We just have about two thirds of the genoa out on one side over night which, in the 20 to 30 knots of wind (with occasional gusts up to 35) gives us an average speed of 7.5 knots.
We normally do four hours on, four hours off but as this is such a tricky part of the journey as we wind our way through the reef with constant changes of direction to avoid them, Mike does most of the watch and we just grab bits of sleep where we can. He tries to catch up during the day but he has my problem – sleep eludes him.
He talks to Sean on Wild Tigris who are now about 30 miles behind us at 9 am.
Our route keeps us in the shipping land for most of the day and we see a few large container ships coming the other way including one being pulled by a tug.
As we travel up the mainland, we manage to get some internet connection for about 5 minutes via our new Telstra 3G thingy and as we have e-mails ready to send, I despatch them quickly before the signal disappears again. This part of the Queensland coast is so desolate that there are very few mobile phone transmitters.
The wind picks up throughout the day 25 to 35 knots, giving us average of 8.5 but it’s a comfortable sail (in fact, I might even go so far as to say enjoyable) as we are going with the wind and the waves. The waves are big and well spaced out. Riding them is like being on a roller coaster.
There are lots of channel markers which are not on the charts, which, from a distance, look like boats. They even show up on the radar as they have reflectors so it can be quite confusing.
All goes OK until late in the afternoon I am woken from a nap that has taken me ages to get into, by nasty crashing noises as waves start to hit us hard. I get up to find we have changed direction as we have to go around a large reef and we are now going straight into the wind and it is 30 to 35 knots with gusts over 40. This only lasts for about half an hour before we change course again but it is definitely half an hour too long.
When we are on watch, we spend the whole time watching the radar, the chartplotter and staring out at the horizon. Fun stuff indeed. It’s not normally this bad, but then we are not normally in these type of waters!
In the evening, Mike talks to Sean again – they are just 20 miles behind us now. I go to take something out of the freezer to find everything swimming in water, although the freezer seems to be on. I rearrange all the food so that it is tightly packed together, stuff towels all around them to try to keep them cold and hope for the best. I could be doing a major cookathon tomorrow!
I go to bed at around 11 but give up at just after midnight and take over from Mike.
Our position is: 11 deg 17 min S, 142 deg 84 min E
Distance so far: 11297 nautical miles
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