back again!!

Feeling inspired to blog again after a 'little' break. Right now I'm on Pelcian, a 65ft research sailing catarmaran. We are nearing the end of a 8 day project working with a film crew shooting a penguin doco mainly around the Wilsons Promitory coast line here in Victoria. Unfortunately the only penguin filmed was a dead one that floated past us :( We have been to a Rockery on one of the little Islands off the coast and saw where the little guys live but conditions weren't suitable for filming. They are quite elusive little guys and being a documentary film maker must be one of the most patient professions around. Rory the main doco guy has travelled extensively in his field and spent 3 months filming for 'Happy Feet' in the Antartic. He has some great tales to tell like jumping over crevases in Ski-doos!

Being the multi-tasking kind of a guy I am, my main role has been..wait for it...'The Chef'! Not my normal gig but hey if i can't be in control of the boat (need extra licences for Aust) then at least I can be in control of the galley...Hmm makes me sound like a control freak..Anyway..Yeah a really important job though! Creations to-date have included home made pizzas, including base, curries, roasts, Greek Salads, nori rolls etc...So far have managed not to run out of anything! I think the hardest part of the role is provisioning as we have only been in a port once since we left, though 'Washpool' really only has 1 pub and a fish and chip cum convieance store that was closed when we were there. Speaking of Washpool, we were hoping to go to the pub on a Sat eve after spending a few cold and rough days at sea to find that it was locals only allowed inside. So we had to get takeaway drinks and sit outside in the driving wind and rain like naughty kids. The morale of the story - don't go to the Washpool pub at 11 on a sat night! Anyway I digress, there were 11 of us at one onboard at one stage but have had 7 for a few days now.

Well it might be summer in the rest of Australia but it has been winter down here. On our first night out of the 'heads' (the entrance to port phillip bay) we had up to 40knt gusts and 5 seas with temps under 20deg. Unfortunately I forgot to pack my sea legs and had the worse sea-sickness I have ever had! I could not move without throwing up. Forget about cooking dinner! Luckily one of the other crew Raf saved my butt in the galley. So far we have had one only one day that hasn't been blowing over 20knts . Yesterday we had a fast sail (avg 9knts) back from the prom to the heads (90 miles) and had a competition to see who could clock the fastest speed hand steering the yacht down waves. I clocked 16.4 knots but the autopilot took the record at over 17knots. There is nothing like catching a wave on a 65ft surfboard! Then last night the winds dropped right down and it was a magic moonlight sail for the last 20 miles or so.

So there are 4 of us crew. Garry the skipper, Raf the mate, Colin the deckhand and of course me. Then there are 3 film crew. Rory on the camera, which is worth 150k including the underwater housing which is custom made and worth 40k, his son Che who is a commerical diver and acts as sharklout while Rory is filming and Ben who occasinally dives, a general assistant and films the topsides on a second camera. Pelican has a 'beach' which is basically a 9' x 6' platform on the stern that lowers into the water and is what we launch the guys off. The guys usually do 3 dives a day with all the gear. As crew we help the divers gear up and get the camera in the water (it takes 2 of us to lift it).

While we haven't seen much in the way of penguins we have been to some pretty amazing seal colonies on the little islands off the coast. On some of them there have prob been 1000's of seals all sunning themselves and generally having a good time. The smell is something else and u can usually smell the islands quite a way off!

So today is the last day of the shoot and we are in Port Phillip Bay. The crew are using a spotter plane to help local 'Bait Balls' - large schools of small fish that attract penguins. Hopefully today will be our lucky day to get some penguin footage. Regardless the crew are doing a second shoot later in the year when conditions are meant to be more favourable.

Enjoy the pix and hope to be bloggin soon!

Damon.