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American Spirit II - Day 247; A Wild and Rocky Night & Arrival in Bali ; a Shootin Star 'Circles' the Moon; & Nexus Almost Hits a Gray Whale; Tuesday, September 9, 2014



Turned the water maker off at 12:20 AM after making water for 3 hours; and the generator. Now its quiet. The wind was 15 knots and our boat speed 4.7 thru the water and 7.3 over the land, with a 2.5 knots helping current. I put a reef in the main at 1:00 AM to further slow down the boat. That slowed us down to 5.6 knots.

We turned the engine on at 3:42 AM as the wind suddenly went really light and the seas with the opposing tide were quite bumpy. We then rolled the sails up as they were flapping too much.



I was back on watch at 5:41 AM. Our speed was 3.1 knots, with a current against us still of 2.5 knots. We were violently rocking back and forth. It was like riding a bad roller coaster and not being able to get off...for hours on end. Boingo Alive was on our port bow 8.5 miles away.



The current relented at 7:00 AM, dropping from 3.5 knots against us to .6 knots against. The rock and roll disappeared. This all happened in 5 minutes. Wow! The (almost) full moon was setting and the sun was starting to rise soon.



At 7:16 AM I saw a something in the heavens that I've never seen before - a shooting star curved from above and to the right of the moon to the left, lower quadrant beneath it. The moon was 15 degrees above the horizon. The 'shooting star' lasted 2-3 seconds. Very cool.



At 7:30 AM the tide dramatically changed and I was steering the boat 45 degrees right of my destination. Our speed thru the water was 5.9 knots, but over the ground it was 2.6 - a current of 3.3 knots against us.



The sun rose above the island of Nusapenida at 7:47 AM. At 7:55 AM we increased our RPM's from 1,600 to 2,200 and our speed increased to 4.5 knots. At 8:19 AM we had a 3 knot current against us on a rising or high tide. The current was against us on a lowering tide before, also. How is that possible? At 8:30 AM we had a 5.1 knot current against us. Our speed thru the water was 7.2 knots and over the land 2.1 knots.



At 10:08 AM we crossed the finish line and called Rally Control to give them our time. By 10:35 AM we were in our slip in the marina, right next to Saphir, the Rally boat from Norway.



At 11:00 AM I joined Festina Lente and Sirocco of Oz in a taxi and we headed out to visit 5 locations to clear into the country. We knew going in that it would take us 4 to 5 hours. We had to go to Immigration, Customs, the Harbor Master, the Navy base and one other bureau that I forgot the name of.



We were back at the marina by 3:30 PM, where I joined Joel, David and Jeanine for breakfast. It was lunch time but we had breakfast. The total bill was $24. How cool is that?! In Australia Joel's breakfast was that much for just him. Bali won't bust the wallet.



In my absence the crew fueled and cleaned the boat.



For dinner we hopped in a taxi and headed off to a beach/restaurant location that David had picked. Two miles of beach with dinner tables set up between the restaurants and the water, where the waves were crashing in. Landing lights from air planes were visible in the distance. The sun was setting. It was a magnificent sight. Russ and Laurie from Nexus had joined us. We found out later that a number of boats were at the same beach for dinner tonight. Great minds think alike. None of us had talked to each other about where we were going for dinner.



We ordered a family platter for 6 and had lobster, Prawns, fish, mussels, rice and a bunch of other items. A very good meal. Dancers entertained us from the restaurant side while musicians played for us ocean side. Quite a night out. David treated all of us for dinner. Thank you David!



By 10:15 PM we were back at the marina. I showered at 11:00 PM, then went to bed.



During dinner Russ from Nexus relayed to us how they had seen 7 whales on the way from Darwin to Bali, and that at around 2:30 AM to 3:00 AM when they were dousing a sail they came upon an 80 foot sleeping gray whale on the surface that they only knew was there when it blew water all over them. It then raised its tail and dove. Had they hit the whale, both Russ and Brian would have been thrown into the water by the impact. As I've told people before, the biggest danger I foresee in this circumnavigation is whale contact.



Brian Fox


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