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American Spirit II - Day 224; A Ride by Nexus, Green Flash #12 & Our Last Day at Lizard Island; Sunday, August 17, 2014



What I didn't mention yesterday is that Captain James Cook discovered Lizard Island in 1770; and that the island was devastated by a cyclone on April 11 of this year.

Up at 7:34 AM. Turned the generator on at 7:40 AM to recharge the boat's batteries. No wind last night, so the wind turbine didn't keep the batteries charged up. Then I typed the previous day's log for SSB transmittal after breakfast.

Breakfast at 9:00 AM consisted of scrambled eggs, cut up potato and chilled, chopped pineapple.

At 10:17 AM I turned the AIS off and the SSB on. I turn off the AIS when I use the SSB because the radiation from the SSB is so great that it has already fried 3 previous AIS units. In the process of transmitting I was disconnected 5 times by the Sail Mail station in Australia. I finally gave up. That's why my logs the last couple of days are so late. Sorry.

I turned the generator off at 10:43 AM.

Nexus picked us up at 10:47 AM to take a spin in their motor boat (a really BIG and fast dingy with a depth sounder and running lights and a steering wheel) to the research station and a couple of reefs to go snorkeling. On Nexus was Russ and Laurie, plus Brian and Lauren. Joel, Jeanine and I were happy for the offer because the electric motor on our dingy would take all day to get to the research station and reefs.

The research station was like a scientific lab, with dozens (hundreds?) of tanks filled with sea water and different types of coral and species of fish. There were dozens of students doing research projects or working on their thesis. Almost all the research persons were female. I wonder why? We were shown a 15 minutes video of the facility, and then Laurie and Jeanine each bought a souvenir shirt. Joel and I didn't bring any money so that's one shirt we won't be getting. When we were walking out of the research station I came across two 2-3 foot long sand monitor lizards that the island is named after.

We snorkeled from the beach the first reef, seeing large 4-5 foot clams again, some coral and colors I'd never seen before and a large (4-5 foot?) black tipped reef shark that was 'hiding' in a small cave at the sea floor with only its tail sticking out. While we were at this first reef the dingy from Polaris showed up, and all 7 of them got out to snorkel, also. Polaris is a German boat in the Rally.

We then got back in the dingy and set off for a reef a couple of miles offshore. The coral was similar, but because the top of the reef was closer to the surface and the sun was out it made for a good trip.

We got back to our boat at around 2:30 PM, and then Joel and I hopped into the water to brush off the algae on the bottom of the boat. It was exhausting. After each of us doing half of the bottom, I told Joel I was pooped and to go ahead and do the keep himself. I actually felt a little nauseous swimming upside down and against the current. I also noticed that our zinc was missing from the propeller, so we'll have to get another one put on in the crocodile infested waters of Darwin. That's a job for a local diver, not Joel. I'm sure Joel agrees. We finished the bottom around 4;00 PM and then Joel and I took a nap from 4:15 PM to 5:15 PM while Jeanine played games on her smart phone.

At 5:30 PM we dingied over to Nexus, who was hosting a 'sundowner' for us, Ghost and Saphir. Sweet Pearl were invited but were getting ready to leave Lizard during the sundowner. In attendance besides the crew of Nexus and us, were Tim and Claire from Ghost and Erling, Gro and Mimi from Saphir. The former were from the UK and the latter from Norway. At 6;02 PM the sun set and most of us saw the small green flash. On a scale of 10 I'd give it a 1. Not great, but better than nothing. The green flash occurred 1/2 second after the upper limb of the sun went beneath the horizon. If you stopped looking at the actual moment of sunset, you missed it. Some did and they did, miss it. Too bad. This was the 12 green flash we've seen on this circumnavigation.

During the sundowner Erling from Saphir said that 2 construction or resort workers had told him that Watson's Bay, where we were all anchored, now had 'salties' in attendance. 'Salties' is Australian for crocodiles. Great. We've been swimming in water that has crocodiles in it. Yesterday we snorkeled the reef near shore, and today we cleaned the boat bottom. Unlike in Florida where the fatality rate of an alligator attack is 50%, the fatality rate of a crocodile attack by a saltie in Australia is 100%.

After the sunset we said our goodbye's and headed back to American Spirit II to get ready for departure. We put the dingy away below, and then had a dinner of freeze dried Thai Chicken Curry, or something like that, along with baked beans and mandarin oranges. The Thai was so hot and spicy that Joel couldn't eat it; and Jeanine and I weren't especially fond of it either. At least I only have about 4 more of them. I'd bought them in Australia to supplement our US freeze dried inventory.

We weighed anchor at 7:25 PM and as we were leaving the really dark anchorage I almost slammed into Saphir, who didn't have an anchor light on. Oops. We were heading for Seisia, 341 nautical miles away and around the tip of the top of Australia.

I napped from 7:45 PM to 9:00 PM before going on watch. At 9:30 PM the ship African Spirit popped up on my chart plotter AIS; a 505 foot long cargo ship. The wind was 13 knots and our boat speed 7.0 knots. We were motor sailing with the main up.

At 9:35 PM I turned the engine off and rolled the jib out. Our speed dropped to a very acceptable 6.2 knots. Slower but better. If we sail a lot on the way to the top of Australia, then we won't have to stop in Seisia to refuel before heading the 730 miles further to Darwin.

The African Spirit crossed in front of us at 2.5 miles away at 9:55 PM. At 10:03 PM Sweet Pearl, another Rally boat with Tom and Sandra on board (newlyweds), called the African Spirit to discuss passing options. The radio operator/officer on the ship was very nice. No worries, he said.

At 11:35 PM I had to alter course to the right so I rolled up the jib. The wind was behind us and we weren't going to be putting up a pole with only 3 people on board at night; that, and we'd be making numerous course changes. The wind was now 17-19 knots and even with only the main up we were doing 6.4 knots. We're cruising, not racing.

Joel relieved me at midnight and at 12:15 AM I tried sending the SSB emails and logs again. This time I picked a location in Brunei, Philippines; 2,152 nautical miles away and at a heading of 300 degrees true. The send speed was 1,400; acceptable but not as good as 3,600 and 3,200; but the receive was slow at 200 bytes per minutes. I got disconnected again before I could receive any emails. I tried again and by 1:03 AM I was done. Forty-eight minutes to send and receive logs and emails. Not good. When we get to Darwin we're going to study up and see if we can send via my satellite phone in one or two minutes. That's what someone on a different boat said was the time it took them to send and receive. The problem is, however, its not free like SSB. Transmitting and receiving emails by sat phone costs $1.20 per minute.

Lights out for me at 1:10 AM.

Brian Fox
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