15:09:825S 89:26:179E Cocos-Mauritius
Shaya Moya
Don & Susan Smyth
Thu 2 Oct 2014 09:41
|
After a wonderful week exploring the beautiful
islands of Cocos Keeling it was finally time to depart this tropical
paradise.The skippers briefing on Sunday was followed with a BBQ on the beach
hosted by the ARC rally organisers and prepared by locals Tony and Johnny who
were mentioned in the last blog.
   We were up early on Monday the 29th of September to
get the boat ready in grey and overcast weather that hinted at a wet start. Sods
law the wind instrument refused to work, so it was up the mast for Tom, the
youngest crew member.
Finally we were ready and we picked up our anchor
just before 10am and motored out to the start line between Direction and
Horsburgh islands. We were able to put ourselves in a favourable position at the
west end of the start line and were leading the fleet out for the start of the
2350nm(4500km) two week sail from Cocos Keeling to Port Louis in Mauritius.
    The Indian Ocean is the third largest ocean after
the Pacific and the Atlantic, divided into two parts by the equator with a
collection of sea's in the northern part and the large mass of ocean in the
southern part. It is a divided sea with the Northern Indian Ocean for the most
part a calm sea except for the occasional tropical storm. It also has two
distinct seasons where the change in direction of the prevailing winds make it
comparatively easy to cross back and forth. By
contrast the Southern Indian Ocean is rougher, especially towards the Southern
Ocean where it is hemmed in by Africa on its west end and Australia in the east,
both difficult turning points seperating the oceans on either side.
  Our passage is dictated to by the Trade winds that
blow across the Southern Indian ocean at this time of year from the east, with
either a bit on north or south component to it. This is a down wind passage so
we use a sail configuration called gull wing that means we have the mainsail out
on one side secured with a gybe preventor. This is a rope that holds the sail
out to the side preventing it form being knocked across the boat by wave action.
The genoa we have poled out using the spinnaker pole, on the opposite side to
the mainsail. This means that we can run almost dead downwind with some degree
of efficiency.
  The question of piracy is one asked of every sailor
venturing across the Indian ocean. Over the last year or so the incidents of
piracy has declined in most of the Indian Ocean. A joint task force of
International powers patrols the trouble spots like the Gulf of Aden and
Somalia. As we are crossing well south of these areas and well out in the Ocean,
we should not encounter any risk. As part of the ARC world rally we are
travelling in the company of some two dozen like minded yachts who can assist
with any emergencys within a few hours or at most a couple of days. We keep in
touch twice a day on SSB radio, reposting our positions and sharing weather tips
and assisting when equipment breaks down. We had
an issue with our freezer cooling pump packing up on us in the Cocos and there
were immediate offers of spares and assistence. Luckily we managed to fix ours
and are up and running again.
  Daily life on board when on a long passage consists
of watch keeping, fishing, maintenance, cleaning, washing and of course getting
together for the evening meals.We can just chill out, read or doze during our
off watch times. An interesting phenomena has been occuring quite regurely.
As soon as we prepare and sit down to our evening meal one or sometimes
both fishing rods go beserk. Everything stops (including the boat) as we land
the fish. Some we keep, others get away.
    Health and safety is very important to all of us on
board. We carry an extensive inventory of trauma packs, medicines, bandages and
even a defibrillator. We have luckily only needed it for minor ailments
such as rashes, mosquito bites, cuts and abrassions and of course the odd burn
on the stove cooking while being slung around by the boats
movement.
  On top of the life jackets and man overboard safety
devices we have a flare pack and two grab bags with all the emergency stuff we
would need in the unlikely event of us having to take to the
liferaft.
 We have been using the 3/4/5 hour system which
means that we are on watch individually for three hours at night and have either
4 or 5 hours off during the day depending on who got the 3-6am graveyard shift.
We have now just started with Ted and Roger doing individual 1,5 hour watches
with either Tom or myself on standby in the saloon or the cockpit, weather
dependant. We wear our lifetag man overboard alarms all the time we are on deck
and our lifejackets at night or in bad weather. Attached to the life jacket is
another man overboard device that will put a waypoint on the chart plotter that
is in real time so we can drive the boat straight back to the person.
  Twice a day we run the generator to charge our
batteries and make water. Our water maker can make 100 litres per hour, and with
a 1000 litre water tank we only need to top up once a day. This means we can do
the washing on calm days. Our 1000 litres of diesel is carefully nurtured as
without it we could not charge batteries or make water. This means we try to
sail all the time, only running the main engine when we are making little or no
headway.
  Right now Ted is dozing on his side of the bed he
shares with Roger. Rog and Tom are playing scrabble, and yours truly has just
finished writing this blog. All of this was interspersed with the fishing rods
abuzzing, lunch being served at that time of course, and me nearly losing my
camera memory card into the depths of the chart table instrument panel as I
charged up to slow the boat down in order to have a chance of haulliing the fish
in.
|