20 September 2010
It is amazing how quickly the bad times are forgotten when the good times take over. As we surf down the face of the waves at times reaching 9.7 knots under genoa alone, the horrors of the storm the night before last are now a dim and distant memory. We are all having such fun out here. Having rained on and off all through yesterday, David was determined to stay dry. He put up the cockpit curtain. This encloses the cockpit all the way across from behind the helm position and we stay dry. There are windows to give good vision and a zippered flap creating a door. Now David jokes that when we step through it we are out onto the terrace. All that is lacking are a few patio plants!
Voyageur senses our urgency and hurries on. We must make the anchorage before dark. We read from the pilot book that you can see the islands from 10nm, so I am constantly craning my neck to get the first glimpse. It seems we are all impatient to be there but it never fails, the last 100nm always seem to take forever. The sailing has been better than we had expected. Our total engine hours for this leg are just 20hours. We anticipate the new landfall with mounting excitement.
By early evening we expect to be tucked in behind Direction Island in South Keeling. Voyageur will be rewarded for all her efforts of the previous week. She will lie to her own anchor in the quiet and calm of the inner lagoon. Our reward will be dinner at the cockpit table under the stars, a stable bed without the wooden lee board padded with cushions to prevent the knocks and bumps. Come the morning after a full night's uninterrupted sleep, we will take a dip off the back of the boat, enjoy a leisurely breakfast, ready to face the new day and whatever it has to offer. I am dreaming already......
For this leg, four new boats volunteered to take a turn as duty net controller on the SSB radio net, A Lady, Destiny, Lady Ev1V and Chessie, giving those of us who have been doing it mostly since the beginning a welcome break. What is impressive In the case of the last three, Tomas, Jorg and Jochen, is that English is not their first language.
Susan Mackay