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Neill 9/25/99
Well, the sea. On the way from Thursday Island,
right at the top of Aus, to Darwin. Then to prepare for jump off to
Indonesia. Nice timing, don't you think. Things are going well. We have
had a great time in Aus. Some fantastic snorkeling. I probably think of
you at least once every snorkel, due to your pervasive presence in my
green gloves. They have served me well. Not impenetrable, though. I
went on a crown of thorns killing spree in Fiji and those nasties got
through three times. (I really wasn't expecting the gloves to stop them,
they were big boys got a little out of control on me as I was piercing
their guts with my knife.) We had a great sail up the coast to the Torres
Straight. The GBR sort of closes in on the coast for a bit and it gets
hairy driving, especially at night. We managed to test the manovering
skills of one 350 ft freighter and then really pissed off another one.
The first one was my fault, not a happy scene. Closing at 26 kts or so
things happened a little faster than expected. Never life or boat
threatening, just didn't have much of a margin at the end. The second one
was just a horse's ass. He had heard us with the first one and told us,
way before visual contact, that we had two options: Pull over (??) or pass
red to red. That was fine. Then he told Sarah that we shouldn't be out
there in the channel anyway. Unfortunately in that part of the world if
you are not in the channel then it gets very very difficult to navigate,
especially sailing. Lots of charted, but not marked, reefs and little
islands, etc. Anyway, he was a bozo, and we never got close. That night,
when the route opened up a bit, I re-plotted our course out of the
channel, about 5 miles. Lo and behold, all of the shipping traffic seemed
to like that route better as well. Oh well, learning all the time.
Speaking of learning, we are finally figuring out how Margarita likes to
sail in the trades. Jib only. Something I am not used to, always want a
main to help come up into the wind if it gets nasty. But she has too much
weather helm with the main on a broad reach or run, especially when the
seas are up and she is going fast. The wind vane cannot handle it. So we
are now using jib, today only 1/2 rolled out, on a pole and she loves it.
6-7 kts in 20 with just half a jib. Great stuff. OK, got to write to the
correspondence schools and confirm that B, D and E have their years worth
(!!!!!) of course materials waiting for us in Darwin.
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