Cocos Keeling
Eowyn
Sat 25 Sep 2010 06:06
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Éowyn is anchored at
Direction Island, Cocos Keeling in
position 12:05.496S 096:52.930E
Cocos Keeling is yet another bizarre place It is part of
Australia, even though it is almost 2,000 miles to the west of Aus. the
population of 500 or so are Muslims of Malay origin, looking very Malaysian but
with broad Australian accents. The only place we can anchor is called Direction
Island and it is a 45 minute hard dinghy journey to the first habitation on Home
island. The administrative centre is a 30 minute ferry ride further on. There is
really nothing productive here, the whole place is subsidised by
Australia.
Our first task was to unblock
the heads and this required replacing some pipe, kindly supplied by Dick
Craig of Tucanon, using a spigot from Joe Metz of Brown Eyed Girl. So awkward
was the job that 1 pipe connection took over 9 hours of labour by myself and
Mike.
The broken cooker gimbal is
being welded by arrangement with Paul Tetlow of World Cruising. Hopefully that
will be in commission by Saturday 26th. (Now mended)
On Thursday night we had a
great BBQ ashore with the crews of Thor VI and Kalliope.
Mike was diving on Friday but
the weather was foul with rain and 30 knot winds. We are hoping for something
kinder for our sail to Mauritius on Sunday.
UPDATE
Because the weather serves, we
are leaving Cocos on Saturday pm. The BBQ was deferred to Sunday, so we will
miss it and the prize giving, but there is a nasty weather system late next week
and we want to be as far away as possible!!!
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