Tin Tin's Sailing Calendar

Saturday 30 September 2017

Strong Winds!

The satellite picture showed a line of cloud ahead, and sure enough we reached it on the 28th of September and the wind picked up to mid twenties and then more. We saw a group of four fishing boats hurrying back the 170 miles to Indonesia, disappearing between the waves, and then briefly popping up on the crests.

That night when I came on watch it was gusting thirty, and we still had all sail set. I considered reefing while I had Mark there on watch, but we were going so well making 8-9 knots and there was no indication that it would get worse, so I foolishly held on to the mainsail. A couple of hours later it was clear that I should have stuck to the old sea dog's adage and reefed when I first thought of it as the wind was now 40-47 knots and we were overpressed with a top speed recorded of 12.9 knots. Justin and Mark tumbled out of bed on my call (they were ready to go as they could feel it all going wrong) and we dumped sail in big breaking seas. Once the mainsail was off, the boat was much more stable with the Genoa poled out to port and the staysail to starboard, running down wind towards Christmas Island. Amazingly the current at this point was 3.8-4 knots going roughly in our direction, adding 90 miles a day to the ground we covered.

The change in weather brought thunderstorms and rain, and bigger seas, with the long 3m swell from the south now added to by equal-sized wind-waves from the south east. Now on the 30th of September the wind has eased back to the mid twenties, and we are making good progress towards Flying Fish Cove on Christmas Island, which I expect to reach about midnight tonight. Occasional waves break over the deck and give us a wetting in the cockpit.

I have been in email contact with Dietmar on his beautiful blue Swan 55, Cesarina, who we met in Niue. They are in the World ARC and are now in Cocos and Keeling Islands. As planned we have now caught up with the ARC fleet, and are running a week behind them. They had a rough sail from Christmas Island in the Force 9 we experienced, and it sounds as though there is a lot of anxiety in the fleet about more of the same on the 2,350 mile leg to Mauritius. We will see what we get, and hope for the best. I feel confident in the boat, but it can be very wearing on the crew!

Wednesday 27 September 2017

Looking for Christmas Island

We are in that ocean passage phase, where days roll by in the cycle of on-watch - off-watch, cooking duty and sail changes. The wind has been perfect for the Parasailor spinnaker which drives us west during the day, with a solid steadying feel on the boat, damping the roll of the swell. At night however we have been taking it down and running under mainsail and Genoa to reduce the risk of having to take it all down in the dark if the wind gets up. The promised gale seems to have reduced in subsequent forecasts.

There have been intense flows of shipping passing up and down from Western Australia to the Far East with occasions with seven cargo ships passing within a mile or so as we cross the busy tracks.

At night there are groups of fishing boats with bright lights giving a glow to the sky from far off. We had to do some emergency avoidance the other night when one kept coming towards us.

Last night we saw millions of glowing things in the water. They start to glow if we shine a light at them and we amused ourselves by painting the sea with our torches and then admiring the dense patterns of glowing blobs glowing across large areas. I suppose that they are squid. During this we had the strange phenomenon that our boat speed showed only 1 or 2 knots, as though the squid were affecting the speed sensor, or even slowing us down as if we were sailing through tapioca. Meanwhile the GPS said we were still travelling at 5+ knots.

The joy of having a strong current going our way is that every day it adds about 30 miles to the distance covered. We have been puzzled in the Atlantic and the Pacific by the absence of the expected helpful currents, and works still having it against us most of the time.

I tried making a fishing lure from an empty metallised packet of coffee - looks good but no fish so far. Meanwhile our last big tuna catch has now been enjoyed as 1. breadcrumbed fried goujons, 2. Catalan Fish Stew, and 3. poached with ginger and garlic. Mark has excelled himself with coconut scones served hot at tea time.

I had the excitement of celebrating my 38th year of fatherhood and 10th year of grand fatherhood. Happy Birthday to Kate and to Ruth!!!

Monday 25 September 2017

Ashmore Reef

Large breaking seas announced the outliers of Ashmore Reef and, as we sailed along its northern edge, we could see the aquamarine of its shallow water beyond the surf. Through binoculars we could see strange knobs and bumps on the horizon, and a white pole. Bit by bit these morphed and resolved into recognisable shapes; a grey warship, the Wollongong, moored to a yellow buoy, the low shape of West Island and a single tall palm tree, a yacht mast, and three cute tubby Indonesian fishing boats at mooring.


