Sailing Our Oyster around the World ( presently about to leave Reunion Island )
A Lady
Stephen Hyde
Sun 31 Oct 2010 10:10
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SATURDAY 30th OCTOBER
2010 ( Bank holiday weekend at home ) DAY 1 at
Sea. LEG 19 of the World rally.
Distance to Richards Bay , South
Africa............................................. 1,365 n miles
Our estimated time to do the trip
............................................................... 8 days
3hrs
06.00hrs All hands on deck as we leave
today,
We washed down the decks again and had a light
breakfast and then set up all the sheets and guys for the " Bag of Fear " if
required.
09.00hrs. Rally control
morning radio broadcast.
It became a fact thet the two U.S. Sundeer
60's are going to stay for another few days, all because Jimmy, the owner of one
of them called " Ocean Jasper " has fallen in love with " Annette " from the
Botique shop in Mackay and she flew up and joined their boat for a while,
Mackay is one of the two most dissapointing places
we visited on the trip, the other was Equador.
Mackay :-
*We only finished repairing our outhaul yesterday,
which had been replaced in Mackay,
*Our new SSB, which we purchased in Mackay and were
told it would be suitable for our trip, turned out to be only suitable for
Australian waters,
Of course this can be overcome , by employing
someone to retune the radio, But they forgot to mention that when supplying the
expensive equipment.
*Our E120 was so badly damaged in Mackay that it
had to be sent back to Raymarine to be completly rebuilt.
*Our Generator was Successfully repaired in Mackay,
but the mechanic never screwed back the electrical circuit board properly and
the nuts came undone , one falling into the generator and damaging the
M.P.U. Nuturally 2 days later the generator stopped working and we had tpo
call into another port to have it repaired.
All this cost big money, and whats more , Australia
was certainly the most expensive place we visited on the trip.which just added
to all the woe's.
And many others suffered simular problems, so its
not just us.
Thats enough whinging for today, otherwise we will
have to rename the trip " whinging our way around the World "
10.15hrs, Our neighbours " Chessy " let go
her lines and now we were free to leave the dock.
We already had the engine warming up, so at
10.20hrs we reversed out of our space, turned around and headed out to the
starting area.
There was a stiff breeze blowing from the north,
over 20 nkots,, Now that is totally at odds to the weather forecast, which
predicted light winds for
the first 3 days,
11.00hrs, THE START of leg 19
,,
We first headed south to a yellow mark just about
1/4 mile away, and only for " Eowyn's " message on the radio,
all boats would have missed the mark. Once
around the mark we set a course of 235 degrees T for the first way point
abot 30 miles
south of Madasgar, Distance to this
waypoint is 365 miles
We goosewinged for the first 15miles in a good
breeze, but as we drew away from the Island, the wind became lighter and
lighter,
so we decided to hoist the " Bag of fear ", this
increased our speed by about 2 knots and we soon drew away from the flleet,
However, as the wind got lighter, ( below 10 knots,
) many boats turned on their engines and motored past us
again.
off towards the horizon.
We got out the fishing rod, ( which we have not
used for a while ) and after a good cleaning and polishing, attached a brand new
lure and
cast it out behind the boat, perhaps about 150m of
line, Our first catch many hours later was a big plastic
bag...
The weather was beautifull and we were happy
scooting along at 6.5knots in 10 knots of wind,
We had a school of Dolphins for a long while and
this is always exciting, the cameras were clicking like mad.....
We identified them from our marine book as "
Spinner Dolphins " and are common in the Indian ocean,
18.00hrs, The wind was still very light, and
a little fluky as well, so we had to keep adjusting the " Bag of Fear " all the
time,
We had covered only 46 miles since we started , an
average of 6.5 knots, Ohhhhhh that will certainly affect
our estimated time of arrival.
which we calculated to be next Sunday
afternoon. Still there is a long way to go. all we need is a strong
breeze..
20.00 hrs We had dinner in the " Liquid
Moonlight Restaurant " ( the new name for the cockpit.)
It consisted of Pork Chops, carrots, baked beans,
and creamed potatoes, which were whipped with Mayonnese, you know, that really
made them very tasty .. yum yum,
Nothing left on the plates, speaks for
itself. gobble, gobble, sleep, sleep, a little reading inbetween the
sunbathing and " the cats the Queen "
Nothing on the fishing line either, and now its
dark, Its interesting, but most of our catches to date ( not too many now
in fairness )
have been around midday, so we will just have to be
patient,
23.00hrs, Wind and conditions still the same as
they were earlier, and lovely sailing conditions too.
Distance travelled
.......................................46 n miles,
Distance to
waypoint...................................319 n miles.
Night watches
:-
22.00hrs /
00.00hrs.................................................. Aileen
00.00hrs
/
02.00hrs...................................................Stephen
02.00hrs /
04.00hrs....................................................Neil
04.00hrs /
06.00hrs....................................................Terry
06.00hrs /
08.00hrs.....................................................Collette
Thats all for now,
Signed :-
Stephen Hyde ( Skipper )
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