Day Nine - At Sea

Where Next?
Bob Williams
Thu 23 Dec 2021 01:53
Noon Position: 43 49.9 S 147 17.3 E
Course: ESE Speed: 4 knots
Wind: SW, F3 Sea: slight
Swell: SW, 2.5 meters
Weather: mostly sunny, cool
Day's Run: 26 nm

I rose with the sun at 0500 Adelaide time and my first thought was that it would be a good idea to move into Tasmanian time, if only to get rid of the silly half hour time zone that South Australia has. A twiddle of few clocks and it was 0530.
I had enjoyed a good night's sleep but was impatient to get back to sea. Coconut is now some 700nm ahead of Sylph and enjoying fresh favorable winds whereas we are stuck in light winds. Perhaps it would have been sensible to have remained at anchor for another night, or at least until the wind filled in a bit, but it has been hard enough sitting still at anchor, no matter how necessary, knowing that the gap between Coconut and Sylph was rapidly opening.
Now this is just a friendly race, just for fun, and as Mark rightly says it will be achievement enough just to get safely around the Horn; however, my ultimate goal is to round the Horn in company with Coconut and to be able to take a few photos of each other, just for the record. The odds of pulling this off are extremely remote, but it would be the icing on the cake. So perhaps it isn't so much a race as a rendezvous., though I know Mark isn't going to wait for me so we had best catch him up.
Thus anchor was weighed at 0550 (Tasmanian DST), the main set and we motored out of Rocky Bay, hopefully a bit better prepared for the next bout of heavy weather. Initially we motored SSE looking for a bit of wind, which we found at 1000. Now we beam reach to a light SW'ly breeze, enough pressure in the sails to keep Sylph relatively stable in the residual SW swell, making four to five knots. The sun shines and black-browed albatross soar.

All is well.