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American Spirit II - Day 193; On the Way to Australia & 2 Boats Sight Whales Leaving Vanuatu; Thursday, July 17, 2014



Up at 7:00 AM. Coffee followed by breakfast: scrambled eggs, Vienna sausage, chilled pineapple pieces and French bread.

Tasks to do this morning before departing: add more water to water tank; exchange Vanuatu dollars for Australian dollars; go to Post Office; make a quick visit to the grocery store to buy some paper plates and paper towels, plus 2 loaves of French bread; final land side showers; and pay final bill to Yachting World Marina.

We departed the dock at 10:04 AM. The marina staff grabbed and off loaded our boarding plank; we let the 2 stern lines go; and the marina staff in a yellow motor boat released our line tied to the bow mooring ball.

The 1,150 nautical mile leg from Vanuatu to MacKay, Australia got underway at 11:00 AM with a competitive start. Only one boat, Folie a Deux, started the 'competitive' leg with a spinnaker up. Very impressive. Shortly after the start John and Jane from Seaduced, a UK boat, announced that they were returning to port due to a tear in their mainsail. They contacted Rally control and Rally control in turn got hold of a sail maker and had them on standby in the event that Seaduced needed outside help in repairing their sail.

At 1:53 PM Bongo Alive announced over the VHF radio that they had 2 or 3 whales pass them heading back towards Vanuatu. Bongo was 3 miles ahead of us. I immediately grabbed my binoculars and started a 'whale watch' forward 90 degrees of each beam. At 2:15 PM Folie a Deux, 1 mile behind us and 1/2 mile to windward (we were on a port tack) saw two whales 100-150 yards off their port bow. Tracey, on the helm, sighted them first. Somehow the whales had passed in front of us going from right to left and then ended up behind us, without us seeing them. Very frustrating. Around this same time Seaduced announced on the VHF channel 72 that they were under sail again and en route to join the fleet. I thought I heard that John had hauled Jane up the mast to fix the sail (?). If that's so, good job Jane.

At 3:00 PM we were on a broad reach, with a wind speed of 12-16 knots and a boat speed of 6.2 knots. The seas were confused and lumpy at 2-3 feet. Around this time Jeanine went down below to nap and Joel came up after napping. I felt a little queasy, which is not unusual for me for the first few hours of a new leg.

I was was getting close to finishing the book Without Remorse by Tom Clancy, and I came across a passage that was rather prophetic. I'd quote the page number, but reading on a Kindle messes up your ability to list a page number. It depends on the font size you're reading with. At any rate, the prophetic statement was: "But all knew their purpose to life was more than the avoidance of death. Life had to have a purpose, and one such purpose was the service of others." I wonder how many people in the world actually have a 'purpose' or mission statement in their personal lives. I didn't have one when I started this journey, but I have one now. Sorry, top secret. Actually, more than one.

The sun set around 5:30 PM. No green flash due to clouds on the horizon. For those of you who are trivia nuts, the time it took for the upper limb of the sun to disappear beneath the horizon; the time it took to go from lower limb to upper limb, was 2 minutes and 25 seconds. You know what that means? It means you have way too much time on a sail boat when sailing around the world to come up with facts like this that no one really cares about. The things one does to amuse oneself at sea! Or the corollary, the things one does to overcome boredom.

Dinner at 6:00 PM. Freeze dried Noodles and Chicken; chilled fruit cocktail and pound cake for dessert.

Though one of Jeanine's jobs on board was washing and putting away the dishes, I did it instead after dinner as it was our first night out and didn't want to have her down below doing something that might lead to sea sickness her first day out on an 8 day passage.

After dishes, I typed 2 logs and then tried, without success, to send them over the airwaves via our SSB radio. All the frequencies going into Australia were occupied, so I'll have to try later.

I tried taking a nap at 8:00 PM to get a little rest before my 9:00 PM to 12:00 midnight watch, but had no success. I went back on deck at 8:35 PM and started my watch early. Its pretty normal for the first day or so on a new leg to have to get into the routine of watches and naps. We'd just been in port for a week going to bed at a normal hour. Not any more. The first thing I did on watch tonight was remove the canvas connecting the dodger and bimini so I could see the stars better. The Milky Way was quite clear and outstanding tonight. Joel had showed Jeanine the Southern Cross earlier. First time she'd seen it. If there's a chance of rain I leave the canvas connecting piece in place. We always put it up in the day time to cut down on the sun exposure and heat in the cockpit.

At 8:40 PM the wind speed was 8-9 knots and our speed over the ground was 5.6 knots. Not great, but OK. We like to average at least 6 knots. A cruise ship passed us and was visible on the port bow. I didn't know the name of the ship because our AIS is not working.

Jeanine went to bed at 8:42 PM. Just before 11:00 PM the moon rose out of the east behind us, obstructed by clouds somewhat. We had a phosphorescent wake tonight. More on that tomorrow night.

Brian Fox


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