Then red and green navigation buoys led us a convoluted passage across otherwise clear open water to a field of big yellow mooring buoys where we tied up. Having navigated other reefs before, it felt rather weird to be led a dance around coral heads through which I would have otherwise independently picked my way. But it certainly made entering and leaving easier!

Justin diving at Ashmore Reef
We lunched, snorkelled, visited the neighbouring French boat, Saba II, and spoke with Matthieu and Anne-Laure who have been circumnavigating with their young children and another family since 2014. They headed off towards Cocos islands that afternoon closely followed by us heading for Christmas Island.

But before that we visited West Island, with a fringe of vegetation above a dazzling white strip of sand. As we approached we could see that the beach had four dense groups of birds at equal spaces. At the left hand point there were terns and boobies, then a group of herons and egrets, beyond which a black mass of noddies, and further on a flock of sanderlings or something like that.

The lone palm tree on West Island
As we hauled the dinghy up the beach we saw massive turtle tracks above the tide line, and these led to great pits excavated under the bushes. Beyond the bushes, on which noddies had nested, we came to a dry plain on which the single palm tree grew. Beneath it were four graves, each with a stone surround, nautilus shells placed on the grave and a carved post in the Islamic style, with fading paint and writing. There is an MOU between Indonesia and Australia allowing Indonesian fishermen to continue their traditional fishing here and to visit the graves of their ancestors.

The three of us split up to explore and I wandered along looking for shells, and meeting tame boobies sitting on bleached white tree trunks on the beach which allowed me to get within hands reach before flying off. I spotted a notice board which proclaimed the area a nature reserve, and next to it a shiny stainless steel water pump stuck into the ground. It seemed a bit like a lamp post in Narnia, but a practical and lifesaving boon for anyone marooned here.


Taking the dinghy ashore

Graves of Indonesian fishermen under the lone palm tree

Booby takes flight

The marooned mariners' water pump

After a cup of tea and Mark's delicious drop scones, we refilled the tanks with diesel from our deck cans finding that we had used 240litres in 4 days motoring. Then at 17:00 we retraced our route out of the maze, and set sail for Christmas Island 1,020 miles to the West. The wind had finally picked up after 4 days of motoring, and as I write, a day later we are making 6.1 knots in the right direction, potentially arriving on the 2nd of October. The wind is forecast to rise to a gale in three days time, so we may arrive earlier.

Meanwhile our batteries seem to be behaving as they should, giving 12+ volts for a long time as they discharge. It seems that we have suffered from several substandard batteries which dragged everything else down.

Saturday 23 September 2017

Adrift in a Sea of Stars!

Our third day at sea with only the lightest zephyrs to fill our sails, while we motor slowly west. The nights are dark as the last thin orange sliver of moon sets early in the evening and rises at dawn, as do all the planets at present.

Last night, on watch till midnight the surface became glassy smooth, undulating slightly as the ghost of a distant swell slowly flexed the surface. Scorpio hung bright in the West, its curled tail and sting piercing the smoke of the Milky Way. Amazingly the reflection was as bright, but stretching and bending as it passed through the Hall of Mirrors made by the gentle rhythm of the ocean. Around us on all sides the reflected stars shimmered, stretched, fell apart like drops of mercury and then rejoined again for an instant to make mirrored constellations.

Justin came to relieve me at midnight but I stayed up for an hour enjoying the night, before going to sleep with the throb of the engine in the aft cabin. I'd been reading a book called the Memory Code, recommended by Tom, our guide In Kakadu to give insight into the extraordinary complexity of oral memory maintained by the aboriginal people through their "song lines".


We discussed this for an hour in the starlight. The mnemonic methods involve walking through landscape attributing stories and songs to specific points along the way. The songs encode detail about thousands of species of insects and hundreds of birds and other animals, classifying them according to their value to the tribe and with instructions on how to eat them, and which to avoid. I've used very simple mnemonics e.g. to remember ten items in any order, but had never tried the walk through method in earnest. One needs to pre-structure the walk into clear stages, such as centuries, before attaching events
or names to each place. It works well if you make the association lurid, hilarious, ridiculous or bawdy. Astonishingly one can then forget the detail until you reach that place again, at which point the unusual image leaps out and furnishes the detail without effort.


