Sailing far far away, and a little further.

First of all, I'd like to confirm to you all I am indeed alive and well and home at long long last. I sailed successfully from Darwin in Australia 2900 miles to Phuket in Thailand. It took a month, was probably one of the hardest things I've ever done but saw some incredible things, ate some lush fish and got a lovely tan. I did write a blog to post in Christmas Island, however being a tiny little dot in the Indian Ocean means there wasn't very good internet so this blog is divided into two parts.

PART 1 - DARWIN TO CHRISTMAS ISLAND

Geez what a journey. I've made it to Christmas Island, halfway through my epic voyage.

Sailing

So we (me and skipper Michael) set sail at 1.30pm on Saturday 24th July aboard a 42ft catemerang yacht called Shayler heading west to our first stop Ashmore Reef. Experienced a couple of rounds of sea sickness over the first couple of days which was lovely and at first I found it very difficult to cook down in the little kitchen without feel rather queasy but I´m getting pretty used the constant rolling now. Was particularly tired and queasy one evening a couple of days ago but all was made better after I sat at the front of the boat for an hour in front of an awesome sunset watching 50 odd dolphins swimming and jumping along side.

We divide each night into 4 3 hour watches where you have to watch out for other boats and storm clouds and general happenings with the sail. It´s been pretty tough in all honesty getting up at random hours and trying hard to keep my eyes open. Especially tricky because when something goes wrong it seems ten times worse in the dark of the night. On the other hand there´s an immense stary sky to look at and book to read (I´ve made it through 4 and a half so far). Key is having plenty of naps during the day to make up.

Foods been a funny one. I just haven´t really had an appetite for the past 5 or so days which if you know me or have been reading this blog is very very unusual in the world of Grace. Sometimes my stomach actually hurts with hunger and I can´t face eating anything more than an apple...we´re reaching land soon, I´m going in full search of ice cream, cake and pizza.

Ashmore Reef

So 500 miles, 3 days, west of Darwin is the Ashmore Reef. Turned up and kindly got escorted into the reef by Australian Customs which is very unusual. Turns out the sea between Darwin and Christmas Island is key route for boats full of illegal immigrants so we´ve had many chats with Australian Customs over the radio. We were the only yacht there and couldn´t have been more in the middle of nowhere. The reef is pretty big and contains lots of beautiful coral and 3 small sand islands. We were only allowed to visit one - West Island, in my mind it´s the definition of a desert island. Circled by a narrow white sand beach and mangrove trees, the island has 1 palm tree, 1 other tree, some Indonesian graves, birds and lots of turtle nesting sites.

Did few bits of snorkelling too. I tells you it were a-maaaaz-in. (Better than Whitsundays sorry ladies). Soo many little random reef fish and I even saw a pretty large shark although I had a spear for self defence so Copper was safe. Floating about a fair few fish had some characteristics of yous lot so I´m going to describe a few.

-The fish with scales whiter and than white that blended into the sandy bottom - Ray Read

-The fish that nibbled on everything - Stephen

-The flying fish (turns out they actually exist) - Grace Gimson

-Lastly a fish with vibrant (almost neon) stripes of white, yellow and black, blatently gagging for the next underwater rave - Mackley

So thats it for now, I´m off to explore Christmas Island and might put a little info up before I leave. It´s the same distance as it was from Darwin to here again to Phuket, Thailand so about 10 days which seems like an awfully long time right now, I just keep imagining all your beautiful faces to keep me going.

PART 2 - CHRISTMAS ISLAND TO PHUKET

Spent 4 nights at Christmas Island, a lovely slightly random little place in the middle of the Indian Ocean. Originally and mainly populated by Chinese and Malay people the island is now inhabited for 2 main reasons. 1) A phosphate mine and 2) the Australian detention and asylum centre. This makes for a little close knit community where there's zero unemployment so many people do 2 jobs. Anyway I did plenty of exploring.

Crabs

Got a lift to the Christmas Island Hash House Harriers running session in the middle of the island. The island is covered in dense rainforest and as I was going along the tracks I would come across the occasional Robbo Crab. The place is literally crawling with a whole variety of crabs. These Robbo ones are the size of a small cat and live to like 80 years old. Theres also thousands of little red and grey crabs about the place, kinda surreal and apparently when they all migrate to the sea in October the whole island stinks because everyone runs them over and then they rot in the sun.

Other than that I did some mopeding around to see the gorgeous landscape, some tiny seccluded beachs and massive stretches of coast with huge crashing waves. Slightly delayed departure due to an incident involving the sea, a small motor dingy, alcohol and a loss of balance leading to a loss of camera and wallet. Not the most ideal situation to be in but just about managed to resurrect the situation.

