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American Spirit II - Day 241; Two Swim Parties , a 'Tree' Hitches a Ride on Our Keel , a 5 Course Dinner and a Blood Red Sunrise and Sunset; Wednesday, September 3, 2014



David got up at 6:10 AM; I got up at 6:30 AM.



Sunrise at 6:57 AM, a blood red fireball rising out of the Timor Sea. Looked like a great sunset in reverse. Wind 4 knots, our boat speed motor sailing 5.3 knots. Sirocco of Oz is on our port beam aft 1/2 mile. A while later they pulled in behind us dead astern.



At 8:40 AM there were 6 Rally boats around us: Alpheratz, Polaris, Boingo Alive, NDS Darwin, Sirocco of Oz and Nexus a little further away.



Three porpoise passed by to starboard at 8:30 AM.



The 9:00 AM net communication was hosted by Laurie from Nexus. 15 boats checked in. Nexus had caught a yellow fin tuna and Sirocco a small shark. The day before or this morning?



At 8:00 AM 8 porpoises passed by. I say 'passed by' because they did not come close enough to our boat to swim under and in front of the bow.



Breakfast at 10:10 AM consisted of 8 scrambled eggs, 7 pieces of bacon, chilled pineapple slices and raisin bread.



We had a discussion after breakfast about what the different between a bay and a gulf is. David had the best answer. A bay is a 3 letter word and a gulf is a 4 letter word. Who knew?



At 10:45 AM we invited Sirocco of Oz to a swim party around noon or so. They accepted, not knowing what to expect. We turned off our engine and rolled up our mainsail at 11:40 AM. Joel hopped in the water and found a kelp tree or whatever it was wrapped around the top and front of our keel. The size of a medium sized Christmas tree. I saw it float away after he dislodged it, but it was out of sight before I could get my camera and take a picture of it. He also found a smaller clump wrapped around the propeller. Our position for the swim party was the same as our noon position: 12 degrees, 4 minutes South; and 128 degrees, 34 minutes East. Sirocco pulled up and dropped their sails at around noon. The boats were separated by about 50 to 100 meters. I swam over to their boat, and then John and I swam back to our boat. The crew from Sirocco all jumped into the water, something new to them because around Darwin you can't do that due to the presence of deadly 'salties,' salt water crocodiles. These salties get up to 7 meters or over 21 feet in length. Sirocco had just joined the Rally in Darwin and so it was good to spend some time with them on the open sea. After Sirocco departed Polaris pulled up, dropped their sails and then their entire crew jumped into the water. Like Sirocco, they had a large crew: 4 males and 3 females? I think they were 6 Germans and one crew from France. How does that happen? The water depth was 230 feet.



At 12:53 PM we started up the engine and continued our trek to Bali. We put both sails up and were making 6.8 knots. Since everyone was famished, we cooked 2 bags of popcorn. Jeanine, the popcorn queen, was very happy about that. We actually were motoring .3 on a knot faster without our kelp hitchhikers attached to the keel and prop.



I went below to take a nap from 1:33 PM to 4:00 PM; and Joel napped from 3:00 PM to 5:00 PM.



Dinner was late at 5:50 PM. By late I mean it was delayed because our steaks weren't thawed out in time. With the net communication at 6:00 PM we would be late to it if we made it at all. Dinner was a 5 course meal: sumptuous rib-eye steaks, blackened and cooked on the grill; sweet potato; baked beans; chilled pineapple; and garlic bread.



We joined the end of the net and heard that Nexus and Ghost had both caught fish today. We had 3 lines in the water but caught nothing.



There was no green flash at sunset at around 7:00 PM, but it was a blood red fireball like the sunrise this morning; with bands of clouds making the sunset look like Jupiter. The wind was blowing at 6 knots and our boat speed was 6.6 knots.



From 7:00 PM to 8:30 PM I typed a log and did emails. Joel and David then each sat down at the computer and typed an email or two each.



At 8:40 PM I turned on the SSB and after trying to send a log and emails to the Philippines I switched to Australia. The Darawank NSW Australia receiving station I connected to was 1,841 nautical miles away. I turned off the VHF, refrigerator and freezer and LED cabin lights when transmitting because we had been having trouble receiving our emails and the email provider, Sail Mail, suggested that certain electrical items on our boa might be giving off radiation and that was what was probably causing us problems. Turning off all those things did seem to make our receiving much quicker, but we'll have to see if that was a coincidence of a solution to our problem.



At 11:00 PM the wind was 3 knots and our boat speed motoring was 6.1 knots. The sky was clear with a lot of stars visible; but with a half moon it wasn't the best star sky we'd seen.



The auto pilot turned itself off at 11:17 PM. I caught the wheel and got us back on course, then reactivated the auto pilot again. We're not the only boat that has had this problem, and we thought with a software upgrade in Cairns that we might have eliminated that problem. I guess not.



Australian slang of the day. 'Anne's your aunty' is an 'expression indicating all is fine.' If you have a 'bad trout' you have 's run of bad luck.' And a 'bingle' is a 'minor car accident.' What's a 'bangle', a major car accident?



Brian Fox


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