Mentawais arrival.
Digiboat's "Product Testing"
Simon Blundell
Thu 31 May 2012 01:21
02:50.1026N
095:54.2325E
31/5
0800LT
After 2 days
and a nigfht at sea sailing down from Banda Aceh, we dropped anchor in the N bay
of Pulau Simuelue, the northern most of the Mentawai group. Quite straight fwd
sail down, some tricky conditions early as we fought the land breeze verse trade
winds convergence zone, but once clearly into the 14-18kn SW trades we sailed at
up to 9kn in a mostly favourable angle S and fairly mild sea
conditions.
Zac hooked a
small marlin just as we left previous anchorage, but his infamous Harrison Knots
(which he's been now trained out of doing with the boat lines and sheets - guess
time to start on fishing twine) just unravelled and my favourite lure swam
away.
Otherwise
little to report from the sail, easy conditions, nice sailing in fairly mild sea
conditions so no-one seasick or too
uncomfortable.
Motored last
50 nm or so as the wind had dropped off into the bay - more like a large natural
harbour really. The charts are about 400 mtrs out here so we came through the
narrow hbr entrance firmly over the land! Fortunately we had öld
school"technology - torches, eyes, and radar - so managed OK even as a storm
covered the moon and the rain scrambled the radar echos just as we're
approaching the tricky part!
Will pull
anchor shortly after a peaceful night's sleep and head to unchartered (or badly
chartered) territory in search of virgin surf...
SJB