Sailin

Set off for Phuket. At first all was good, did a 6 hour shift each during the night which worked out a lot lot better, got my appetite back. However, about 4 days in, as the sun was setting we sailed towards a very dark and ominous looking line of clouds with a flat bottom (this means bad weather). Proceeded to spend a night in horrible stormy gale force winds which were blowing us back in the direction we came, the boat was crashing about all over the place, the captain was sick, one the engines broke, just a generally unideal situation so next morning we took cover.

At this point we were sailing up the west coast of Sumatra so we headed towards the off islands of Sumatra to take a more protected route. Weaving in and out of these tiny little islands was incredible. Packed with palm trees and you see the occasional fishing boats coming and going. However the epicentre of the 2004 Tsunami was only a few hundred miles north of this area and what with them being so tiny and exposed I dread to think of the impact which it must have had.

Rest of the sailing was a similar story with winds blowing the wrong way or just not blowing at all but we just has to keep going.

Fish

Fishings well easy off the boat. Just put a little plastic octopus and massive hook on a strong line, let it drag behind and wait. Caught 3 fish, each almost 1 metre long. First a tuna (I made sushi), then a Mahi Mahi (it was gold when we got it out the water, then it turned silver with blue spots, and once it was finally dead it turned gold again - tasted lush) finally caught a massive Spanish mackerel (again over a metre long).

Home straight

As we came up round the top of Sumatra to cross over east to Thailand we had to cross the beginning/end of the Malacca Straight's (the equivalent of the M25 for container ships). In darkness my watch happened to coincide with the busiest section. Other than the stormy stormy night it was the scariest thing. At point there would be 8 container ships all around you, you have to try and work out where they're going and if they'll hit you. One came within a 1/4 of a mile of the boat, we literally would have been crushed if it was on a slightly different course.

Finishing up

So made it into Thailand a fair few days behind schedule. Despite only having a few hours in Phuket I think I pretty much managed to eat everything, then flew to Singapore, had a Singapore Sling at Raffles Hotel then finally boarded my plane home.

And here I am sitting at 10 Goldney Avenue on the remains of my final day of travelling. I'm exhausted and have definitly written to much, I hope you didn't worry too much. Thank you for reading,

Love from Grace

P.S I will put some pictures up in the next week or so, promise.

Last stop in Aus

After leaving the girls in the hands of a random couch surfing host in Brisbane I boarded my plane up to Darwin. I know you've all probably heard it before but the size of this country still amazes me, Brisbane over to Darwin is longer than flying the length of Europe. Anyway, I've had a very fun week up in the Northern Territory, being on my own again has opened up a lot of random opportunities so heres a few.

Australian football

Waiting for a bus back to my hostel I overheard a group of people saying they had a spare ticket to a football game (I assumed standard english soccer). I asked in my nicest english accent whether I might be able to take it off my hands. One hour later I'm standing at the Darwin stadium with a donated Bulldogs football scarf around my neck watching Melbourne Bulldogs vs Adelaide Port Power. Turns out Australian football and English football are two very different sports. Aussie football is played on an oval pitch, has a similar ball to american football and you hit the ball to each other like volleyball but then score points like rugby. Good game to watch and my new team (Bulldogs) won so all was good.

Jet skiing

After putting a few messages around on couch surfing one local (Frank) offered to take me out on his jet ski for the day. Went all around the Darwin harbour, tried to spot some crocodiles, watched an old Aussie sheila doing renditions of Amy Winehouse in a bar on the other side of the harbour. I had a go at driving and hit 110km/hr, turned a corner a little to sharply throwing the local straight off the back.

Mud crab

One of the local catches out in the harbour are mud crabs. After a night out on the town with some pearl harvesters another local (Irish Paul) offered to buy me a mud crab. Next day I took him up on his offer, along with some donated Red Emperor me and Welsh Ruth cooked up a seafood feast. Crab and fish were exceptionally good.

Other than that I've been working on finding a way out of this lovely country on a boat. And I found one. Originally I planned to travel on a rally of about 100 boats up north to Indonesia. However, I was introduced to Michael Moloney who lives and sails a 42ft catarmerang called Shayler. Hes not actually on the rally. We will be heading out on Saturday morning and will be sailing up the Thailand via the Ashmore Reef (4 days to reach here) then Christmas Island (7 days) and finally up round the top of Malaysia (10 days) to Phuket, Thailand.

