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American Spirit II - Day 231; Almost There (to Darwin) , Frigate Bird Sighting , Garlic, Crocodile Tears , Polaris Catches 3 Tuna & Our Second Half Time Zone of the Trip; Sunday, August 24, 2014



Up at 6:45 AM to relieve Jeanine who stood the 3:00 AM to 6:00 AM watch. She advised me that during her watch she had canceled a waypoint and re-inserted her own. Good job Jeanine! On her way to becoming a master navigator before you know it!

I put the mainsail up and we immediately picked up 1.3 knots, going from 5.6 to 6.9. The wind was 12 knots on the port bow. We're still motor sailing at 1,600 RPM's. Celebrate is 9 miles ahead of us. I can see them intermittently popping in and out of AIS range. Polaris, a Rally boat from Berlin, Germany is off our port side, just astern 2.6 miles.

The sun rose at 7:08 AM. With clouds on the horizon, no chance of seeing a green flash sunrise.

I rolled the jib out at 7:55 AM and our speed picked up from 6.1 to 7.0 knots. The wind was still 'lightish' at 10/11 knots.

At 8:02 AM I saw the first Frigate Bird I'd seen in 2 to 3 months. Its also called the 'Man o' War' bird because it steals fish from the beaks of other birds in flight. A very large bird, really big wingspan. It can 'float' on the thermals for months at a time without landing. I think that's correct. The one I was looking at had a white throat, not red, so it was a female?

At 8:26 AM the wind was 12 knots and our boat speed was 7.3, with a .2 knot of current against us. Another cloudless day.

Land Ho! At 8:26 AM I saw the Cobourg Peninsula forward of the beam to port 5 miles. Hazy on the horizon, so didn't see sooner. Later today we'll turn left to go around this peninsula and into the Dundas Strait. Melville Island will then be to our starboard. I'm not sure if that name, 'Melville' Island, is named after the author or not. After leaving the Dundas Strait we'll sail into the Van Diemen Gulf. Why its called a gulf instead of a bay I don't know. I think a gulf has more than one entrance and a bay does not.

Here's a new use for garlic. In reading a biography on Francis Drake, the first English sailor to sail around the world (circa 1550), on a slave expedition to the Cape Verde Islands off of Africa (I've actually been to these islands during an airplane fuel stop en route to Cape Town, South Africa), the head Captain of the expedition (John Hawkins) and many of his sailors got shot with arrows by the natives. The wounds were not considered serious, until almost all of the sailors so wounded died. The natives had poisoned the arrow tips with something that gave everyone on the receiving end of an arrow tetanus. Captain Hawkins would have probably died himself except that a local native told him of a remedy that would 'cure' him. A clove of garlic was put on his wound, and this 'sucked out' the poison. The Captain lived. So besides keeping vampires away, garlic is a cure for arrow induced tetanus. Who knew!

The same paragraph in this book went on to talk about crocodiles. "They found crocodiles which wept, until they drew sympathetically near you, when they bit you in half..." I guess that's where the term 'crocodile tears' comes from. From old sailing stories based on visits to Africa. Who knew (again)!

At 9:14 AM we were moving along at 7.1 knots thru the water but only 6.1 over the land. A 1 knots current against us. The wind was 12 knots on the port beam.

At 10:10 AM Michael from Polaris called us and advised that they had caught 3 tuna at sunrise this morning. We were quite jealous.

Breakfast at 10:20 AM was scrambled eggs, potato and the last 3 slices of our raisin bread. Jeanine was sleeping in and skipped breakfast.

At 10:43 AM I increased our engine RPM from 1,600 to 2,000 and our speed increased from 5.3 knots to 6.1.

I put the canvas connected up at 10:52 AM as it was getting warm out.

At 11:15 AM our speed was 5.5 knots with a 1.8 knot current against us. By 11:48 AM we had 2 hand lines and 1 fishing pole line in the water. Trying to catch fish for dinner.

Our noon position was 11 degrees, 21 minutes South; and 131 degrees, 36 minutes East.

At 12:33 PM I noticed our water temperature gauge was reading 102 degrees. It continued to increase during the day to 104 degrees. Obviously, we have a sensor or calibration problem. Not sure how to fix it.

AT 1:10 PM we changed our watches, cell phones and the ship's clocks to 'Darwin' time, which was 1/2 hour sooner than the Australian east coast time. Darwin is on a half time zone, only the 2nd time this trip that we've encountered that. The last time was while in the Tuomotos Islands of French Polynesia. So 1:40 PM became 1:10 PM.

Melville Island became visible on our starboard bow at 1:22 PM.

At 1:57 PM we're moving 6.9 knots thru the water and 7.4 knots over the land, a .5 knot helping current.

Joel slept most of the afternoon, still recovering from the cold I'd given him. I napped from 3:00 PM to 5:00 PM myself. It will be a long night tonight.

At 5:00 PM the wind was 1.1 knots and our speed 7.4 knots.

Dinner at 5:50 PM consisted of spaghetti with butter and garlic powder; white rice; and chilled pineapple slices.

Joel went back to bed right after dinner.

The sun set at 6:40 PM into a foggy horizon. The wind was still 'howling' at 1.4 knots and our speed was 6.1 knots.

I talked with Celebrate on the VHF radio at 8:15 PM. They were 'shooting' for a 6:30 AM entry into the Cullen Bay area of Darwin.

At 9:36 PM our speed was 8.4 knots with a 1 knot helping current. We just passed Celebrate. I slowed the boat down from 2,000 RPM's to 1,600 RPM's at 9:40 PM and our speed dropped from 8.4 to 7.5 knots.

At 10:14 PM we passed between the Northwest and Southwest Vernon Islands. We could now see the lume of Darwin over the horizon off our port beam.

I rolled the mainsail up at 10:48 AM to slow the boat down.

With Jeanine still up in the cockpit, I took a shower at 11:20 AM and then back on watch.

Brian Fox



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