Some time in the night, our little stowaway moves away from the guardrail and repositions himself on the sail. Given how much pooh he has left on the deck, I hope he hasn’t left the same over the sail bag!
Photo: Peering down at Mike from the safety of the sail, our stowaway
After my watch, which I extend by nearly an hour to let Mike get a bit more sleep, I sleep solidly until just after 10 am. We are sailing along nicely now in a steady 15 knots of wind and if it stays like this we will definitely arrive in Darwin on Sunday.
We are having kangaroo steaks for lunch. On the packet it claims that kangaroo is “good for you and good for the environment”. Apparently kangaroos are good for the ozone layer because they fart less than cattle and sheep. Well, it doesn’t actually say that – it says they produce less methane and therefore don’t add to greenhouse gases. Unfortunately, none of the kangaroo that we have eaten since I bought the first lot has been anyway near as good. Today’s steaks are so tough that there owner must have hopped his way across the entire continent before succumbing to road kill. Good flavour though.
While we are eating, the customs plane makes its appearance again, swooping low to get another eyeful but I have his number and cross my arms across my chest.
We have a few small dolphins who come to play at the bow for a short while but no other wildlife of any description is sighted.
It has become obvious that ships are very much like buses around here, especially when you are near shipping lines. You know, you wait for ages then loads come along together. Mike has just left me on watch when two blips appear on the radar. I go outside to take a look and can just make out their lights in the distance even though they are nearly 12 miles away. I decide to get Mike up as we have the genoa goosewinged out and although I could alter course if we were motoring, I still don’t understand enough to alter course a lot when the flappy things are out front. By the time Mike gets up, we can see their navigation lights through the binoculars and realise they are both heading straight for us. Mike changes course by 30 degrees and the first one passes us just over a mile away, followed shortly after by the second.
Half an hour passes and another two blips appear. This time I delay calling Mike and just watch their progress. I can see by the navigation lights that one will pass easily on our starboard side, but the other one has no navigation lights at all. As we get closer, I realise that it is a fishing vessel – he is lit up like a Christmas tree, deck lights blazing everywhere, and basically just hanging around, but luckily not in our path
That’s enough excitement for one night more me but I have another watch to do later so there’s time enough.
Our position is: 10 deg 52 min S, 132 deg 88 min E
Distance so far: 11868 nautical miles
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