Cocos to Chagos, position report 2
NORDLYS
David and Annette Ridout
Sun 10 Jun 2007 04:04
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Cocos Keeling to Salomon Atoll,
Chagos.
2nd
position report
10:03S 87:55E
1200hrs local 10th June
2007
Wind ESE 20/25 knots
temp 30C, Sea temp
28C
Humidity, god knows but very
high!
Just before we set off on this passage I read a
remarkable autobiography by Beryl Markham, the woman who amongst many other
achievements was the first person to fly from England to the North American
continent non stop. She also flew a small single engine aircraft no less
than 6 times between England and her home in Kenya. Far from being one
track minded she bread and trained winning race horses. All this in the
'30s. I mention her because she finished by describing how she returned to
her home finally by tramp steamer across the Indian Ocean. In beautiful
language she tells how the little ship appeared to be suspended in time,
quite motionless, and how it knew that if it just pointed itself in the
right direction the world would come round and thus it would arrive at its
destination. This morning with my backside bruised from hours of
perching on hard objects I sat propped on a cushion in the lee of the mast
escaping the tropical sun and thinking about the strange occupation of
sailing small boats across big oceans. One conclusion that
I certainly came to was that while Beryl Markham's description
might apply to a slow diesel thumping tramp steamer it most certainly does
not apply to a yacht. Motion and its by-products are everywhere to be
seen and felt. The sails billow and strain, the sheets creak, the spare
halyards crack inside the mast as the ship rolls back and forth. The down
draught from the boomed out genoa produces a million little stretch marks on the
skin of the sea and the bow wave moves back and forth from well forward of
me to somewhere abeam my position when she comes off a particularly big
wave just as a gust of wind hits her. We are running before a trade
wind of between 15 and 25 knots true, with the odd gust of nearly thirty.
One of these gusts came out of a blue cloudless sky last night as we
gybed. All went well. We have done it between us so many times we
hardly have to say anything to each other however the magic of modern
electronics says that the max speed achieved went up from 10.3 to 11 knots
sometime while this went on. In case you sit their in the comfort of your
studies with a cup of coffee that is safe and does not spill by your elbow and
think how silly they are to over canvas the boat let me tell you we have two
reefs and a half rolled genoa only spread to the wind.
As always Nordlys is looking after us very
well. For our part we regularly check for chafe, rarely finding any, and
we are seen with a can of lubricating spray dousing any object that may be the
source of annoying squeaks. Carol Vorderman says that anyone who only gets
satisfaction out of doing the super-difficult puzzles in her Sudoku
book can regard themselves as a experts. A by-product of long passages is
that I am apparently a sudoku expert. I have a feeling that this is a
little sad but I am not sure.
So to facts: our 24 hour runs have
been, 167/183/183 and we have 978 miles to go to
Salomon Atoll.
Cheers to our reader(s!)
David
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