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Merlyn of Poole - Sad to leave Australia, but excited to be on our way to Bali



‘The Owl and the Pussycat went to sea in a beautiful pea-green boat’

After three weeks of ‘land-lubbing’, here we are again, back in our time-honoured, at-sea routine. It’s been a long time since we’ve been able to take the start to the leg with all the other boats, and we really enjoyed leaving in convoy. There was a group of schoolchildren waiting on the quay to wave us off, and it was a moving experience to see them all waving wildly as we sailed away, on an unexpected beat, weaving in and out of each other as we tacked to and fro across the harbour.

Monday was very hectic. We didn’t get to bed until the small hours, and we had to make an early start to ensure that we were ready to be third boat into the marina lock, at just after seven am on Tuesday. It takes longer than you might think to get ready for an ocean passage, and we only had three days at our disposal after our return from the UK. Our  trip to the Litchfield National Park on Sunday was an indulgence, but we’re still thrilled to have had the opportunity to see a little more of Northern Territory, a vast, wild tranche of the Australian continent.

‘They took some honey and plenty of money wrapped up in a five-pound note’

After our push on Sunday, which included one provisioning trip on the way back from Litchfield, and another that same evening, we had a boat full of good things. It took us the best part of two days to stow it all. Even with just the two of us on board, storage space is limited, and it becomes an exercise in finding nooks and crannies, a few items at a time. Monday was further complicated by the presence on the boat of two mechanics who had come to fix the watermaker. This piece of equipment has now had almost every component replaced. It was a big job to get it back into full working order, including fitting a new motor and two new membranes. Monday was a scorching hot day and the poor guys were almost expiring in the stuffy cabin. Fortunately, they drank gallons of water.

It was a great outcome, though. At long last, we have a fully functioning watermaker. It was an exciting moment when we dipped the ‘TDS Meter’ into the first glass of water from the regenerated machine. The reading was less than 250 ppm – the maximum permissible is five hundred. In the last few months we have been taking readings as high as 3,000 ppm, and we have only been able to use our water for washing and cooking. This will stand us in very good stead for our long passage across the Indian Ocean.

Once we had the boat to ourselves, we pressed on with the remaining boat jobs, including changing the oil in the generator. We also located the six paper charts we need for this passage, as well as plotting our course on the Raymarine chart plotter. We are still in reef country, and we have some big ones to skirt round on the way to Bali. One of them, Ashmore Reef, is so large that it’s possible to make a stop there, if it is approached carefully. It is frequented by fishermen, and there is also a minder present who will allow yachts to stay for a few hours. A further hazard on this route is a number of oil platforms, which have anchor cables extending up to two kilometres from the platform itself! Clearly, these need to be given a wide berth. If this isn’t enough, there is also a joint Australian/Indonesian military exercise in progress, and we hear their cryptic messages on the radio from time to time.

With all this in mind, we have decided to take the safer, more northerly, route to Bali, as always, using Jimmy Cornell’s guidance. This takes us north of all the hazards, only adding about fifteen miles to the trip. The presence of a number of other World ARC boats around us suggests that they’ve decided to adopt the same policy. At the moment, the route is saying that we have around nine hundred and fifty miles to cover, which is a seven- to eight-day trip for us.

We were expecting light winds on this passage. After a delightful few hours of windward sailing at the beginning of the trip, we’re now motoring. At the time of writing, there are around two knots of wind, and there’s no possibility of sailing. Engine size really differentiates the large from the smaller boats. Our engine is only fifty-five horsepower. The larger boats have engines more than twice that size. We can normally make no more than five to five and a half knots under motor, which means that we can cover about one hundred and twenty miles in a twenty-four hour period. On this basis, it would take us eight days to get to Bali.

Of course, we can’t motor all the way, as our diesel supplies would run out. It also looks as if we will have some wind by Thursday. Jonathan is keen to try out our ‘parasailor’. Until now, we haven’t needed to use this sail as a double-handed crew, but he is keen to add that skill to our repertoire. It’s a lot of sail to manage as a couple, but several of our sailing buddies do this, and we don’t want to be left behind. In light winds of between nine and fourteen knots, or so, it’s the ideal sail, and it really makes the most of the available breeze, producing speeds of seven or eight knots, even with light airs. It won’t fly without any wind, though, and we have to wait until we have enough to fill it before we go through the complicated launching process.

For the time being, we have idyllic conditions for the start of a passage. After weeks of boisterous winds and lumpy seas, we are gliding along on almost flat ocean. It’s a great way to get our sea legs again, and we haven’t had any of the queasiness we usually feel at this stage. Tonight, we enjoyed ‘beef stroganoff’, prepared by Jenny, using some of our Australian fillet steak. This is a simple and quick recipe, using Jamie Oliver’s recipe, with a tin of champignons to replace the fresh mushrooms. We don’t have brandy on board, but a large tot of rum gave a good flavour to the cream sauce. I’m on watch now and, as soon as it gets light, I’ll get the breadmaker out so that we have fresh bread to start the day on Wednesday.

On this trip, we’re experimenting with longer night watches. We realised on the passages from Vanuatu to Cairns, as well as Cairns to Darwin, that sleep is the answer, and that it’s essential not to become over-tired. Once you’re exhausted, it’s difficult to recover without a few days on land, and we don’t have a lot of that coming up in the next few months. We’re kicking off with two five-hour watches/sleeps at night, supplemented with naps during the day. The aim is to have no fewer than seven hours each in any twenty-four hour period. If that works well – and it’s certainly looking good thus far – we’ll move to six hour watches at night.

This relies on the sailing conditions being stable enough for one person to look after during a watch period. It defeats the object if we need to call the other person to help with sail changes. Most of the time, this is doable, if we ensure that any reefing, and other adjustments, are completed before darkness. We also appreciate our watch periods as time to catch up on emails, blogging, a bit of reading, or even watching the odd video on the iPad, whilst looking out in the cockpit.

We haven’t dived back into Scrabble as yet, although that will come, but we’re currently gripped by the new ‘Quick Cryptic’ crosswords in the Times. These are easier to solve than the full Times cryptic crossword, but they still test the brain. We really enjoy quick crosswords, word puzzles, and so on, but we’ve never been big on cryptic clues, which take much longer to unpack. It’s one of our goals to add this to the suite of entertainment options, not least because we think it will help us to stay mentally alert as we become older. To this end, we have Colin Dexter’s book on board, ‘Cracking Cryptic Crosswords’, and we’re working our way through. Two ‘quick cryptic’ clues from the Times to give you a flavour:

1)      Prepare elderly teacher for ultimate conflict (10 letters)

2)      Cry, being fat (8 letters)

Answers on a postcard please!

That’s it for our news round-up. More tomorrow from an almost windless Indian Ocean. The sunset this evening splashed a great expanse of sky with rosy pink, and so we’re in a romantic mood.

And hand-in-hand, on the edge of the sand, they danced by the light of the moon, the moon, they danced by the light of the moon, the moon, the moon. They danced by the light of the moon.’




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