Sailing Taurus NZ
Living aboard a yacht and cruising full time.
Category: Uncategorized
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With a favourable easterly wind predicted we decided to leave Tweed Heads in the early afternoon of New Year’s Eve. Before our departure we went over to the nearby beach and had a quick dip, staying in shallow water due to the threat of sharks. On our way back to the boat we stopped to…
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Before leaving Brisbane we had to catch up with our good friend, Julian. We had met Julian and his wife Tracey in Noumea, New Caledonia. They had sailed their yacht there before the troubles and ended up staying throughout and having an amazing time, making friends on both sides of the divide as they were…
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After saying our goodbyes to Martin and Trevor, we packed Taurus up and prepared to leave Bundaberg the following day. In order to make the most of the strong tidal flow we were up at 5am, and once past the channel entrance to the Burnett River we hoisted the sails and headed south. Bundaberg sits…
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Whilst cruising in the Pacific we had been growingly increasingly concerned about paint blisters on our hull below the waterline. When these blisters burst, bare steel could be seen underneath which then began to rust. Being perhaps too fastidious for my own good, the idea of my hull being exposed to salt water and slowly…
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Before leaving Amedee Island we had an opportunity to catch up with Rob and Kim from Sweet As, who we had last met at the Blue Lagoon Cave in the Ysawa islands in Fiji. Together with Karen and Dean from Run to Paradise, an Australian couple returning home after cruising in Japan and Alaska, we…
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New Caledonia has a land area of 18,575 km2 and a population of approximately 270,000. The indigenous ‘Kanak’ people make up about 41% of this total with the remainder made up of the Caldoche (Europeans born in New Caledonia), the Zoreille (those who have emigrated from metropolitan France), and non-Kanak Polynesians who make up about 10%. The Kanaks speak 28…
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Having sailed so far north to catch up with our friend Ralph on Jemellie, we needed to retrace our steps or face the difficult task of sailing due south to New Caledonia in an area of prevailing south easterly winds. Yachts of course can’t sail into the wind, or indeed roughly forty-five degrees either side…
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We left Upongkor at 5pm for the 80 nautical mile sail to Port Vila. A 15 knot sou’ easterly was predicted and we estimated the trip would take roughly 16 hours, meaning a 9am arrival. However, as the saying goes, “man proposes and God disposes.’ We motored away from the anchorage, raising the sails as…
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Having cleared Vanuatuan Customs we were free to explore. Vanuatu is a chain of 13 large and 70 smaller islands. Tanna, the island we had arrived at, is not quite the most southerly of these islands. The country has an interesting, if somewhat bleak history. Archaeologists believe the islands to have been inhabited since around…
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Sailing, and by extension cruising, is an activity self regulated, to some extent, by the wisdom and dire warnings of a legion of sayings, proverbs, and aphorisms. One of these maintains that ‘the most dangerous thing to have on a boat is a schedule.’ This alludes to the view that the safe sailor only sails…
Sailing Taurus NZ 