03.30hrs We have covered 285 miles so far, and its another beautiful night at sea. The - KITE - pulling us along at an average 9 knots for the last 3 hours, the moon is shining brightly up there high in the sky, and the boat is as steady as a rock. What more could one ask !
04.00hrs The moon went to moonbed, so we are left with just the stars twinkling up there, Niall was still on deck and said it was the best nights sail he ever had. We almost had to unscrew him from the deck and make him go to the scratcher.
It is truly fantastic to visit all these out of the way places, places we never heard of in our lives, the first we ever heard of Thursday Isl. was when we decided to do this trip and recieved the itinerary... but to think there is :- Tuesday, Wednesday, and Friday Islands as well, well how about that! One could spend a few years just exploring the whole barrier reef and the northern areas of Australia. As they say, "real cool"!
When the moon went to bed, the phospherous really began to show in the water, much brighter than we have seen for a long, long time, it was so bright, it was like streamers floating past the boat, all being pushed out by the large bow wave, and bubbling up behind the boat as we sailed merrily along through the night. At one stage a whole shoal of fish moved silently through the phospherous away from the boat, the only time the skipper saw this before was in 1970 when sailing in a race from Statin Island in N.Y harbour to Atlantic City in New Jersey. The shoal of fish was like a glowing field moving across the sea, a real rare sight. Then were the shadows being cast down the kite by the tricolour lights at the top of the mast, it resembled a stage set, silent and eerie...
The wind was still blowing at 20/22 knots on our portsid eat 120 degrees, 2 ships passed us during the night, their big empty hulls like shadows on the horizon motoring along at about 15 knots and off to collect their dirty black gold.
05.15hrs We have travelled 300 miles, and have another 296 miles to our first waypoint off Coburg Point, in the Dundas Straight.
09.00hrs, Radio time, but we don't have contact and have gone too far away from the fleet for VHF communication.
10.30hrs Just beautiful sailing, in a moderate sea, Mary saw a large sea snake, brown with yellow bands.
12.35hrs We have travelled 362nm in 48 hours, 192 of these in the last 24hrs.
14.00hrs We had a light lunch prepared by Aileen, followed by lots of naps and sunburning periods.
18.35hrs We have now covered 415 miles in 2 days and 6 hrs (204 miles in the last 24 hrs) and exactly half way to our destination. The setting sun was truly magnificant, we all just sat there and absorbed the whole scene. Wonderful!
Aileen did a spaghetti dish for dinner, and it was excellent, this was followed with lots of chat, and calculating our arrival time in Darwin.
Our watches for tonight :- 21.00hrs / 03.00hrs Stephen & Aileen
03.00hrs / 09.00hrs Niall & Mary
That's it for today.
Signed :- Stephen Hyde (Skipper)