It's going to be a very very long journey but when else in life do you get to hop on a 3 week long sailing trip. I've stocked up on books, dvd's, chocolate, vitamin tablets, got a whole hull of the ship to myself complete with double bed and ensuite...living in luxury compared to some of the backpacker hostels in Aus. We've stocked up on several trolleys worth of food and it seems pretty certain we will be catching some huge tuna for dinner along the way. I had a tuna sushi lesson with American Ruth and Tim aboard their catamerang last night so that will be fun to try out when we're cruisin.

Won't have internet until Christmas Island so expect an update in a week or so,

Love from sailer Grace x

Sunning ourselves with excessive goon consumption

Well well well, what a lovely week or two we've been having. Today is my last day with Ro, Ray and Ju, the mighty mighty 4 is soon to return to 1. Since Sydney we've flown up to Cairnes and made our way down to Byron Bay so...

Cairnes
Stayed in Gilligans (the party hostel) where the reception area smells of the acadamy after Ramshackle - stale beer. Continued drinking lots and lots and lots of goon which lead to dancing on a bar with some rather toned and beautiful ladies, Mum you can send me to the nunnery as soon as I home.

Whitsunday Islands
I.E. lush. Spent 3 days aboard an 85ft yacht called Boomerang. Had a little go at steering and winching the sails up. After much budgeting in Aus we were treated to meals that actually contained meat which was very refreshing. Watched yet another cracking gap sun rise whilst cruising to the heavenly Whitehaven beach with a cuppa in hand. White Haven beach was very close to quintisential paradise but still think that Zanzibar's beaches are top of list. We met made friends with 2 english girls Romy and Sophie, they've actually been proactive enough to put pictures onto facebook so make sure you take a look if you can. Don't know about you lot but when I was a kid my favourite book was called The Rainbow Fish and when we were snorkelling I actually saw one which was very cool.

Fraser Island
So for all the geographers out there Fraser Island was formed by LSD (IR people remember that Athena comment?!) coming up the east coast to form this massive (biggest one in the world) island of sand. It's 70 miles long and has tropical rainforests and the clearest most beautiful freshwater lakes all over it. We travelled around the island in a 4x4 convoy with 24 people and me Ro Ju Ray Sophie Romy Rose (also from england) and our german driver Michael were in car 4 - the best car. The trip comprised whale spotting, stop offs to stare at beached turtles and mantarays and quick dips in the amazing lakes.

Byron Bay
Definitly one of my favourite places so far. Only a quick stop over but we went out on the town last night after playing a huge game of flip cup. Met a guy from the under 21 French rugby team called Francois. Cooked the best risotto last night as our final meal, 1 and a half months now before I will be seeing my lady's beautiful faces again. And today me and Ray went surfing. I reckon we were actually quite good, stood up and everything but there were the occasional moments when a 5 year old kid would cruise past whilst you're half drowning in the salty shallows.

Anyway, I've written a little more than I should. Tonight I'm catching a plane up to Darwin, completing my tour of every airport in Australia, and hopefully I will be able to find a spot on a sailing boat to Indonesia.

Love from Grace May Perry Coppplestone.

Reuniting downunder

With quick stops in Dubai and Kuala Lumpa I made my way through many airline meals across a fair few oceans. So all of a sudden I'm on the other side of the world in a place where our queen appears on the coins and everybody speaks english. It's almost as if I'm home in Bristol, we're even experiencing bitterly cold winter winds. However there's no drum and bass or cream teas so it's not quite home.

Melbourne
Started in Melbourne with a Mauricio (work friend engineer from Parsons Brinckerhoff). Stayed in his beautiful house in the plush suburb of Ivanhoe. Went for runs along the creek with his dog, baked a lemon drizzle and rode his vespa scooter around the grand prix circuit in the city. Thank you Mauricio for letting me stay! Big culture shock coming from Tanzania. It's amazing how nice it is to have clean water from the taps, roads without pot holes, the english language and warm loverly showers.

Then biggest news...greeted Ray (Rachel), Ro (Rosie) and Ju (Julia) having flown in from various corners of the world. It put the biggest smile on my face seeing my beautiful best ladies friends emerging from the bus and we've been having endless banter and fun ever since.

In Melbourne we climbed a very big tower, ate the lemon drizzle and had a magnum gold. (Ju and Ro introduced this delicious ice cream into my life and along with the custard apple I think it will be forming a significant part of my university diet.)

Sydney
Went on up to Sydney which is very cool and happening. Staying in the cleanest hostel I've staying in so far. (Wake Up incase anyones already been here) We've been cooking proper healthy meals Mum (salad and all). Went and watched the dissappointing England defeat, shame they went out because I wanted to wear my England shirt a little more. Went on a big night out fueled with lots and lots of cheap aussie wine (called goon here) and today we went on a little day trip to some mountains. Basically I couldn't be happier at this moment in time, we're heading up to Cairnes on Friday. Hopefully to a little more sunlight and heat and beach fun.

