Darwin to Kupang - The end
Jackamy
Paul & Derry Harper
Sun 17 Oct 2010 00:26
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10:39.417S 124:22.945E
Sunday 17th October
Days 2 & 3
We have wind! It started to blow on the
second day and continued right through to the end. This was fantastic news as we
could conserve our fuel and reduce the likely hood of having to deal with the
dodgy fuel in Indonesia. Waiting for a few days, although not our choice,
actually paid off as all the other boats who left before had to motor for the
whole journey without a breath of wind. Amy wasn't so happy though as the winds
brought cloud and squalls with no sunshine whereas everyone else had flat seas
with glorious blue skies. You can't have everything!
 We caught so many of these little
tuna. The line would only be out for a minute or so, maybe even less and the
little things would be jumping on the line. This poor little one had a bit of an
ordeal! Sat in the cockpit and Amy asked Paul what on earth he had on the end of
his line now, as he has been known to try and clean filters by attaching them to
the end. Instead this time it was a tuna, who hadn't even made the line squeal,
he just took a bite and gave up instantly and was bouncing on top of the water.
Rigamortis had set in and he had a burn on his skin from the friction. Poor
thing! We normally throw these back when they're still alive as they don't seem
worth killing to eat but we couldn't just throw this one back, so he was eaten
and wow was he delicious, the meat was almost white, just lovely!
 Our little birds are back,
always trying to find a spot to rest for the night. The flag pole didn't
last long, nor did the spinnaker pole.
 Their favourite seemed to be on
top of the biminy.
 Dolphins visited us a few times
which was lovely. We never tire of seeing them!
 Back again!
 This time he fancied being the
driver.....much to Paul's annoyance as he left his mark which was found in the
morning all down Paul's seat!
 Then we had one of the worst
storms Paul has ever seen. It was horrible and almost a force 9! We had to take
photographic evidence of the highest wind speed because Sheila on Miss Tippy
thought we were exaggerating. It lasted a few hours with very high winds, hard
torrential rain and very confused seas. Being trapped inside in the heat
during that was not pleasant at all. It was a wonder we didn't damage the boat
as we had the sails up still and watching the wind gauge we had winds of 25
knots which were fine but then instantly it went up to 41 knots and the sails
were almost in the water it was so fierce. At one stage we were doing over 8
knots with just bare poles alone.
 The nights were relatively
pleasant but the sunsets were lovely. There were a few squalls here and there,
some wind shifts and lightening every night but nothing major. It was actually
quite interesting to watch.....from a distance!
 When we neared Kupang, we
ceremoniously dumped the broken starter motor over the side.
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