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American Spirit II - Day 263; Historic 'Tour' of Destination Island, Swimming with Sharks & Sun Downer Party on Beach; Thursday, September 25, 2014



Up at 7:10 AM. Sunny.



Breakfast at 8:10 AM: scrambled eggs; potato; chilled mango slices; and bread.



At 8:30 AM Nexus picked up 8 of our jerry cans - 5 full with diesel and 3 empties. They were going to go to Home Island for fuel for us and a bunch of other boasts.



At 8:58 AM I typed up a log. As I was doing this Jeremy called from the cockpit to announce that a sea turtle was swimming by the boat. From the cockpit we saw the turtle raise its head 3 times out of the water to gulf air, then submerge and disappear.



At 9:47 AM I tried to send out a log and emails but kept getting disconnected, so I stopped. Will have to do later or tomorrow.



At 10:30 AM Joel was picked up by Jonathan from Merlyn of Poole to go work on their generator and alternator problems again. Jeremy and I picked up Laurie and Jeanine from Nexus and then headed into Direction Island, where we took the 'walking tour' of the island. A famous naval battle had occurred here on November 9, 1914 between the German light cruiser Emden and the British light cruiser Sydney. The Germans had landed a small 'invasion force' on Direction Island with the objective of destroying the undersea cable facilities there. This same German warship in the 3 previous months had sunk or captured 28 Allied ships and had single handily shut down British trade in the Indian Ocean. The Sydney, 1 1/2 times larger than the Emden, newer by 5 years, faster and hosting 6" guns to the German's 4.2" guns, was able to inflict enough damage on the Emden that its Captain ran the ship aground instead of sinking in deep water. There is a memorial near the anchorage dedicated to the crews of both warships, and a display of plaques and message boards at the memorial and spread throughout the island. Our walking tour of the island took about 2 hours.



After our tour I took Laurie back to Nexus and picked up some drinks and food for Jeremy, Jeanine and me to eat at the picnic tables off the beach. Joel joined us and then after changing we headed out to the rip current just past the reef area, where Jeanine, Jeremy and Joel took 2 drift dives with the water moving them along at up to 6 knots. During these two snorkels they saw black tip and white tip sharks; and some giant clams. I stayed in the dingy to pick them up.



Back at the boat at 4:00 PM Joel and I each took a nap; and then at 5:30 PM we headed over to drop off a flash drive to Sweet Pearl and then on to the beach for a sun downer party.



We headed back to the boat around 7:30 PM for dinner, which consisted of spaghetti in garlic sauce, chilled pear halves and bread. After dinner we had a German drink called 'Eierlikor,' an egg liqueur delivered to me by Michael from Polaris. Michael had just returned from Germany and his wife Peggy had sent it with him to give to me. It was egg based and 14% alcohol. Very good!



From 9:00 PM to 11:00 PM we watched the movie TED staring Mark Walberg. About a Teddy bear that comes to life on Christmas Day. Two thumbs down.



After the movie at 11:16 PM I sent out a log and some emails via Brunei, Philippines. Sending was slow at 200 bytes per minute; but receiving emails was fairly fast at 1,400 bytes per minutes. I was done at 11:30 PM and went to bed at 11:50 PM.



Brian Fox


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