00.30hrs Distance travelled, 462 n miles
Wind .................20/25 knots E to ESE
Weather..............moderate to flat sea, beautiful night
09.35hrs Radio call, nothing, but we sent Eowyn our position by email. We did see another yacht on the horizon, but could not raise her on the radio/ VHF. Later, it turned out the yacht was Grand Filou.
We tried some fishing, but the fish kept gobbling our lures, so we gave up in the end as a bad job.
12.35hrs It is such a pleasure to sail with just the Parasail flying, " KITE " and we have covered another 201 n miles in the last 24hrs. Another beautiful day. We had last nights leftovers for lunch in the cockpit, this was followed by more sunburning, naps, sipping water, and the usual things one does at sea, read, and read more again. The temperature is a nice 31 degrees, but a bit humid.
17.35hrs We saw another yacht on the horizon. It could not be one of our's, as no one in the fleet (except Grand Filou, and the 2 Sundeers) could keep up with the speed we were doing. and we know that the Sundeers are still sailing up the great barrier reef at present, so its not one of them. Then the radio crackled, and the yacht was in fact Ariane. Cripes, how did she get there we asked ourselves. We never see that boat after the first hour or so, she is so slow, BUT, always the but... It turned out that she left Thursday Island one day ahead of us... ahhhhhhhh well, that explains it all, pheww!
We moved the clocks to +9.30hrs UTC
As we sailed past Cape Don, the wind shifted all over the place, so we had to drop the Kite, having flown it for over 2 days without taking it down to check the halyards or guy's. We had the company of Grand Filou and Ariane as we passed Cape Don, and sailed towards Darwin.
18.35hrs The wind almost vanished, just a mere 3.2knots, so we started the engine and motored along merrily, had 2 G&T's to celebrate doing 2 consecutive days of over 200miles per day.....
19 .30hrs We had a Tuna salad, made by Mary, we have to get rid of all fruit and veg before we hit Darwin, so today we eat whats there or chuck it into the sea... (Bio degradable stufff)
21.00hrs Night watches :- 21.00hrs / 03.00hrs Niall and Mary
03.00hrs / 09.00hrs Stephen and Aileen
That's all.
Signed :- Stephen Hyde (Skipper)