cooler than endo too it's the first time i've already
26:01
noticed it today it's a little bit cooler here even though i'm still north of cairns
26:05
when there's a breeze it's a little bit cooler it's just nicer a bit drier mainly a bit drier
26:10
it's quite beautiful all right guys i am anchored up now in cairns in the river opposite the city
26:18
i've been here a few years ago for a couple of days cairns a beautiful city i don't know that
26:23
well but i've been here once before uh yeah i really like it strange river to anchor in
26:28
though have a look at this it's a bit windy outside but check out all the different boats
26:36
he's pointing that way next one's pointing that way this guy's pointing this way this way this way
26:44
this guy's pointing the opposite direction of me the next one's all over that way that way that way
26:49
it's super strange here that the current against wind and then it slopes up on the
26:53
mud there so the current's different again and every single boat faces a different way here
26:59
so you got to be quite careful when you're anchoring because the you know you might
27:02
drag out your chain 50 meters and the other guy's dragged out his chain 50 meters this way against
27:07
you you know normally at anchor everyone drags out pretty much the same often catamarans will
27:12
do it differently for the first half hour of the tide when it changes but here it's just
27:17
just weirdness but anyway i'll figure it out i'm going to go over to the shore quickly now and
27:23
meet up with a friend but uh yeah that's the end of this video glad you could join on this
27:28
uh couple of long long legs in the last couple of weeks i feel extremely hungover
27:35
i think it'll take me about three days to recover from stress on the the body and on the mind yeah
27:40
it could take longer than that as well because i might be leaving again tomorrow to do one more
27:44
jump south to townsville just check the weather and it looks uh bad for a week after but we'll see
27:50
i'll definitely need to recover from this trip because i feel just permanently hung over now
27:56
like uh well i just had three hours sleep which was good but i woke up feeling like oh what day
28:02
is it where am i where's my brain why can't i like my brain's working like glue thanks patrons
28:09
paypal all you people support this channel the hard work we put into making these videos
28:14
um very very appreciated and we literally wouldn't be doing this without your support to any of you
28:22
guys who watch these videos and uh and do enjoy them please consider becoming a patron
28:29
for the price of a you know a coffee per week you can really make a difference
28:33
and um really add some value for us you know for the amount of work we put into these videos
28:40
anyway we'll see you next week i've got the next sailing trip coming up soon bye