Last day on passage - 2000 nm Cocos keeling to Rodriguez

0800 September 1
Still lumping along in 25 knots. Down to triple reefed main, no headsail. Ran all night, till dawn when the wind went forward, so down came the pole and on came the cockpit spray. Otherwise we are very comfortable. Below,its rough, with the occassional deep roll as we slide sideways down a bigger wave, but that aside its warm and cozy, the sound of pots, plates and cans rattling in the cupboards, marking off the miles as we toss about in our berths.

As of 0800 hours, the beginning of day 12, we are 117 NM to go. We are very likely to make land fall sometime in the middle of the night tonight. The harbour is on the lea side of the island, and according to the charts, well marked. If the soundings are good, the entrance is lite and the seas are smooth, we will enter the harbour in the dark. Otherwise, we'll heave-to till dawn.

Impressions of the South Indian Ocean in the late winter early spring? Rough, but consistent strong trade winds make for fast passages. A bit too wet, but we fared better than one of the other boats on passage who took a whole wave into the cockpit and down the open companionway! He was safe but still bailing hours later. (And this skipper managed his boat and family of wife and two babies under the age of 3.)

The waters are so much cooler than the equatorial region, cooling the air at sea down to woolies, hats and rain gear on watch. Its a bit rude after Singapore and Indonesia, but confirming that we have indeed, finally, left Asia for Africa.

Tomorrow we will dine African on Rodriguez and enjoy other no guilt pleasures of hot showers, quiet beds and a full nights sleep!

After landfall, its often difficult to pick up this email address by ham radio. Contact us on our regular emails for the next three weeks until we set sail again for Mauritius, only 336 NM away.

To all of you out there following our blog, thanks for you attention and interest. Look for pictures of the passage after tomorrow.
Cresswell

All day every day we sail before the timeless SE Wind...

As I watched the sun rise over the transom during the dawn watch,I realized I have not blogged about what it is like at sea, day after day (waiting on email aside!) on passage in a small boat. Its a pity because there is so much magic in the wilderness of the this place. Six years ago I wrote this on the 30 day passage from California to French Polynesia

"Log Entry: 0200 hours, May 29, 2005 Position: Lat N 24° 56.5', Long W 118° 59.1' Wind: NE 10, Sea: NE Swell 4 feet, Weather: Broken Cloud Heading: 180M Boat Speed: 5 knots
The early morning hours are playing tricks with my mind. It seems that time and movement has stopped. It feels this morning as if we are suspended. We are floating on the liquid skin of mother earth - weightless in the tension between gravity and buoyancy, going neither ahead in time nor in space.
Every day, all day, we sail on before the timeless NW wind, but the ocean horizon ahead never arrives, and the restless parade of seas overtaking from behind never cease. Every day the sun rises in the same place on our port side, and every night the sun sets in the same place on our starboard side. Even though the bright green numbers on the GPS are counting down to the equator, even though food is disappearing from our lockers, even though fresh fruit is decaying in the galley hanging baskets and even though laundry is accumulating for wash up day, I am not persuaded we are moving at all. The horizon never arrives.
More likely, the sights and sounds of movement around the boat are an illusion. The sound river of the bow wave ahead and the gurgle of water moving past the stern, is a sign the ocean moving past us, not us through it. Our daily plots cross the chart are just made up by our instruments to keep us comforted. I am not convinced we are moving at all. Every day is the same; the sea, the sky, the wind, the boat, the birds. The changeless ocean has enchanted us with its illusion of movement and progress, but we are stopped and going nowhere, nowhere at all.
.... We are suspended, Irena, me and Conversations. Time and space stand still in this large bowl of a horizon, a perfect circle around us.
There is no place else in the universe where I want to be. I have all the time in the world to just be here."

Speaking of enchantment, with perfect grace, the ocean gave up a fish for our feasting yesterday. A giant Whahoo. It was by far, the biggest fish I have ever caught. No fooling, it was big - heavier than a carry on bag and lighter than an checked bag. It took two of us to drag her aboard. It was taller than 10 year old, but shorter than Irena. I could barely lift it with two hands. It took an hour to clean and butcher her, and today we are attempting to freeze in our modest onboard freezer an estimated 30 pounds of fillets and steaks. Come back to the blog to see pictures after we land, you'll see what I mean.

Speaking of landing, we are 425 miles from Rodriguez and will likely arrive Friday morning.
Cress

From exactly in the middle of nowhere!

