Bali
Journeys of Aardvarc
Ed
Mon 8 Sep 2008 17:35
position 09:07.0S
116:21.3E
Hello
again.
We are 6 days
into our passage from Darwin to Bali.
Wind was very
light and variable at first so had to use the engine a lot. Winds have been
better the last few days so the initial slight concern re running out of fuel
has evaporated.
Weather is great
, 30 degrees by day 24 degrees at night, mostly clear skies.
Have been
navigating using my sextant..it is outstanding how accurate it is. Now that I am
getting the hang of it and all the calculations needed. That is the worst
part....night watches and reduced sleep, then trying to get your head around
spherical geometry. Fortunately the tables do most of it for you but lots of
opportunity for silly mistakes. All the same, it has worked, I have done two sun
sights a day for the last week. Each gives a line on the chart and where the two
cross is where you are...in theory... but because we have GPS satellite
navigation to check we can tell if the sights are correct...and nearly all have
been accurate to less than half a mile...which is perfectly good enough for
ocean passages. Thank you to all my partners for the sextant that was my leaving
present from the surgery. When I go home I can present my charts and plots to a
RYA examiner and take an oral exam that should lead to my becoming an "Ocean
Yachtmaster"
Yesterday morning
caught a nice Dorado ( Mahi Mahi). There are lots of fish around, caught a
small yellow fin tuna earlier in the week.
So last night had
Dorado stir fry...delicious...thank you Nick for all the tuition on Wok
cooking.
No photos this
time as we are at sea but hope to have some to upload from
Bali.
We expect to
arrive in about 10 hours time....another new place, very exciting..Indonesia is
a huge place , over 13000 islands and ranks 4th in the world for population
numbers.