I remember suggesting this technique to Rebecca before an interview, and she used it to good effect apparently. Justin also recalled similar techniques he'd used to get through the MBA exams at Cranfield. As an experiment I am re-reading David Hopson's book, Beyond Reason, to encode the philosophers into a memory walk around the food storage lockers and underfloor spaces in the saloon.
So far Copernicus is in the battery compartment, which is the 16th century at battery four with his new theory in 1543 that the Earth orbits the Sun. Newton is set up with the rice and pasta in the 18th century, with a bar of seven colourful spirit bottles and their optics, to recall publication of his book "Optiks" dividing
the visible spectrum into seven, and poor Aristotle ("a bugger for the bottle" to quote Monty Python!) is on the bottom shelf of the fridge at 4BC which he shares with a crate of Hippos and a Kos lettuce to remind me of Hippocrates, who lived on Kos. I will have to see whether I can successfully encode all the information into the saloon lockers and still recall it later.

Technical matters; our Raymarine VHF 60 radio thinks we are near Japan. Not much use if I need to make a DSC distress call to summon aid. So having tried emailing Raymarine for assistance, I phoned them with the Iridium satellite phone, and got through to Portsmouth. Each call lasted 4-5 minutes before the signal failed. Each time Jo on reception would put me through to Spike in technical support. Once I got straight through. Thereafter I got lost in the queuing system listening to Spike's appalling choice of music! Occasionally I got through this and in fragments we diagnosed the problems over an hour, and finally this morning it was fixed! Extraordinary to be able to call for assistance like that!

Sea snakes seem to abound in the Indian Ocean. Mark and Justin had seen several, and today I was at last rewarded with sight of two, each about four feet long and quite two inches thick. The bodies seemed pale tan with light black bands on the upper surface. Their tails are flattened for easy swimming. Looking them up in the Marine reference book, I find that many are bottom feeders, nosing around cracks in the rocks to catch small fish. Others may lie around in clumps on the surface till fish congregate round the "debris" and are then suddenly snapped up. All are 50 times more venomous than land snakes. The sea kraits lay eggs on land, but the yellow bellied sea snake gives birth to live young, which then swim to the surface for their first breath of air.

Meanwhile the Australian Border Force are keeping a close eye on us. For the past two days a plane has flown low and interrogated us over the radio, whilst today a sleek coastguard vessel powered past at 20 knots without calling us.

Our soundscape changed while I cooked chilli con carne for supper. I'd bought a few CDs in Darwin to give some musical variety, including Leonard Cohen who I had really not listened to since the Fifth Form. Amazing how music can evoke a particular time, place and emotion......like the song lines I suppose.

Thursday 21 September 2017

Exploring the Northern Territory

Our time in Darwin wasn't all maintenance, as I wanted to make sure that we explored as much as we could within our time limits. So we booked a couple of tours; 1 day to the Litchfield and 2 days to the Kakadu National Parks. Both involved a lot of driving but "Damo" on the Litchfield Escape tour and Tom on the Kakadu Dreams tour were both entertaining and knowledgeable and kept the trip organised and on time.

Litchfield started with a crocodile viewing trip on the Adelaide River, with croc man Pat, whose huge beard, and wide brimmed hat immediately commanded attention, until you saw his large bare feet. His 4WD Toyota was appropriately numbered CROC 1. Our small group made its way in pairs across the swamp walkway to the waiting flat bottomed boat, where we were protected from leaping crocs by strong mesh. Pat took us up river to meet his friends; a series of female crocs guarding their river bank territory were enticed out to see us by chicken carcasses dangled on a string from a long pole. Then in mid-stream we met a nervous young male and later on were introduced to the mighty bulk of "Gnasher", a 900kg dominant male, named after comic book character, Dennis the Menace's dog. Apparently he could not detect that the boat was full of tasty humans, otherwise he would have been over the barriers in seconds! Meanwhile Pat held forth on the evils of the modern world, McDonalds and processed food, and the lack of connection of modern man to Nature. All very entertaining.
Nine Hundred kilos of Croc - "Gnasher"
 Once in Litchfield National Park we climbed hot rocky gorges to find wonderful waterfalls and pools at Florence Falls, and other sites. The landscape dry, but full of bird life, and stunted woodland.


