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American Spirit II - Day 266; Last Day at Direction Island in Cocos Keeling; Sunday, September 28, 2014



Up at 6:45 AM. Joel and Jeremy slept in until 8:25 AM. I put the 10 dozen or so eggs away that we'd bought the day before from the super market in West Island. Only 3 individual eggs were broken, not bad considering the rain and handling the eggs had to endure to make it to the boat.

In reading a book about the Cocos Keeling Islands it appears that the islands became a territory of the United Kingdom by mistake. Two islands in the Bay of Bengal were also called 'Cocos' and had requested to become part of the UK, and when the British Admiral overseeing Australia got the orders to 'territorialize' Cocos Keeling, he thought they were the islands in the Indian Ocean 1,000 miles or so from Australia. The order he received did not have the longitude and latitude of the islands in it. Oops. The date was March 31, 1857. Cocos Keeling at that time was a coal depot and had a submarine telegraph station on it.

The Rally catamaran Free & BrEasy departed the anchorage a day early for Mauritius before 9:00 AM.

Breakfast at 9:00 AM consisted of bacon, scrambled eggs, chilled fruit cocktail and bread.

After breakfast I continued putting groceries away while Joel had some small 'fix projects' in the boat to take care of: fixing our privacy lighting attachments in the main salon; fixing an odor problem in the head; and he tied the jerry cans to the rail. I also stocked the refrigerator with beer and sodas so they'd cool overnight before we left tomorrow.

At 11:00 AM Jeremy spotted a black tipped shark that swam by the boat.

The Skippers Briefing was held on the beach under a pavilion at 11:30 AM. Instead of a slide presentation flip charts were used. No electricity. Go figure. Joel and Suzana conducted the briefing. I was surprised to hear that there is a 'piracy zone' north of Mauritius. Approximately 500 or so miles north of the island, according to Joel. I guess we're not sailing north.

After the briefing a BBQ was had on the beach and the food served was steak sandwich; chicken; fish; salad; and baklava and some other local delicacy for dessert with coffee. The food and service were catered from West Island and was excellent. Two thumbs up!

After the meal 'prize giving' was awarded for the previous leg. We didn't receive any this time. First time in a while. It was confirmed that Sirocco of Oz, a large catamaran that joined the fleet in Darwin, was pulling out of the Rally and heading back to Australia. Too bad. Nice people. Suzana received a sustained standing ovation when she announced that she won't be joining us again until Brazil. She will be missed. We'll just have to 'suffer' with with Rally persons Paul and Joel. Just kidding.

We were back at the boat around 3:15 PM and Joel and I napped from then until 4;30 PM. The Rally boat Adela left during our nap, again heading out to Mauritius early.

At 4:25 PM our wind turbine started freewheeling. It does this when the wind is 25 knots and above. It stops making electricity when it does this and tries to shut itself off. Noisy and annoying.

During this late afternoon to early evening period we all sat in the cockpit and talked about, among other things, on learning to deal with people...better. That's one advantage or outcome of sailing around the world. You have lots of time to think and to make incremental changes in your thoughts, feelings and dealings with people; and then to try to engrain them into habit thru practice in the ensuing months. New habits only become ingrained thru constant repetition.

We also before the sun set put the dingy away; cut a piece of bamboo that I was using to prop up the motor when beached; fixed the outboard motor shaft that I had broken; took down the Rally flag; stored the dingy oars and seat; and charged the dingy lithium battery. Then a few glasses of wine to celebrate our getting ready to go tomorrow earlier than we ever had before.

Since we'd all had a lot to eat at the BBQ, dinner consisted of butter, jelly and peanut butter sandwiches.

After dinner we watched the movie 'Snow White and the Huntsman.' Good movie.

Joel and I took showers after the movie. He first; me last. Then to bed by 11:45 PM. Big day tomorrow. The second longest leg on our journey.

Brian Fox


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