Sniff…. Sniff…..[from exactly in the middle of nowhere]
One thing we know without doubt: These days, all three of us onboard are keen for news from friends. So, though it's not completely true we are just sitting about waiting for emails, it's practically true!
Now, we know it's a sure thing that all of you out there have a lot more to do with your time than we do on the good ship Conversations, with our long passage and all to Rodriguez. We know it's not your duty as friends to entertain us either, especially with your full lives of work and family (and your other friends who have not deserted you). We know that while we spend our time in the plain routines of keeping watch, sleeping, reading, cooking, keeping watch, sleeping, reading, cooking etc., day after unbroken day, as an endless, unchanging horizon stretches to flatness in every direction….. [sigh] ….that your lives are full of wonderful places to go, people to see, and deadlines to meet. Yup it's a wonder we get any email at all.
And, we know, as a matter of fact, it's probably our fault that we spend every dusk and dawn bending over our ham radio twiddling dials to no apparent purpose. Clearly it is our just desserts: For all our boasting about all the nice places we have been to lately and all the fun we have been having. Heck if I were in your shoes, I'd probably just hit "delete" every time I saw another friendly damn email from the tropics!
But I know you are bigger people than I. I know you are not taken as I am by petty jealousy and downright self centeredness and do not let your busy lives, like I do, divert my attention from my friends and get lost in the jet stream of modern living. Not you guys!

So please, if you can spare even a few moments, email us at sea by putting "/winlink" at the start of the subject line and (we think) your welcome news will slip through the Winlink.org spam filters and into our inbox. Address: VE7CXW@winlink.org
Radio Operators are standing by!
(with apologies to m Judy and Michael Aschner, who email for email, outnumber even our weather bulletins)
Cress

thank you universe for sending us a little less wind and a little fish for dinne

Eve of Day four ends and darkness descends on our wee vessel alone here in the middle of the Indian Ocean, sailing on.

We had a great day sailing with a little less wind and a wee mahimahi for dinner. We had some sun, a lot less spray aboard and some energy to do more than stand watch and read in our berths. I tackled the drainage problem we have with the water making its way forward from the aft lockers, getting stuck adjacent the engine room in our flat bottom boat and washing up over the sole. Very annoying. Well I bailed, cleared the limber holes, but more needs to be done in harbour.

Winds 20 knots and under this evening, so we are back up to a double reefed mainsail and still with staysail, hopefully for the night. If so it will be a far better cry than last night watches last night stretched out across the companionway trying under the dodger to get out of the spray and the wind. Fairly cool already. Forecast is for 15 knots from the E for a day tomorrow then SE at 15 for a day from the SE. So we are hopeful the 30 knot stuff is finished for now.

Position S 15.01.298 E 087 12.076 course 260 speed 8 knots. Sailed 180 miles last 24 hours. It might be 200 if our windvane would steer straight, but it still beats steering by hand!

Good night world!

Day 4 and all is well

Irena here - Well I guess some of us are taking a little longer to adjust than Cress!

With the wind easing just a wee bit last night, and the sun coming out to grace our day, everything seems just a bit brighter. We are finally getting some rhythm on this passage. Well, at the very least I am finally feeling fine, motion sickness has finally passed. Still a fair amount of motion knocking us about the cabin below. Eitan was thrown across the boat twice yesterday(once with a basin of saltwater - yuck!) - but still all in one piece (except for the saltwater which spread itself all about the cabin sole).

I find when the motion is like this, you need to do everything in slow motion and remember to brace yourself all the time (which is something difficult to do for us type a's who are used to doing 5 things at the same time). So when I get knocked off balance, I get really pissed with the boat, and with anyone who happens to be within 5 feet of me! It's the same as when you hit our head on the cupboard door - that you, and only you left open. You want to blame someone, anyone! But in the end, there is no one there to take the blame - so you sulk a little, lick your wounds and carry on, being a little more careful for a while, until the boat takes an unexpected lurch.... and it starts all over again!

I am curious about how Eitan sees it - will ask him to post his thoughts. We all felt so miserable yesterday afternoon, we actually passed on happy hour! At about 5 pm each day we all get together for a beer, or G&T if we can manage it, or a scotch if things are particularly tough - but yesterday, each in our own misery, too wet in the cockpit to even think about gathering there, and not feeling very social, we just didn't bother. Nothing was said, it just seemed to be a general consensus.

