White Christmas!
Rhiann Marie - Round the World
Stewart Graham
Sun 12 Dec 2010 04:27
|
Sunday 12th December 1119 Local 0319
UTC
06:48.24S 114:02.04E
Selamat Pagi! I hope you are enjoying your Sunday
morning. We have had a hell of a night.
Before leaving Bali the Grib files showed we would
have a tough two to three days in the southern Jawa Sea. In addition there
would be a tremendous amount of squall activity and also localised wind effects
at the usual headlands, steep to shore sides etc.
And so it has been. Rounding the North East corner
of Bali we were hit by over thirty knots of wind right between the eyes. This
was justification for the literally hundreds of Balinese twin outrigger
colourful fishing boats pulled high up the black beaches at the foot of the
mountain and volcano sides.
As the wind acceleration zone eased behind us we
settled into 20 knots dead ahead. The sea was also short and uncomfortable.
However that was nothing compared to what we would get through the night.
Singapore was over 900 miles away and with fair wind and tide we might have
completed that as a four night passage. However that is a distant
dream!
Along the north coast of Bali fishermen build
bamboo rafts and anchor them - in some cases in more than 1000metres. The rafts
attract shoals of small fish underneath then, which then attract the big fish
which the fishermen come and catch. These are quite large structures
about five metres by four metres. They are topped with another bamboo
structure and laced with palm fronds to identify them. Fine during the day in
clear weather. Hopeless in the blackness of the incessant squalls we
are enduring and impossible, completely impossible to identify at night. If
it was flat calm constant radar attention and tuning would pick some of them up.
But with the amount of rain there is, the blackness of night and the steep seas
- no chance.
The reason I am telling you this is that to make
our way to Singapore at the moment I can take the shortest
"direct" offshore route and head straight into the worst of the
weather or we can take the longer route along the coast where the weather is
forecast to be slightly kinder but run the gauntlet of endless flotsam, small
fishing boats and the rafts where they are deployed. Of course the route would
also be longer.
I discussed the options with Trish and she elected
to take the heavier weather route, which I was happy with but had not
wanted to subject her to any poorer weather than neccessary and I had
already planned to follow the shore for a few hundred miles. However
staight into it, it is then.
As it was getting dark last night the wind was
building again and the seas were becoming short and steep. The wind was a steady
28 knots peaking at 35 in the gusts. Man, how we miss the trade winds. After it
got dark the motion and the slamming became
horrendous. I actually thought something was wrong with the boat. With the
slamming the whole rig was shaking, the rib was creaking and groaning on
the davits, the rudder was fluttering and sending horrendous sounding tremors
back up the steering to the wheels. We were also shipping water through
three hatches, down the mast and one other as yet unidentified place.
The decks were constantly awash in green water
rolling right over the top of the cockpit sprayhood and joined up bimini. There
was white spray and white capped breakers all over the place - not what I meant
when I said I was looking forward to a white Christmas! As the bows plunged
right under the water they rose on the next wave with a foredeck full of green
which cascaded aft exploding into white in the next backwards pitch! The
wave pitch was about 15m! Lumps were being thrown up all over the place, holes
were appearing for us to drop into, short breakers where thrown up to roll over
us and we were getting slammed by breakers from the side. For goodness sake what
ever happend to Christmas evenings by the fire with a wee fine malt? I wish
...
Well all that was fine but the whole ride felt like
we were skiing blind down a giant mogul field. We were getting banged from all
angles. I stayed up all night and persuaded Trish to take a couple of "stugies"
and head to bed - lee cloths and copious quantities of velcro at the ready
............. I grabbed twenty minutes sleep here
and there as I could.
The daylight revealed what was going on. We
had our wind driven swell hitting us square on the nose and these were running
short at about 15m pitch. Overlaid on that pattern was another whole set of
swell and waves at right angles forming a nice but very uncomfortable, bumpy and
very very wet grid pattern. Nice eh ...... so how's your bacon
roll?
With our wind settled into 20 ish knots again I
thought I would make a wee brew and have an oatcake ( for Trish - two kit kats
for me - come on now - I need the energy ).
Sensing something more than the tea was brewing
I poked my head up from the galley. I would have thought we were heading
into the black of night again. I rushed to get the canvas down and managed
just in time. Bam! Straight up to 35knots. Fine, but that built over the next
minute or so to a sustained average of 43knots, peaking at 48 knots. I
nearly spilt my bloomin' tea.
Trish has been taking it as well as can be expected
and so far has been
staying positive.
|
