Moving on S16:32:161 E117:32:155

Superted V
Jean & Matt Findlay
Sun 30 Aug 2015 00:46

Passage from Broome Australia to Cocos Keeling

 

Well we’ve finally left Australia!  I think we’ve given it our best shot.  We arrived in Sydney on 28 October 2014 and left Mermaid reef (160M WNW of Broome) on 29th August 2015 – 10 months covering a total of 5700 nm from Sydney down to Tasmania and then back up the east coast, across the top to Broome and out to Mermaid reef in the Rowley shoals – it’s a big country!  Apart from a few sea snakes, 2 land snakes and a lot of crocs, we’ve not seen much in the way of real nasties – got bitten quite often by sand flies and mozzies though. 

 

So we’re now on the first leg of our passage across the Indian ocean – to Cocos Keeling – about 1300 miles from Mermaid reef.  We’ll be making a daily position report (weather permitting!) on mailasail as usual at:

 

http://blog.mailasail.com/sy-supertedv

 

But as a bonus here’s the first one!

 

Day 1

 

After 2 days of playing about in gin clear water, we left Mermaid reef at 08.30 on 29th August (local WA time).  Not much wind forecast for the next few days but we have to leave sometime!  We set off with 7 knots of wind from the SW.  Seas flat with a swell but with a long period so we didn’t feel it much. Fortunately most of the day the wind has been forward of the beam so our speed hasn’t been too bad – around 5 to 6 knots on port tack.  However in the night it dropped right off so we were down to 1 -3 knots for a few hours – so that’ll bring our daily average down!

 

We’re back in that beautiful deep royal blue inky sea – haven’t seen it like this for a long time (maybe it’s Indian ink – ha).  It’s a full moon so the night is bright – good thing too as we discovered our tricolour isn’t working, though we have plenty alternatives.  Had dolphins bow-riding in the moonlight – very ‘Disneyesque’.  The trading between Oz and China seems to be booming – picked up on AIS about 6 cargo ships going south a few hours ago and now abut 5 cargo ships going north to China.  The seas have picked up a bit this morning with more of a swell but still relatively comfortable.

 

24 hours miles: 131

 

Position at 08.30 – 30 August (GMT+8):  S16:32:094 E117:32:155

 

 

 

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