Sketch of Darwin café under an ancient tree
We got back that evening to Mindil Sunset Beach Market, full of colourful stalls, delicious food and cool jazz wafting through the warm evening air. A frustrated circus act struggled to hold his audience despite astonishing feats including running around in the bridge position like a demented spider (for which he holds the Guinness Book of Records title) and then, after sword swallowing, doing multiple back flips with the sword still in place. Terrifyingly dangerous! I talked to him afterwards, and he apologised for getting cross with children who wandered into his arena mid-show, and complained that he hardly collected enough money to buy a beer. Somehow he needs to find a way to make a reasonable return on his astonishing skills.

West Wind Film
On Friday we had a rest doing maintenance again, but in the evening went to the Darwin DeckChair Cinema for one of the first events in the Darwin International Film Festival. The premier of the film "Barra; Westwind" was introduced by the filmmaker who had spent three years with the clan learning about their oral traditions. The clan then came on with their chief. Djalu Gurruwirri, to dance the West Wind dance before the showing. Sat in the deck chairs with cushions provided for the head, an ice bucket of cold white wine between us and a sunset memory of a hot curry from the theatre cafe it felt an idyllic way to watch a film. The story was emotive as old Djalu struggles to pass on his vital tribal stories, songs and dances to his son Larry. Larry is struggling to fit between the Balander (white) society and the Yolnu society, and takes his traditional yidaki (didgeridoo) music into performance with his rock band. It left us with a sadness that thousands of years of oral tradition will die with Djalu, and probably cannot now be carried forward for the tribe.


Next day we had another early start to Kakadu. 

Stopping at Fogg Dam for a sunrise view of the masses of birds there. Then a long drive in our 4WD truck towing the camping trailer until we lunched in a billabong under a searing sun. Onwards them to Maguk, where we climbed a hot red rock river gorge to swim in the Barramundi river pools, and for the braver amongst us ( Justin and Mark) to dive through rock tunnels. 

I sat sketching and then had trouble finding the group, resulting in lots of hot fast walking along trails before cooling off in the river again. 


The Pool in Barramundi Gorge
Barramundi Gorge


From there Tom drove hard to get to our campsite before sunset, and while he set things up we sat, cold beers in hand, and watched the sun redden the Arnhem escarpment, whilst I frantically tried to capture the scene on paper distracted by maddening flies crawling in and out of my ears, nose, eyes and mouth.

Arnhem Escarpment at sunset
Jim Jim Falls (dry season)

Thankfully the flies left us and at the camp we found a blazing with meat sizzling over the embers, and pots on the boil. We erected dome tents of mosquito netting, and with only 6 of us out of 17 possible there were plenty of mattresses to soften the ground. After supper we sat looking up at the stars, and then Tom played his digeridoo, and gave us lessons. He makes his own, and I considered buying one, but my abject failure to evoke the wonderful vibrant resonant digeridoo sound (unlike everyone else) meant that I didn't get tempted. I'll stick with the flute!

We rose at 05:00 next morning for a very rough drive to the spectacular Jim Jim Falls gorge, and after a long walk up to the pool were there as the sun rose to illuminate the red rocks. No water was flowing at the end of the dry season, and a croc in the pool put us off swimming!

Our final visit was to Nourlangie, where there are amazing rock paintings. I suddenly realised that I had seen these before when Anne and I visited in 2003 for our 50th birthday present. 

Very fascinating to learn more about the culture of the people, and how for millennia they have been managing the ecosystem to maintain productivity, encoding vast amounts of information in song, stories and dance ritual to maintain a deep understanding of the environment and how to manage it.

Another visitor recommended a book called The Memory Code which I subsequently read with great interest, as it dealt with using landscape and song to help maintain the tribal memory of many thousands of plants, insects and animals.



The Lightning Man, Nourlagie, Kakadu National Park
Back in Darwin we had a lovely encounter with Frances and Ted who have been sailing all their lives since children, and who invited us for a evening on their immaculate yacht Kaylie. Frances produced her beautiful log books, kept since childhood while sailing with her parents, and amongst them Justin recognised boats that he had met in 1977, during his circumnavigation.  (Sadly we learned, many months later, that they had decided to separate)

I also had a surprise meeting with Andy and Michelle Goss who were up from Sydney for a few days surveying the marina equipment. Andy recognised our Cornish ensign and we soon established that he, and his brother Pete Goss, had sailed their Newlyn Lugger, Spirit of Mystery, to Australia. A remarkable voyage, in memory of the original Mystery in which seven fishermen had set off from Newlyn to Australia to seek their fortunes in the gold rush of 1854.

