Moris Island to Portland Roads
Gaviota
Thu 23 Jun 2016 03:49
12:35.566S 143:24.434E
Left
Moris Island 7.30am – the sky was black and clouds were building. Forecast was 70% chance of rain so we were
going to get wet. The wind was already
blowing so mainsail went up with 3 reefs in and the 2 genoas out on the same
side and we sailed a broad reach. Not
far out of Moris Island we picked up our first hitchhiker of this year’s trip –
a gorgeous fluffy cute and cuddly baby brown booby, it sat right next to me and
I stroked it’s feathers. It kept opening
it’s mouth for food but definitely wanted fish not the bread we offered. After a couple of hours it flew off, then
returned and having battled with the sails and the wind generator it managed to
adopt helming position. Eventually it
flew off and joined a flock of other seabirds who were busy fishing. From there on it was squall after squall, a
lot had rain in and some had a lot of wind.
The coastline regularly disappeared behind the black clouds and it definitely
did not look like the Tropics! We were
both soaked and though it was not cold it felt pretty miserable but as we
arrived at our destination for the night Portland Roads the clouds at last
lifted and we were treated to some late afternoon sunshine as we sailed in with
just the mainsail up.
Portland
Roads had been described as ‘prone to swell’- not what you want to hear after a
long wet sail but it turned out to be okay – only problem was our gas ran out
as I was cooking dinner and we only have a small amount in the spare bottle –
hoping the microwave will work as otherwise it is tins until we reach Thursday
Island (first stop with a supermarket).
