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Sweet Dream - Day 243 Sept 15, 2019



Another really lovely day of gentle sailing. There was no way to predict our arrival time at the finish line when we first began. With the fluky, erratic, and non-existent winds of the first few days, we couldn’t even draw a bead in it until this afternoon. It is our understanding that the Atlas straight is best started on a rising tide, so it’s looking good to aim for crossing the finish line that lies at the bottom of the Atlas straight tomorrow evening between 18:00-19:00, Darwin time. Every passage ending is interesting because we travel and measure in our start Port time (this trip...Darwin time), yet we actually arrive in the end Port time, and tides and currents need to be figured in the actual time of the finish line. Some places it is of little consequence when we arrive in the tide cycle, while others, when a straight is to be traversed it is imperative to get it right if we want a comfortable passage. We had sorted the arrival to Hydrographer’s Passage into Mackay perfectly, and had a lovely sail in there and we are hoping we’ve figured the Atlas passage correct for the approach to Lombok. The second half of the Lombok equation is the desire to arrive in Medina bay with high enough sun to see properly. i.e. between ten am and 14:00. In our calculations we hope for a noon arrival if we can average 5 knots per hour of boat speed for the 90 miles from the finish line to Medana bay. We passed another of the weird floaty things this afternoon. I hope to meet someone in Lombok who can identify them from my the photos I’ve taken. Also we caught a pretty little yellow fin tuna this afternoon, we cooked it in the omnia stovetop oven and enjoyed a delicious supper of “Gypsy fish”, baked with tomatoes, garlic, onion, bell pepper, and lime, accompanied by good old comfort food stewed potatoes, onions, carrots, and cabbage. There is just enough to get a second meal out of tomorrow...the perfect fish!


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