I had then seen Spirit of Mystery last summer in St Mawes off Tavern Beach and had followed the original voyage. Pete has now bought a Garcia Expedition 45 to circumnavigate in, which I had been to look over under construction in Cherbourg. Small world!
Spirit of Mystery's route to Australia
Spirit of Mystery left Newlyn at 18:00 on 20 October 2008, bound for Cape Town, just as Mystery did in 1854.  The crew was Andy Goss, Eliot Goss, Pete Goss and Andy Maidment. She arrived in Cape Town on 25 December 2008 and left on 13 January 2009.  
At 09:30 hrs local time on 4 March 2009, Spirit of Mystery was hit by a wave which rolled her more than 90 degrees on her side. Although she righted herself, Mark Maidment sustained a broken leg in the incident. The boat's liferaft and dinghy were lost overboard. Spirit of Mystery was off Kangaroo Island and some 300 nautical miles (560 km) off the coast of Australia when the incident happened. 
Painting of Spirit of Mystery getting a hammering in the Southern Ocean by Gordon Frickers

This painting shows the type of Southern Ocean conditions that I am hoping to avoid!

The Top End

Having sailed hard to catch the strong tides past Cape Don and down into the Van Diemen Gulf between Melville Island and the mainland we eventually motored, but were still three hours too late. Nonetheless we got the last half of the 5 knots going in our direction, and then kept motoring hard to try to beat the flood. In the hot morning we could see mangroves distantly on each side of the Howard Channel and, now making almost no headway, we used our shallow draught to creep in close where the current was weaker, and eventually turned the corner and headed for Darwin.

We arrived at Cullen Bay Marina at 14:00 on 11th September, and squeezed over the sandbanks at low water to tie up on their very substantial pontoon. Here we had to wait for Biosecurity to pump pink liquids into every pipe to kill foreign molluscs. The next morning we were allowed in, and were given a nice berth close to the facilities and cafes.

We were sad to say farewell to Toby after his 2,711 nautical miles sailing since coming on board in Port Vila, Vanuatu and best wishes go with him for picking up with career and life in London.

Our time in Darwin was was mostly occupied with repairs, but we did have 3 days exploring the Litchfield and Kakadu National Parks. However our priority was first to get the mainsail repaired, track down spare parts and to get help with electrical problems.
 
  • Scott did a good job overhauling our mainsail, and reinforced the temporary patch from PNG
  • The chandlery found people to machine a new spinnaker pole attachment for Au$600, and supplied new Genoa sheets
  • After weeks of emailing beforehand, Rob at Wichard Australia put me in touch with Remi at Z-Spars, France who confirmed that they could supply the spinnaker part. In the end I got hold of the U.K. Subsidiary on the phone and it arrived on 19/9/17 by DHL for a total of £78!!! Luckily we just caught the chandlery in time as we found they had taken the initiative to get it manufactured without authorisation. 
  • Unfortunately the shipyard electrician was so busy that he missed his appointment with us. 
  • In desperation I took three batteries to Leila at Supercharge Batteries to be tested over the weekend. One turned out to be dead, so I bought another. This still left the problem of the bow thruster failure, but I found that the batteries were only reading 6.2volts. Clearly had not been charging! 
  • A yacht surveyor recommended a company and the following morning we had Colin from Fronitier Marine Services identifying a failed diode which was blocking the charge circuit. This was bypassed and seems to work fine. So the bowthruster batteries I replaced in Tahiti have never been charged, but had enough oooomph to operate once in Tahiti and once in Port Moresby before dying. Maybe that's why we had to replace in Tahiti?!
  • Meanwhile Justin hauled Mark up and down the mast dealing with replacement bulbs for navigation lights, and nylon sleeves for the Profurl swivelling mast track. Rob at Wichard had done a great job finding 4 of these discontinued parts and couriering them to us in time.
  • Finally we did a big reprovisioning of the boat to cover the next 6,000 miles.
  • However it wasn't all hard work, and I will make a separate blog about our impressions on Darwin and the Northern Territories.



Friday 15 September 2017

Watch "The Horror of the NightWatch" on YouTube

Here, rather belatedly, is my picture story drawn on the Atlantic crossing in response to a challenge by Rebecca

  https://youtu.be/5N8mNvclOaE
.

Thursday 14 September 2017

Wonderful outrigger canoes in Erromango

In Erromango I was delighted with the large number of beautifully made outrigger canoes. Children came to welcome us when we anchored but there was no pestering or any request for gifts.  Every household had a canoe and they were in constant use, out fishing with lines, or laying out seine nets.