Hope alls well with everybody. I hear Bristol's starting to fill up again, don't have too much fun before I return and try and make sure the sun keeps shining for when I fly in.

Love from Grace x

The island of spice and all things nice

Zanzibar has been absolutely lush. We (Me, Nick, Dave and Nick's 2 sisters Anna and Lucy) started in Stone Town (mini capital). In keeping with tradition we kept up a constant diet of fresh delicious seafood. We headed into the markets and hunted down 5 realistic England shirts and many metres of beautiful african material.

4 clear events stick out on this island so I'll try and describe them (briefly)

1. England's opening match
We were based at the northern tip of Zanzibar for england's opener, we headed down the beach to a recommended local bar, 2 english supporters dressed in red fake england shirts with a big red cross on each of our faces. The bar was empty so we made the decision to RUN 3km to another place along the beach in the 25 minutes before the match began. We arrived, after being chased by dogs and stamping on coral and starfish the sweatiest people in the bar but I feel we showed true patriotism that evenin, shame about the score.

2. Crab search
In the north of Zanzibar decided I wanted some crab. We went on a wander to the fish market up the beach but it was closed. So a local guy took us through the winding alleys of the maze that is the village of Nungwi. After trying many places we ended up some guys front yard where 2 deep freezers sat and at the bottom of one sat a freshly caught blueish pink lobster. We had to go (me lobster in hand) to the local football pitch to find the lobster owner. After some bargaining I got it for 5000 Tanzanian shillings = 2 pounds 50. Cooked it with ginger and garlic, gert lush. (And didn't even get ill from it!)

3. Shooting Star
Stayed in a luxury honey moon hotel thanks to the generosity of Nick's dad. Me, Anna and Lucy shared a mini castle and spent the last evening taking a roof top, sun set bubble bath. The food was incredible and in Nick's words 'literally made you sigh with pleasure from every bite'. Loads of fresh fish and the best chocolate mousse ever.

4. Spice/fruit tour
If any of you ever come here make sure you do a spice tour. We ate ginger root straight from the ground, pepper corns from the vines and star fruit from the tree. Had a mini fruit tasting session my new/equal favorite fruit (after the custard apple) are the seeds of the cocoa bean, try it, their immense.

So that's it for Zanzibar and Africa and Nick and Dave who will shortly be flying down to South Africa for a little bit of football. I'm heading to Melbourne tomorrow to join Julia D-A, Rosie Gosling and Rachel Read for some FUN.

Love to all, Grace x

Just a quick post (more will follow). If you a participate in this new fangled "facebook" craze you might like to take a peak at Nick and Daves world tour - http://www.facebook.com/home.php?#!/group.php?gid=270210229910&ref=ts. There's updates of our adventures from Nick aswell as a few crackin pictures.

Love Grace x

Beach excursions

Mambo jambo all,

Firstly I hear you've been having a little bit o' loverly weather so I guess I can't do to much boasting about that side of things but anyway. So I have spent the last week or two on beaches in Kenya and Tanzania and it has been lush.

In Tanga, northern Tanzania I made friends with a Tanzanian rasta man named Mashaka. He worked down the local yacht (a word which africans cannot pronounce to save their lives) club in proper copplestone-perry fashion and managed to get me aboard a Belgium Eric's dhow, a traditional african fishing boat. We went out all afternoon, i steered and tacked and everything. Mashaka got a kid to deliver a fish on his bike to the hotel. Cooked it in the kitchen with tomatos and onion, very tasty dish.

North of Mombasa I had a go at fishing. Fished from a restaurant on the water and spent the day 'reeling off'?? not so good with all the terminology and drinking very many (too many) Tuskers (BEER). I caught a little white snapper, very proud moment and a very tasty fish.

Lastly, met up with Nick, Anna (Nick's sister) and Dave and sepnt 6 days in another of the Kenyan Wood's beautiful houses at a beach called Tiwi on the south coast of Kenya. It was pretty much paradise, beautifully designed huge house with 4 double rooms, white sand palm tree'ed beach, swimming pool + slide, caves with bats for our last meal and an immense cook to cook us the most delicious meals. The menu included fresh tropical fruit salads, curries, pizza, quiche, I'm sure a lot of you will be uninterested by this list of food but it literally was amazing. Had red snapper (didn't look or taste like a goldfish mum) caught and delivered fresh.

Sadly we had to leave Tiwi, took a mammouth journey all the way to Zanzibar. Just about to go exploring and hunt out a perfect bar for all the football to come.

Love Copplejiwe x