April 30, 2002

We have arrived at Lady Musgrave Island at the south end of the Great Barrier Reef. The weather has been lovely, but not accommodating to our purposes.

We were thrown out of New Zealand on gusts up to 40 knots but as soon as we were well out into the notoriously bad Tasman Sea, winds dropped to under 10 knots for 6 days. We motored, we ate, we motored, we read, we talked, we motored and stopped twice to swim in 2-mile deep water.

Along the way, we decided that our first stop in Australia would be for a little rest at Lady Musgrave Island, known for its coral, fish, and sea turtles. With the very calm weather we were sure to have excellent diving.

One day before arriving, the winds picked up to a pretty steady 30 knots with some gusts over 50 knots. With only a reefed main, we were sometimes exceeding 10 knots.

Well that made some exciting sailing, but those winds are not good for snorkeling or diving. We are now pitching and rolling on anchor at Lady Musgrave. We hoped to anchor inside of the submerged lagoon and do some diving, but the winds make the diving poor, and the winds make anchoring inside dangerous, so we anchored in the lee of the very small island. We went snorkeling outside of the lagoon and saw beautiful stags horn coral, loads of fish, and Anders saw a few sea turtles. Lady Musgrave is a coral lagoon with a very small, uninhabited (except for a few campers) islands about 35 miles from the mainland. It sits right on the edge of the bottom end of the GBR, so it is not as protected as the inner reef.

On the Tasman Sea crossing, the new crew did very well. They did better than the old Cosmos Crew members who both suffered some real sea sickness. The new guys did most of the cooking in the rough seas which was a big help to those of us with "higher sensitivities."

The makeup of the Cosmos crew is about to change. Anders Toren met a woman named Margareta a few weeks before joining the Cosmos crew. He and she have made arrangements for her to meet us in Mackay where we will clear customs and she will sail with us to Cairns. When we get to Cairns, Margareta will leave the crew, and Hilary Peabody will join for the sail from there to South Africa. Women crewmembers are completely new to the Cosmos circumnavigation. Watching the previously all male crew members behavior with a woman on board might get interesting.