Canoes are made from the large white-trunked trees seen throughout the forested hillsides. They are soft wood easily worked, and these days the slot is cut with a chainsaw before traditional adzes are used.. I was pleased to find that the outriggers are supported with grown "knees" using plants with an appropriately angled root.   The canoes are generally painted to preserve them, but we saw lovely new ones in fresh wood. Paint is something people would appreciate as a gift here..

Sunday 10 September 2017

New Year Island & the long blue sea-time of the soul.

We finally crossed the Gulf of Carpentaria and rounded Cape Wessel, that long low finger of aboriginal land pointing north like a knife. The wind had dropped to a steady 18-20 knots and we flew the Parasailor until supper time, hauling us along steadily at a great pace as we gazed at the sandy shores and low cliffs topped by the tall tower of the lighthouse. I'd contemplated flying the "kite" during the clear moonlit nights, but it's just as well we didn't as it blew up to 30+knots and it takes at least three to get it down safely.

We've now had a couple of days across the Arafura Sea with the wind forcing us south into the wide bay until it eventually went east and we gybed out towards New Year Island. It's quite entertaining to be sailing through a landscape of dates, some more memorable than others. Back in the Torres Straits someone even swapped the names of Thursday and Friday Islands so that they would run in sequence with the previous two days of the week.

I have just read "Any Human Heart" by William Boyd in 24 hours. Quite gripping and, on a different intellectual level, a bit akin to "The One Hundred Year Old Man who climbed out of a Window" in its parade of famous people that the central character meets though his life. The very personal insight into one man's hopes, loves, sexuality, mistakes, loneliness and death was rather voyeuristic, but left me feeling very bound up in it.

I have a sad feeling that if my life comes down to no more than a series of journal entries, then I should strive to make them as interesting as possible. Carpe diem.


 When occasionally penned, my private journal rarely dares to be as candid as his. But then it is not intended to sell as a novel. Rare attempts at exploring my feelings on paper leave me aware that I have sown a minefield which an unexpected reader would detonate. This blog is about as candid as I get, normally.

More to the point this reinforces my knowledge that what counts in life is not the journal entries, which provide for later revival of lost memories, but the vibrancy of family and friendships and how one contributes to them. So I apologise, to all who care for my company, for vanishing to sea for two years, and am intensely grateful to everyone who has been able come to share the Long Blue Sea-Time of the Soul aboard Tin Tin.

Thursday 7 September 2017

Across the Arafura Sea to Uncle Toby Island

We entered the reef strewn waters of the Torres Straits at night, rounding Eastern Cay in big following seas, and then welcoming the flatter water in the shelter of the Great Barrier Reef. I wasn't sure what level of shipping we would encounter, but in the event there were relatively few, and we sailed just outside the channel to keep clear.

As dawn broke we could see many islets around us, and passed Stephens Islet and wondered whether one of our seafaring relatives had been here before us. About midday Toby caught a large Wahoo on the line, and I decided to anchor at nearby Layoak islet for lunch, where we found a sandy bit through a gap in the coral. Calculating our remaining 75 miles I decided to stay there till sunset, so that we would arrive in Thursday Island at dawn.
Uncle Toby's Island, Torres Straits, Australia





Mark and Toby swam ashore, but I thought better of entering the water with my bleeding leg wounds in case I attracted sharks. In the last weeks two mosquito bites and two knocks to my shins have gone septic and horrible.....not something that has happened before on the trip.

Ashore Toby found a packet of oat and raisin biscuit washed up called "Uncle Toby" and so the island has been renamed in his honour! The bird life was interesting, with a hundred frigate birds motionless above the islet in the gale, whilst at sea level a similar number of noddys flocked low searching for food. Mark flew his drone and it was attacked by a white bellied sea eagle, getting some spectacular video of the bird. I watched the pair of Eagles fishing, and being mobbed by a cheeky frigate bird trying to steal some food.

We had a moonlit night sail and arrived at dawn as planned, sailing between Tuesday and Wednesday islands, and through a convoluted channel to reach Thursday. Here we anchored in strong wind and tide to await the officials and clear in. This all was very straightforward, but in anticipation of our fruit and veg being taken, suggested that Toby put a big pot of vegetables on to boil.

