patrick margaret 2006

Patrick & Margaret

Aqua Magic’s Voyage 2006

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We have had a busy year sailing approximately 10,000 miles from Trinidad, through the Caribbean to the Panama Canal and then through the Pacific to Australia. The island chains are 700 – 800 miles apart, so most of our passages have been a week, apart from the BIG one from Galapagos to Marquesas, which was 3000 miles and took us 25 days!!

While in Venezuela we took a trip to Angel Falls, reported to be the highest waterfall in the world, nearly 1000 metres high – very spectacular. We spent one night on a ranch, then flew in a small plane to Canaima, before getting into a dug out canoe for the journey up the river through rapids and over boulders at great speed – it was very wet and bumpy!!, to the base of the waterfall. We then spent a night sleeping in hammocks – surprisingly comfortable. The next day we walked behind a smaller waterfall - quite an experience.

We spent Xmas on Bonaire, with friends we had met in the Caribbean where Patrick took an advanced diving course. We enjoyed hiring a scooter to explore the island, where we saw many flamingos. After a couple of weeks in the ABC Islands (Aruba, Bonaire and Curacao) we had a very rough trip to the San Blas Islands, inhabited by the Kuna Indians, fascinating people, very friendly but very poor. They visited the anchorages selling fish, fresh fruit and vegetables, also molas (embroidered and appliquéd cloths).

We transited the Panama Canal in February, which was a great experience.

Once in the Pacific we soon headed for the Galapagos Islands, which was one of the highlights of the season. The animals and birds were amazing, they are not afraid of humans, allowing us to get very close to them. We saw white tipped sharks, manta rays, sting rays, sea lions, penguins, red crabs, both land and marine iguanas, pelicans, frigate birds, turtles and tortoises from 2-3 months – 100 years old!! Then it was our big trip to the Marquesas. We enjoyed the Marquesas very much, they are very lush and scenic, the only disadvantage was the insects!! The islanders were very generous and regularly gave us fruit, one man gave us a stalk of bananas, with at least 50 bananas on it, fortunately we could share them with friends on another boat. We only managed to stay at one atoll in the Tuamotos, but got involved in the village and had a great time there.

Our next stop was Tahiti, which we were disappointed with – the other islands in the group – Moorea, Raiatea, Tahaa and Bora Bora were much more interesting. We hired a scooter again to explore Moorea. We had a scare in Bora Bora, when our mooring line broke during a squall in the night and we were heading for the reef, we were able to get our anchor down just in time!!

We then headed for Suwarrow in the Northern Cook Islands. This one was a nature reserve, and only had 1 house which was occupied by the warden and his family between April and October. John, the warden took us on a trip to Bird Island, where we saw many frigate birds and sooty terns, with their chicks.

Our trip to Western Samoa was very stormy, with lots of squalls and winds of 35 – 40 knots. We tore a sail on passage! We visited the Robert Louis Stevenson museum, apparently he spent his last years on the island. We also visited a Bahai Temple. We took a tour around the island with 12 other yachties, visiting a cave pool under a church, 3 waterfalls and the best beach we found in the Pacific – most of them are not sandy but coral.

We crossed the international dateline on 25^th September, then sailed into Suva, the capital of Fiji, where it rained everyday of the 3 weeks we were there!, but we managed to get things done – some boat repairs, bought a new computer and printer – one of our computers died in the Galapagos! While there we enjoyed a Melanesian Festival of song, dance and crafts with participants from Fiji, Tonga, Papua New Guinea, Solomon Islands and French Polynesia.

We left Fiji in company with friends on a New Zealand boat bound for Noumea, New Caledonia. While we were there the marina was on green alert because of an early cyclone ‘Xavier’, which was heading our way, fortunately it changed course and went north.

We had very light winds on our trip to Australia. We made landfall in Bundaberg, Queensland. While we were there we enjoyed many social events and a tour of the local rum distillery.

Our last sail was from Bundaberg to Scarborough, just 150 miles through the Great Sandy Strait which was very challenging on our navigation – it is very shallow in parts! We experienced a bad thunderstorm during the passage, it was scary as it was overhead, the thunder was very loud and the boat shook!!. Social activities started again as soon as we arrived in Scarborough, with several bbqs. We went to the village for the switching on of the Xmas lights – they look quite different on a gum tree!!