But today is a whole new day! Sun is shining, cockpit dry and spirits rising - YES and did I mention that it is actually pretty glorious out there? Big huge waves that slip under us and carry us forward, a few birds that have been following us and who fly with such ease and grace over the waves, they are like watching a ballet. Today is a great day to be alive!

In the meantime, I will slowly go to the galley now and make a cup of tea...

Sa' fine day to rise at sea!

Steel grey giants roll up behind and under, sea birds swoop and dive, a stout rig pulling strong over the lumpy water. Tall clouds ring the horizon all around. It's clear above. The descending moon giving way on one side of the sky to the rising yellow sun climbing the other. I drink my morning coffee in the cockpit, coming on watch. Its beautiful. Its powerful. And is only today, the morning of day three, that we have emerged from the tough, head down, get-the-job-done transition of putting to sea. Only this morning am I able to appreciate it.
It's been two heavy weather days, nothing like a storm, but brisk. Winds hovering between 20 and 30 knots building big seas in an unbroken fetch of thousands of miles. We are sailing on a beam to broad port reach, with triple reefed main, and sometimes, when the wind abates, staysail. This sail combination gives us enough power to sail along comfortably at 8 knots, and is easily changed up and down with the wind. And we have had rain too, lots of it, washing away the salt temporarily, it only to be replaced from the constant spray from waves running into the boat's topsides. Even in the cockpit, we get it too, a good dousing of salt water, randomly.
Everyone standing up well, looking forward to having the winds abate, and to having the sun prevail.
Position: S 13 38.55 E 091 37.14 Course 250, Speed 8 knots. 1660 miles to go. Cress

And away we go!

Set sail this morning at 0930 for Rodrigeuz - 2000 miles away.
Winds, as almost always in this part of the world, SE at 15 to 20 knots. Making good time this evening as the sun sets. Two reefs in the main and full genoa - better balanced for our wind vane to cope. Sailing at 8 knots plus just the same.
s 12 09.61 e 095.486 Course 256
All well on board and supper calls!
Cress

Cocos Keeling: Short but sweet

Friday August 19, 2011

Here we sit in Cocos Keeling…. Pretty sleepy, that’s for sure. As luck would have it, it is Ramadan now, so it’s really sleepy! It’s actually snoring. The ferry connecting us to the island where our boat is anchored is only making trips until 3 pm. Oh, and the dive shop has both of its boats out of the water for servicing!

We had an excellent snorkel yesterday in a place called ‘the rip’ – so called because the tide rips through the outer reef into the lagoon at a very fast pace. You can only swim/snorkel in that area just before low tide for an hour or so, and after that the current is just so strong we would be swept away to sea, or at least across the lagoon. So yesterday we swam and snorkelled our hearts out and swam like bandits through the river of a tide to get back to our dinghy. But the coral was beautiful, lots of huge Parrot fish (Buntheads), some Trevali and even a black tipped Reef Shark (although a family of 5 of these circle the boat morning and evening looking for food scrap handouts and we don’t disappoint them)!

We are enjoying our time here, and have decided to push through to Rodriguez Island sooner rather than later – its 2000 NM away to the west. Irena will then go back to Singapore for a couple of weeks work from there. And there will be a lot more for Cress and Eitan to do on Rodriguez – 37,000 pop., hiking, kite-surfing, diving and even restaurants.

A couple of cruisers have mistaken Eitan for our son. “So what it’s like sailing with your parents” asked one yachtie on board for sundowners. Eiton, with his bandana in place thought he said "Whats it like being a pirate" and simply went "Erghhhhh". Parent or Pirate, we really value his company and guitar playing. Cress enjoys the teaching sailing and Irena enjoys feeding him!

We should be in Rodriguez before the leaves hit the ground in Canada. It promises to be a natural wonderland, an island 7x8 kilometres surrounded by a lagoon twice the size of the island in the centre. Mountain hikes, more lagoon side beaches, kite surfing and not too many people. We expect to get underway Saturday or Sunday and will keep you posted on our progress with position reports and lies about how big the fish are (that is if we ever catch any, but of course you will never know for sure!)

Safe at Anchor in Cocos Keeling - three 200 mile days to sail here - unbelievabl

An absolutely pristine, tropical island atoll, Cocos Keeling welcomed us with sunny skies, crystal blue waters,friendly cruisers and a fabulous tradewind breeze to keep us cool as we soak up the beauty in the lee of Direction Island. Staggeringly natural.
Tomorrow we will begin the exploration. Tonight we are looking forward to a night of cool breezes blowing down the hatch, swinging under the moon, peace at anchor!
C

Rockin!

