Our first couple of days on a southerly breeze took us first to Lake Macquarie for a quiet overnight rest on a public mooring, then a pretty good overnight sail to Coffs Harbour with a few hours of frustrating struggle against the East Australia current thrown in for good measure. The southerly was predicted to continue and another day and night of sailing would get us as far as Southport but I wasn’t feeling well and wanted a break. I assumed the culprit was mal de mer but despite a preventive tablet I had symptoms that went beyond my usual first-day-out nausea and lethargy and I concluded I’d actually caught a bug somewhere. Thinking back it may also have been ill effects from a different medication I picked up for seasickness, as my tried and true remedy isn’t available here in Australia. In any case, we contacted Coffs Harbour Marina and they gave us the same good price on a slip as last time and I was happy to be tied to a dock and recover for a few days.
Unfortunately, those couple of days saw the end of our southerly and the beginning of a long period of north wind and building seas. Boats heading south happily left the harbor, while those of us wanting to go north had to content ourselves with boat chores and the patience we all learn when Mother Nature throws a spanner in our plans.
One day we got a call from Bruce on Toucan who told us to find a boat called Lukim Yu. They’re right near you, he said, and they’re good people.
This is not unheard of in our world. Every once in a while we get a call or an email from a friend pointing us to a boat nearby, urging us to make contact. “You’d love these guys,” they say, or “You’re anchored right near old friends of ours!”
At this point you might be wondering how they know where we are and where their friends are. Modern satellite technology is the culprit, often through Marine Traffic, an amazing website that tracks the movement of ships of all kinds all over the world. All commercial vessels are required to have a device onboard that sends and receives automatic position signals. Many privately owned vessels, like ours, also have the devices. We’ve learned that in the Atlantic and Caribbean, most yachts have AIS transceivers but the farther afield we sail the fewer vessels do. Luckily the practice is gaining as the cost of the technology comes down.
If you don’t mind falling down the rabbit hole of the internet for a while, check out the site (or download the app.) You can choose any place in the world and see what ships are there. Click on the symbol and get details on the ship and its destination, even the weather conditions where they are, a useful feature for us. You can also search for a specific vessel, say maybe Escape Velocity, and see not only our position but our most recent track. Often the data on private vessels is not quite up to date, owing to the fact that our devices are less powerful than the ones on big ships, but you’ll get the idea anyway. You may have to sign up for an account but its free and it’s fun. We track our friends this way, and also check sailing areas we’re headed for to gain helpful information like the correct line to follow when entering a reef, or whether any boats are crossing a river bar in current conditions. It’s great stuff and reminds me almost daily how much we value cruising in the era of modern communications and how much we admire the folks who did it with only a radio, a sextant, a good timepiece and paper charts. Hats off to them, but I prefer living in the future.
We found the crew of Lukim Yu and hit it off immediately as we knew we would. Bruce’s Seal of Approval hasn’t steered us wrong yet! Denise and Jamie are beginning cruisers but planning their first offshore passage to Lord Howe island, and that made me quite envious. We tossed around the idea of Lord Howe when we first arrived in Australia but got sucked into the city life of Sydney and never made it. Now we can follow their adventures vicariously, and you can too here.
The Lukims had a car and they took us for a road tour around the Coffs area, and they joined us to watch Formula 1 on EV. I know you can imagine how happy Jack was to find fellow fans to indulge in gear head chatter for a weekend.
For me, the best part of meeting Lukim Yu was Denise cooking Sri Lankan curry for us. Yum-O! We sure hope we meet up with them again some day, and to our cruising friends, if you find yourself sharing an anchorage with Lukim Yu, a Lagoon 380, pop over and say hello. They’re good people.
