Slow passage
Boundless 1
Richard Clennett
Wed 14 Sep 2011 20:50
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25.52 S 158.01 E
Who would have thought the high pressure system would come this far north and we would now be sitting in the middle of it with 2 knots of variable breeze, no sea state and motoring at 5 knots since last evening??? After 30 hours of good sailing in 10-25 knots of southeasterly, this is a bit disappointing! It's one of the things about these longer passages, in spite of the best weather forcast, anything can happen! We used the services of "Commanders' Weather" for this last passage, as it is notorious for being the worst leg on a circumnavigation. This group comes highly recommended and in our brief experience with them, have been very professional and provided in depth information, very accurate in a changing situation. From the middle of last week it looked as if this high would give us favourable winds from Noumea to Brisbane, however the latest weather uddate yesterday was prefaced by 'looks like you will be motoring the last 2-3 days of your trip.". So, trying to turn a positive into a negative -
Richard's new mantra - we don't have to use the generator to recharge batteries,
we won't have to give any fresh food to quarantine because we will have eaten it
all, we will all get plenty of sleep when off watch - on an unusually
quiet, stable platform and the boat should be spotless for our arrival into
Brisbane, hopefully on saturday. Unfortunately then we will be greeted by
exorbitantly high Quarantine overtime fees to clear in (the captain can't utter
enough expletives to make his sentiments felt on this matter - definitely
not a positive!!).
We report in when on passage (on the HF
radio) to the "Pacific Reef Runners" Net, which we joined when in the Caribbean.
Boats in the group are now spread out between Nuie and ourselves (and another
Australian boat from Mackay who still have the benefits of the SE winds above
the high and will beat us to the coast)! It's always interesting to catch
up on the whereabouts of people we have met along the way.
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