Day one was a 200 mile day! Outstanding.

Day two has dawned clear and cool, the SE trades rebuilding from the SE to 20 knots. Sun sparkling on 2 meter seas, our fishing line in tow. Ripping along on a beam reach at 8 knots. Bow wet, cockpit dry.

While it is pretty much hands off sailing, we spend our time on watch and off watch reading, catching up on sleep, and well of course, eating. Nibbling really. Its rough enough to eat "bowl" meals, all delicious out here.

It's cool too. The water temperature is significantly cooler than the equatorial waters now 500 miles to the north. Irena stood last nights watch in a fleece jacket, nylon wind breaker and near long pants. No shoes though, great pedicure before she left.

Eitan is fitting right in, quick learner, good cook and easy companion. Really appreciate his company and contribution. Thanks man!

Boat is behaving well, no problems so far. Love the addition of the staysail. When the wind gets up, its easy to roll out the staysail and roll up the genoa with the power winch. Hydrovane (wind steering) doing most of the work at the helm, though it still requires a fair amount of attention to keep her steering straight. Solar panels and wind generator keeping up with the demands of instruments, freezer and lights- possible now that we have switched to LED lit running and cabin lights.

Was reflecting last night alone on watch on the experience of setting out on passage and how it is so much like embarking on anything of consequence. Anxiety from my uncertainty is my main tone before departure, discomfort during the early days adapting, resistance to what is that is making it tough, then some period of struggle, then finally surrender. Only after surrender, am I capable of starting to notice and appreciate what is. Only then do I start to engage my present circumstance constructively. Creatively. Lovingly. With appreciation and joy. After that? Then probably, successful landfall and the destination of our choice and desire! Its Joseph Campbell's Hero's journey - Ambition. Prevarication. Jump into Abyss. Struggle. Becoming. Resolution.

Coming up to noon, lunch (and a beer) then what else? A nap!

Position 1010 utc S 09 00.62, E101 35.590 C 237 speed 8 kts 336 nm to Cocos Keeliinng

We Are Away!

Hello everyone!
Set sail this morning at 0700 hours from Krakatau (Indonesia) for Cocos Keeling (Australia).
Fast start - 100 miles in the first 12 hours - sailing on close reach in 15 knots from the SE, moderate seas,sunshine and a dry cockpit!We are celebrating our first pactor(email)contact since leaving just a few minutes ago (glad we can stay in touch with the world this way.

Position 1035 hours utc: 07 08.353S, 104 04385E, course 235, speed 8.8 knots.
Will try to post every day - 529 miles to Cocos Keeling'

Cresswell

testing email posts

At sea, we will be posting by email on our blog, assuming we can make Pactor modem ham radio links along the way. It’s all a bit iffy, but we’ll sure be trying!

C

 

 

Departure looms!

Tomorrow we will jump through the last of the hoops with officials, pay our bills, wave farewell to the great people here at the Batavia Marina, and untie the lines that bind us to the dock in Jakarta. We are setting sail for Cocos Keeling! Along the way we will stop beside Krakatau in hopes of some fireworks, but not more than a day or two at anchor.

Our departure tomorrow will be a bit of a dance - trying to get out of the marina before high tide, so that we can get through Sundra Straight - about 50 miles away, before the currrent of 2 knots turns against us. But, .... it will be what it will be. So what if it takes us 48 rather 24 hours to reach Krakatau?!

Is the boat really ready after months and months of preparation? Time will tell.

But either way, I for one, am very keen to get the heck out Jakarta. Love the people, hate the pollution. My eyes are burning.

Stay tuned!

Cress

Ahhhhhh…. The spirit of boatness is back! I don’t know where she went, but I am very pleased she is back. Maybe, to make her presence known, she demands day after day of hard labour on the boat. Or maybe it is the iminent prospect of a 5500 mile ocean passage across an unknown sea, the need to get it right, before setting sail. Or maybe it’s getting free of the troubles of survival in the city, a return to the pleasures of a moonlit wash of the sea lapping on the boot top. Or maybe it’s all three. Or maybe it’s none of the above. I don’t know.

