En route to Christmas Island
Anastasia
Phil May and Andrea Twigg
Wed 19 Sep 2012 06:30
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09:59.1S 109:29.5E 360 miles covered, 230
miles to go
Christmas Island is the first of two stops we make
on the way across the Indian Ocean, the second being Cocos Keeling.
Christmas Island is 600 miles from Bali and we stop there for 48
hours. Then it is another 600 miles to Cocos Keeling, where we stop for a
week. Finally we travel the 2,200 miles to Mauritius.
We did the bulk of the provisioning for the entire
Indian Ocean in Bali, but there is also a supermarket on Christmas Island
where we can restock on fresh stuff. Cocos Keeling is just a small
collection of islands with a couple of villages so, while we should be able to
buy some food there as well, what we can get depends on what is still
left on the shelves since the last supply plane landed (twice a
week).
This leg has been uneventful so far. There
were light winds at the start, but now we have 12 to 14 knots on the quarter
which is moving us along nicely. Anastasia's big sister (Catana 58 "1+1")
joined the fleet in Darwin and up to now we have been keeping within a few
miles of each other. The crew of 1+1 is not using a spinnaker which
means that we have a small advantage when heading downwind. This is
counteracted by 1+1's extra crosswind speed that comes with her being 6 feet
longer than Anastasia. Right now they are four miles ahead of us and doing
10 knots to our 9, so we are not going to be in AIS range for much longer.
Their handicap is 1.217 versus ours at 1.157 so theoretically getting to
Christmas Island within five hours of them is a reasonable result.
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