Mackay to Airlie Beach

Hello again.

Our four days in Mackay seemed to pass quickly. We discovered we were in huge sugar cane growing area with ships coming into the port to load up with sugar or molasses. Also a little south of Mackay is an enormous coal loading facility where the ships are loaded out at sea by a conveyor belt system, hence all the ships anchored offshore waiting their turn to load – more than 30 of them.

Vanuatu (Luganville) to Mackay (Australia)

Hello Again

As I start this email to you we are on day three of our crossing from Luganville on the Island of Santo – Vanuatu, to Mackay in Oz. We have only covered a total of 267nm. A very slow trip so far but the winds are so light we are having to motor sail. The charges for arriving in Oz are horrendous. Customs and Immigration have quoted us $400 and it is more if we arrive in the weekend, so we have seen a reef marked on the map we pass quite close by and we may stop here to pass the time if it looks like our arrival time is going to be over a weekend.