Once our quarantine flag was down we motored over to a more sheltered spot off Horn Island, and from there we caught a ferry back to TI. The town had a few shops and cafes, a new and high quality local arts and crafts exhibition centre, and a rather drab hotel overlooking the bay. Once we had replenished the fruit and veg stock, and had a few beers at the hotel we caught the last ferry back to the boat at 6pm. We were surprised to see a man sitting in a dinghy tied to Tin Tin and it turned out that he was a single handed sailor with a dodgy outboard motor. When it stopped he was lucky to float past us and grab on before being washed out to sea. He didn't have any oars...... and after two hours waiting was very grateful for a lift back to his boat.


Horn Island from Thursday Island

The following day we had a morning excursion to TI and enjoyed the exhibition of art, where I bought a print depicting the winds of the Torres Strait and a CD of local music by Seaman Dan. Then a quick dash to catch the 11:00 ferry before we set off towards Gove and Darwin. Looking around we saw such a diversity of bird life with Australian pelican, ibis, herons, darters, cormorants, plovers, terns in profusion. As we motored out I saw a long light brown body curve through the water and thought of a seal, but then realised it must be a Dugong! Toby spotted another a few minutes later.

The tides run fiercely here between the islands and we made 11.5 knots out into the shallow aquamarine Arafura Sea. I set course for Gove, assuming that the strong trades would keep our speed up, but the wind was too light to get to Gove at a sensible time and the following day I decided to alter course direct for Darwin as I can't afford any further days of delay. There are repairs and maintenance to be done before we head off on the 6,000 mile trip to South Africa.

Sunday 3 September 2017

Meeting the Locals in PNG

It was exciting to arrive into the sheltered waters of Port Moresby, and to make our way round the harbour to the Royal Papua Yacht Club Marina.   We were directed to moor stern on a far breakwater to await clearance.  Another yachtsman appears and attempted to moor his OVNI singlehanded, so Mark went out to help with the lines.   When the officials came out Mark called for their help as the yacht was too much to control in the strong wind.

Ashore we found a grand modern yacht club, and well maintained pontoons crowded with yachts, and many live aboard houseboats.  We were able to clear in without trouble and then had a busy couple of days getting the mainsail repaired (at an upholstery company using my sailcloth), trying to source parts to repair the spinnaker pole and to order new nylon bearings for the swivelling mast track, as well as downloading tide tables, charts etc. for the Torres Straits.  Sadly the reports of violence in the streets deterred us from exploring outside the club, although Justin and Toby were brave enough to take the mainsail by taxi to the upholstery warehouse where it was repaired.


We met Daniel from France, who has been single handing his OVNI 36, Goyave, for the last eleven years, and Joao from Portugal who has been cruising for seven years focussing on finding the best surfing. Our social life included an invitation for drinks by long-term houseboat resident and sailor, Brian Hall, where we met his neighbour Jeannetta Douglas and a visiting friend, Alyssa. Lots of interesting conversation about PNG; Alyssa's chocolate business sourcing the best flavoured types of plant; Jeanetta's history with her husband establishing a local airline of 30 small planes; Brian's work starting in PNG as District Officer in 1957. He showed us a fascinating movie, Walk into Paradise,  made on location in 1955 with actor Chips Rafferty which he said was a pretty accurate portrayal of his life and work there. Justin was awake for the beginning and end of the film!  (back in the UK I managed to order a rare DVD copy of the film)

Our Customs clearance was delayed, by non-appearance of officials on Friday, but Andrew arrived apologetic on Saturday morning, and we were free to set off at about 15:00 to motor to a little island, Morombasa, before leaving at my planned time of midnight. To our surprise, once out of the shelter, the wind was blowing Force 9 (40-50 knots) and we could hardly make headway under engine. In fact the engine kept showing an alarm, saying the battery was overcharging!

Eventually dropped anchor off a sheltered sandy beach, and Toby swam ashore for a "ciggie". He was welcomed by local residents throwing a birthday party for a sixteen year old girl, roasting a pig in an Umu, over hot rocks. Toby was then taken off in their high speed skiff to the mainland stilt village and shown round, and then brought back with a nice red snapper for supper. Such friendly people!

At 23:00 we raised anchor and, setting a triple reefed Genoa, headed through Basilisk Passage out of the reef into a turbulent sea.
Basilisk Passage, Port Moresby, Papua New Guinea

Next stop Thursday Island, Australia in two days. Farewell to the wonderful, friendly Pacific islands we have explored. I hope I can return one day!