I wake Mike up when we get to the shipping line again but as nothing is coming in any direction, he goes back off to sleep for a while, coming up when it is light. After some breakfast and a cup of tea, I go down for my morning catch up sleep. It is at this time that the wind and the sea both pick up and the boat starts to pitch, heave and crash it’s way through the water – not conducive to sleep at all.
Then we turn a corner and we are straight into the wind. I know that if I stay in my cabin I will probably be ill so I get up and install myself instead on the sofa in the salon. Mike tells me that it will probably be like this for another couple of hours or so until we turn another corner. I lie whingeing on the sofa until I eventually doze off for an hour or so although the boat’s movements are still with me in sleep because they permeate my dream.
Under instruction, Mike makes lunch – spaghetti with meatballs in tomato sauce and gradually the sea starts to calm down a little, then completely until by the middle of the afternoon we have dead calm seas and absolutely no bloody wind again. On goes the engine!
Even though it’s a bit early for it, I decide to dye my hair while the boat is so steady. Looking in the mirror, I can’t believe it is still so short even though it was cut over four weeks ago. Usually by this length of time I am booking another cut (or more recently would have hacked lumps off) by now, but I am still tugging at it, willing it to grow faster. Ah well. Another couple of weeks and I’m sure I will find the pair of scissors in my hand again.
By the time I go to bed, we can already see the lights of Darwin forming a halo over the land in the distance. It must be over 45 miles away – the light pollution is incredible. I lie in bed for over two hours, unable to sleep (here we go again). Eventually I get up and tell Mike to go down instead, but we are in a complex part of the route and he can’t leave the helm for another three hours or so.
I stand in the cockpit with Mike watching Darwin in the distance. The boat is slewing from side to side, like in a slow motion skid at the back. The currents are all over the place, forming little whirlpools as we cross them. It’s not an unpleasant motion, just a weird one. Over the last few hours the current has both helped and hindered us, depending on whether it has been coming in or going out. Darwin is very tidal!
I go back down and almost immediately fall asleep. My body is so perverse!
Our position is: 12 deg 05 min S, 131 deg 03 min E
Distance so far: 11967 nautical miles
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