Day 5, Transition? A message from afar….. 30 September 2012 (Eastern Hemisphere) Dear F&F, The last 24 hours has been interesting. Yesterday, we were in more frequent squalls which came from the south, crossed over us, rained on us and moved on. The winds shifted a bit, but mostly the intensity ranged; 12-28 knots. With …
Day Four to Chagos – breakage and a fix!….. 29 September 2012 (Eastern Hemisphere) Dear F&F, The miles are clicking away, but overall this passage has been fairly slow. We\’ll most likely do around 155 miles today. I always do my planning on around 170 miles/day. The reason is squalls. We get 20-22 knots for …
Settling In….. 28 September 2012 (Eastern Hemisphere) Dear F&F, Last night was night three for us and it takes about till the third day to settle in on a long passage. Since we\’d made a few three day passages in the last month, it felt like we were more or less still in our routine. …
Entering the Back of Beyond….. 27 September 2012 (Eastern Hemisphere) Dear F&F, Last night we anticipated another bit of breeze so we took two reefs in the main and kept up the full genoa. The wind never came. By midnight, we\’d shaken both reefs out and the wind has steadily dropped into this morning at …
Day One to Chagos….. 26 September 2012 (Eastern Hemisphere) Dear F&F, The first few days are all about getting your sea legs and tummy back. I\’m doing very well for only 24 hours out of Cocos, we\’ll see how Nikki is when she wakes up. She was working on her celestial navigation last night which …
Half Way Round….. 25 September 2012 (Eastern Hemisphere) Dear F&F, The weather ahead was my concern yesterday. There was a system of weak low pressure cells along our route. For the most part, these were knocking the wind speed down so much, we might not be able to sail very effectively. I have more diesel …
Half Way Round…..Departure – Cocos to Chagos Archipelago Read More »
Weather Delay…Cocos Island Dear F&F, We did some relaxing and touring around in the dinghy yesterday awaiting the latest weather to see if we\’d be off today for Chagos. We tried to find the local (one and only) Dugong here at the western edge of Direction Island, but no luck. We then took advantage of …
Liquid Gold….. September 21-22, 2012 (Eastern Hemisphere) Dear F&F, Well Peter and I of s/v \”Mango\” topped up our fuel. The Co-op at Home Island charges $2.42 Australian per LITER! That\’s about $9.30 per GALLON US. So 21 gallons (80 liters) cost 200.00 US! If you think you\’re paying a lot at the pump, try …
Cocos-Keeling Island….. 19-21 September 2012 (Eastern Hemisphere) Dear F&F, We arrived at Cocos-Keeling Island after an exactly 3 day passage from Christmas Island. It was uneventful and a nice sail. Upon arrival, we noticed the 150 Australian Customs vessel and two small boats which had come in with boat people from Sri Lanka. Apparently, the …
Nice day at sea….. 18 September 2012 (Eastern Hemisphere) Dear F&F, The last 24 hours of sailing has been some of the steadiest and sublime I\’ve yet experienced in a long ocean passage. The swell is 3 meters from the south (10 feet), but it\’s a 10 second period swell with little or no \”seas\” …