Sail with us on a 46 nautical mile passage amongst Australia’s Great Barrier Reef when the weather forecast said mild conditions but the sea decided otherwise. Sailing north from Great Keppel Island, we experience unexpected high wind gusts and big swells. Our bluewater, Whitby 42 ketch is laid flat before we decide to make for our bail out option anchorage to take shelter. No smooth seas under sunny skies in this episode.
All music by Epidemic Sound.Rob and Karen Oberg spent a year and 7,200 nautical miles crewing on other people's boats in SE Asia and Europe before cruising the Med for 2 seasons with crewmate, Marc Beerts, on a Jeanneau 43 DS, Alcheringa (Alcheringa is an Australian Aboriginal word meaning 'The Dreamtime'). On returning to Australia they acquired a Whitby 42 ketch, renamed her 'Our Dreamtime' and after cruising Australia's Great Barrier Reef extensively are now sailing in SE Asia. Total sea miles to date = 24,273 NM.
Dreamtime Sail
Friday 18 December 2020
Laid Flat by wind & wave - 2020 Ep 10 – Knocked down when we least expected it
Friday 4 December 2020
The Best and the Worst of Great Keppel Island
We spend a week on Great Keppel Island enjoying glorious weather and some of the best beaches in the world. We catch monster mud crab and get to grips with a few boat jobs. In ‘Our Galley’ Karen shows how she makes awesome Fish Tacos for lunch and after a month of isolation afloat we finally socialise with other cruisers in our Covid-19 quarantine bubble before a major State Government announcement has everyone preparing to start sailing north into the tropics. Then the wind turns.All music by Epidemic Sound.
Monday 30 November 2020
Podcast: We were interviewed by Ipswich Today to reveal our past, present and future.
Thursday 26 November 2020
Sailing in Paradise - Episode 8
With a gorgeous sunrise as the backdrop, we depart Lady Musgrave Island to make our way north to Masthead island before a change in the weather forecast sees us reconsidering our plans. Light winds hamper our sailing but the marine life around the reefs continues to impress.
Make sure to watch through to the end where in ‘Our Galley’ Karen shows you how simple it is to make beautiful sushi rolls on board. It’s so easy even Rob could do it.Affiliate Program Explained
In this blog we would like to explain our Affiliate Program and how it works. It is really just e-commerce, with us being the middle-man. The promotion team, the advertising team or many other titles that we could be given. But to put it bluntly if you click on one of our affiliate links and purchase that item we will receive a small commission.
So are we just trying to sell you something! Well only if you want the product that we recommend. Many affiliate programs will have everything listed including the kitchen sink. In our case all the items that are listed we have onboard. Those that we recommend we have purchased ourselves with no freebies or discount was given other than what you yourself would of received by shopping around. The items that we recommend are the ones we know are perfect for our lifestyle onboard they may cross over to your life as well, like our insulated coffee/wine mugs. Now if you just clicked on that link and purchased we would receive 3.5% commission on your purchase. It is at no extra cost to yourself the purchaser.
Simply put, affiliate programs, also called associate programs, are arrangements in which an online merchant Website pays affiliate Websites a commission and are paid according to a particular agreement.
Some arrangements pay according to the number of people who visit the page containing their merchant site's banner advertisement. Basically, if a link on an affiliate site brings the merchant site traffic or money, the merchant site pays the affiliate site according to their agreement.
In 1996, Jeff Bezos, CEO and founder of Amazon, popularised this idea as an Internet marketing strategy. Amazon attracts affiliates to post links to individual books for sale on Amazon, or for Amazon in general, by promising them a percentage of the profits if someone clicks on the link and then purchases books or other items. The affiliate helps make the sale, but Amazon does everything else: They take the order, collect the money and ship the book to the customer. With over 500,000 affiliate Websites now participating, Amazon’s program is a resounding success.
Over the past few years, affiliate programs have grown enormously in popularity, taking many interesting forms. For many Websites that don't deal much in e-commerce (selling products or services online) themselves, functioning as an affiliate is a good way to participate in e-commerce.
For us it’s simple we get asked regularly what radios do we use, what cookware we use right down to what lipgloss Karen wears.
It's Beauty Friday - all week long! Selected cruelty-free beauty essentials are discounted 50% OFF! As an extra special treat receive a FREE LED Mirror compact with all orders over $100 (after discount is applied) Simply add your favourite products to your basket, and enter the code BEAUTYDAY at the checkout. *Excludes Limited Edition Kits, Duos and Pre-Discounted items. Ends midnight 30/11/20. Free LED mirror is available while stocks last and is only available to orders over $100 (after discount is applied and minus value of free gift).