But I do know what hard labour looks like. I wake before the sun, alone in the aft cabin double berth, the predawn light not yet visible through the hatch over the berth, no hints yet of another day coming. It’s too soon to get up – to groan with stiffness yet. I usually lie there a moment thinking I really want to sleep, then that part of me that keeps me on the straight and narrow says sit up in bed and meditate in the quiet, you always like it when you do!. And I do, often sitting for 30 to 45 minutes, alternating between a relentless stream of thoughts and the odd moment of floating free. Sometimes, if I have woken early enough, when I am done, I will reward myself and crawl back under the covers. As I auger into the comfort of the cold side of my pillow, I inhale the comfort of Conversations tugging at her lines. With a certain smugness, I remember the sound of aircon will drown out the call to prayers in this part of the world – I have done my part.

Finally, its daylight. I am genuinely ready for another day in the magic kingdom. The pleasure at the day’s sweet smells are soon overwhelmed bythe heat. The sweating begins almost as soon as I stagger to my feet, and grope forward to the galley and put the kettle on for morning coffee in my underwear. And I mean, the sweat is on! In this 32 C plus climate, I will sweat until the lights go off at the end of the day and the aircon in the aft cabin goes back on. But we cope. I will several times during each day be showering under the hose on the swim grid, recovering my wa. By 7am, coffee in hand, I climb up the companion way to sit in the cockpit, waiting for it and sunrise to bring my excitement for the day. Before it is done, I am usually off on the first project.

Today, is day four of hard labour. I started with thinking what to do to get our crew, Ali, started. But he surprised me, already at work on the forward hatch when I came on deck with my coffee. He was pulling out the leaking main hatch lens. By the time I said “selamat pagi” (good morning I am learning) he was already getting the hatch ready to re-bed. I looked over my list of 46 items. I decide this mornig to start small. I installed a new hard point (a place to attach life harness to in nasty weather) in the cockpit, replaced a grill over the engine room vent, and laid a bead of silicon around the galley top before the rot set in. After lunch and a requisite 20 minute nap, I had the marina call me a taxi and dove into Jakarta traffic to buy some groceries. Without Irena, I either have take Ali out to dinner every night, or cook for us both.

By 2pm I was back with a trunk load. I had found an excellent grocery store, with fresh food and everything!

I decided to tackle the goose neck (the joint between the main boom and the mast) It had been making the dry grating sounds of dry metal grinding bare metal. It turned out to be one of the few jobs that actually went as planned. I easily pulled out the ten ¼ inch machine screws. “Easy” because the mast manufacture did it right – anchoring the stainless steel bolts in a stainless steel plate, instead of tapping into the mast’s aluminium extrusion. I drilled and ground a couple of custom washers to fit (you can never have too many tools) and, with some waterproof lithium grease, the whole things was back together in two hours. I had time to spare so I pulled off the mainsail “stack pack” and the dragged out the 50 kg sewing machine and started to install a plastic drain in the cover canvas. The plan is to direct the rain water off the main sail into the ships water tanks. In the name of simplicity and weight (not to mention cost and trouble) we have forgone having a water maker. The main sail, at over 750 square feet catches a lot of water in a tropical squall. With luck and if I have put the drain in the right place, we will have lots of free water this way. We would never run out of drinking water with our tank capacity, but extra water makes the passages much more comfortable. Washing the salt off at the end of each day at sea is a huge luxury for a small boat cruiser and one to which I am increasingly disposed!

So that’s a day of hard labour on Conversations. Tomorrow I am going to have Ali haul me 65 feet up the mast on the power windless to inspect the rigging, and change light bulbs to LEDs. I think I’ll have him practice on a bucket of water first. And I’ll tell him if he drops me he won’t get paid.

The quality of 'boatness', I have decided, is the quality of feeling engaged in something of value. Its a 'quality of being' available to everyone, but not of course, necessarily in the guise of 'boatness'. It would be any other thing of value to a person. In the quality of boatness, I feel back in my own skin. For me the elements are being in a place of nature, being engaged in a project that challenges me with an uncertain outcome, of sufficient challenge that I rise each day with a sense of purpose and possibility. And a sense, 'its up to me'. So what, you might ask yourself, is your quality of 'boatness' and what are the elements prerequisite to your having the joy of experiencing it?

I think, another element is that when we are in our 'boatness' whatever that is for each of us, its about doing what I (we) are here on the planet to do. It's not that boatness is everything, and that it is perfect and it is the only thing - it is not any of these of course - but it is to say that "for today it is enough". Tomorrow it will be different, and that does not take away from the value of it for today.

Tonight, Ali and I had salmon steaks, salad, potatoes, and French bread. Sentenced to a life of hard labour? I should be so lucky!