Sailing around the World ( Presently at Sea, Between Bali and the Coco'S Keeling Islands )

A Lady
Stephen Hyde
Mon 20 Sep 2010 04:35
SUNDAY 19th  SEPTEMBER    2010   ( Day 6 )
 
Ohh no, we are still having trouble with the alarms, the blinking dept sounder is going off all the time.
There are very high clouds, and sheet lightning away to the east this time,
 
All the while, we are Goosewinging and the wind is getting lighter and lighter.  The sails are flogging as we roll like pigs in the swell,
I always say, this flogging must do more damage to the sails and rig , than reaching along in a 40knot breeze.
and sure enough, the spinniker pole twisted off the bottom 4" of the rail on the mast.  God what next,!
our bad at the office continues.
We rolled up the headsail, left the broken rail and pole on the fore deck and motored westwards. ( the wind 10  /  11 knots )
 
08.00hrs   Distance to destination...................................142 miles
The morning looked much better, and after a few naps, we were feeling much better,
 
09.00hrs  RADIO NET,   We were the net controllers for today, so we logged everyone's position and then skipper marked put it all down an his make shift charts, so we could see at a glance all our positions.  We were still doing very well, only one boat in front of us, that is " Destiny "
and we coulde see them on the horizon in front of us,( 6.9 miles ahead.) as we could see from the radar.
 
12.00 hrs  118 miles to go, The wind was now blowing at 20 knots and we had fixed the broken rail on the mast, so the blue spinniker
was now in operation and we were bombing along at 9 knots,  We were also making ground on " Destiny " ....... would we have enough
time left to pass him before the finish , which we expect to be around  02//  04  Hrs tomorrow morning,
 
Aileen did some sunbathing, Neil did some reading, keeping out of the sun and minding his lobster colour.
Neil also did his log book, as he is doing a " Yacht Masters Cert " at Ringaskiddy in Cork and needs the milage and experience
of a long trip before completing the course.
 
Dinner by Aileen consisted of Chicken Snitzels , plus creamed spuds, manderine sauce, and some green veg,
It was excellent.
 
Even though we were almost 1000 miles from bali, it was incredible the amount of rubbish and flotsom, plastic bags just under the surface,
rubber shoes,plastic bottles , babies nappies, and general garbage floating in the sea,,,,   It was like a big tip.
 
18.00hrs,  There were lot of showers passed us on both sides, but no rain on us, Maybe the Gods are looking favourably on us today
for a change, and the sailing was great, a steady 20  /  22 knots from the ENE, so we had a starboard pole and real pleasent sail.
we now had roped in " Destiny " to 2.75 miles as it got dark, but we had a 3/4 moon shining high in the sky , which always
makes night sailing ever so more pleasent.
 
23 .00hrs  We dreww level with Destiny, but he was 2 miles to the south on our port side, the excitment was good on board, you know
when everything is going well , and it was for us now,Our bad day at the office had suddunly improved big time.
 
The wind gusted up to 26 knots at times as we surfed down the waves, touching 12.4 knots at times, great sailing,
We were on the limits of what this blue spinniker will take, any more wind and it would just explode, and as the KITE
is in shreds, we cannot afford to loose this baby. We considered taking it down a few times, but greed prevented us from doing that.
 
Monday Morning,
01.57 hrs we crossed the finish line, 1 mile ahead of " Destiny "   We were delighted,  We were the first boat to finish again,  yipeee
We nibbled our way into the bay / lagoon and dropped anchor, got out the G& T's and relaxed for a while,  happy with the day.
20 minutes later, the radar went completly yellow with rain squalls, which duly passed over us, pouring rain and squalls of wind
gusting up to 62knots ( just for a few seconds )
 
Yeah !  the gods were looking after us today,  timing is everything, and we really got it right here,
 
 
Thats all........