There are three ways you will see us promoting products. On Instagram you will see us use hashtags and on our profile we have a link to our affiliate page. On Facebook we have a store on both Dreamtimesail and Our Galley. The blog you will see links and banners that take you to that merchants site or directly to the product. We hope to develop a page that you can easily checkout our recommendations. These are tagged links so they know which affiliate sent the traffic. Meaning that they know WE sent you there.
DreamtimeSail's store is all about sailing gear |
With our YouTube you will notice in the description a list of products seen in that episode tabled these links again will send you to our affiliates webpage/product. You can view all of these links at no cost.
If we receive a product for free we will tell you up front “we have received this product from ........ and we are doing a review”. That review will be balanced, we will tell you truthfully what we think about it.
So why do we do it. We had already decided when starting the blog that we would accept a level of advertising on the blog from Google Adsense. We have no control on what ads you see, that is entirely generated by your search engine. Now you would of seen these ads that run down the side of our blog. If you clicked on those ads and stayed for 4 seconds we will receive a payment. If you then purchased through those ads, we receive a very small %. We have had over 1/2 million reads on the blog and as today we haven’t had a payment as we need to reach $100 USD before they send us a check.
Our Affiliate Program is more inline with what we are doing. Products and services we believe in. If we can pass these details onto you, and you decide to purchase on your own terms that’s great and then we in return will receive a percentage for that purchase. It is another form of passive income for us to top up the sailing kitty. So next time you are looking for a product slip on over into our e-commerce world and see if we have recommended a product.
We hope that running an affiliate program doesn’t interfere with the information we provide you or the enjoyment of reading the blog. We just want to be transparent with our readers. Please let us know if it does interfere with your experience and we will change the way we deliver our associates message.
Cheers Rob and Karen
Affiliate Program Statement
Keep in mind that we may receive commissions when you make purchases from our affiliate program. This is at no extra cost to you. However, this does not impact our reviews and comparisons. We try our best to keep things fair and balanced, in order to help you make the best choice for you. We will tell you if they are an Affiliate Link. Following and above are some of the services and products we recommend and have an affiliation with. Cheers Rob and Karen
Technology and Camera gear onboard.
DJI Mavic 2 Pro is our choice in Drones
DJI Action Cam is our choice for on the go filming along with the Sony AX53 4K Handy-cam
for sound quality we use Rhode VMPRRode VideoMic and the Rode Wireless Go - Compact Wireless Microphone System, Transmitter and Receiver
Neewer Portable Aluminum Alloy Camera 2-in-1 Tripod Monopod Max. 70"/177 cm with 3-Way Swivel Pan Head and Carrying Bag for DSLR,DV Video Camcorder
Karen uses for her still photography the 200D Canon With a 18-55 Lens
We edit on a Microsoft Surface Laptop using Sony Noise Cancelling Wireless Earphones
Neewer 58-In-1 Action Camera Accessory Kit
Books we love
The Pacific in the wake of Captain Cook. A rich, complex and engaging account of
Cook's voyages across the Pacific.
World Cruising Routes: 1000 Sailing Routes in All Oceans of the World. Long established as the bible for long-distance cruisers and a bestseller for more than 25 years.
Cruising the Coral Coast. The essential guide to cruising the Queensland coastal regions.
This Is It - 2 hemispheres, 2 people, and 1 boat. They knew this moment would shape the rest of their cruising lives.
Of Foreign Build: From Corporate Girl to Sea-Gypsy Woman. After suffering an emotionally-brutal bereavement and against her counsellor’s advice, Jackie ran away.
From Our Galley
Backcountry Beef Mince. Dehydrated mice perfect for onboard protein a
Ways available in the pantry. Great for pasta dishes, nachos, tacos etc ....
Wasabi Powder, excellent to have onboard when fresh Wasabi is unavailable. A traditional Japanese condiment served with sushi, sashimi and soba.
This is a link to a MyShop that we have set up it will take you to a range of goods that we recommend the store can only hold 100 items at a time so we will be changing the products on offer regularly. As an offer to anyone purchasing through this store we have a COUPON for $10 off any purchase of $100 or greater , of course this excludes shipping. Use DREAMTIMESAIL10 in the checkout to receive discount.
Here is a link to all of our social media platforms, each of them are different showing different areas of our sailing life. Let us know in comment below what you think of our blogs, and ask any questions
Cheers Rob and Karen