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American Spirit II - Day 245; Still Sailing to Bali and Green Flash #18; Sunday, September 7, 2014



I neglected to mention that for dinner Saturday night we had kangaroo steak. It was OK but I wouldn't eat it again, at least as a steak. The kangaroo hamburgers we had a week ago were much better.

David got up at 6:00 AM and I rolled out of my berth at 6:45 AM. A mountainous island called Totoka Sumba was off our starboard beam 38 miles away.

The sun rose at 7:32 AM (Darwin time). Another bright red fireball sunrise, but no green flash. The reason I mention 'Darwin time' is that during this leg all boats are on this time for communication's and leg finishing times. Otherwise, boats could be reporting times from at least 2 time zones, leading to confusion. Once we get to Bali we'll reset our watches and boat clocks to Bali time, which is 1 1/2 hours earlier than Darwin time.

By 7:37 AM we had all 4 fishing lines in the water. The wind was 11 knots and our speed was 4.7 knots. We had a hit on one of our fishing lines at 7:46 AM, but the fish thru the lure. The line hit was the same hand line that we'd caught our Frigate Mackerel on a few days ago.

The biography of Francis Drake that I'm reading had an synopsis of some of the reasons for his voyage. Page 116 states: "Drake was on a mission of dignity. He had a higher object than that of despoiling the King of Spain, though despoiling the King of Spain was a part of his errand. He had to obtain restitution for great wrongs done, and he had to force Phillip by this drastic form of persuasion to allow the English to trade freely in the Indies and to live there according to their own faith...and add to the fame of England and its Queen (Elizabeth)." By 'despoiling the King of Spain' is meant he is pirating Spain's gold, silver and ships. And the 'great wrongs done' refers to a matter occurring years earlier whereby a Spanish Viceroy went back on an agreement between a small fleet of ships where Drake was a Captain of one of the ships.

At 8:04 AM the 3 finches that visited us yesterday flew from the foredeck to our poop deck. Some time later they left us, so we were no longer on 'bird watch.'

Ghost hosted the 9:00 AM net as the vessel that was to do it could not be heard.

Breakfast at 9:30 AM after the net consisted of bacon, eggs, chilled fruit cocktail and raisin bread.

At 10:00 AM we put the pole up so we were now wing on wing with the boom on port and the pole on starboard.

Our noon position was 10 degrees, 6 minutes South; and 119 degrees, 5 minutes East. We were 241 miles from Bali.

We rolled up the jib at 3:30 PM and jibed; but kept the whisker pole up. The wind was 15 knots. We dropped the jib as we were going too fast to make a Tuesday daytime entry into Bali. We didn't want to arrive before sunrise. The harbor is closed at night so we have to slow the boat down to get there in day light. At 4:40 PM we dropped the pole and rolled a little jib out to stabilize the boat. We had a fair amount of rock and roll. The waves were on the port quarter.

I turned the generator on at around 5:00 PM to charge our batteries.

Dinner at 5:30 PM consisted of blackened grilled chicken cooked on the grill by chef Joel; freeze dried Pasta Primavera; brown rice; corn; and chilled fruit cocktail.

During the 6:00 PM net we heard that a bunch of the bigger boats will be entering Bali harbor Monday: Ghost, Nexus, NDS Darwin, Chika-lu, Alpheratz, and Celebrate. During the net we heard Merlyn of Poole indicate that they had a 'sail problem;' that they had to recover a sail or sails from the water. I couldn't contact them on the SSB so not sure what the exact nature of their problem is. They were talking to Andromeda V.

During the 7:33 AM sunset we observed Green Flash #18 on the circumnavigation. All four of us saw it.

I relieved Joel and went on watch early from 8:25 PM to midnight. Right after assuming watch the auto pilot cut off and went to 'standby.' This is very annoying. as the boat rounds up into the wind when this happens. Because I caught it quickly this time, it didn't round up. We'll have to call Ray Marine from Bali to see why that's happening and how to fix it. It might be a software glitch.

At 9:00 PM the wind was 12 knots and our speed 6.3 knots. I rolled up what little jib we had as it was getting blocked by the mainsail. I then reefed the main to slow the boat down for a Tuesday morning arrival in Bali. We had a 2.5 knots helping current so it was hard to slow the boat down to a speed less than 6 knots.

The moon was almost full and the water was well lit around the boat. As we get closer to Bali this will help us see the fishing boats that don't have lights on them.

I turned the generator off at 10:50 PM and put the hydro generator back in the water and turned the wind turbine back on. The wind was 10 knots astern, our speed thru the water was 3.3 knots but our speed over the ground was 5.0 knots.

At 12:00 AM Joel relieved David and me and at 12:05 AM I turned on the SSB and sent out a log and emails and received emails. The station I used was in Brunei in the Philippines, 896 miles away. The sending was quick but the receiving was slow. I got disconnected twice. By 12:32 AM I was done.

Brian Fox

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