Port Vila to Sydney
Saturday 12 October 2013
Current position 22 16S 161 07E.
What a lovely day! Calm deep blue sea, a light south easterly breeze coming out of an almost cloudless sky, main and jib set and Perkins pushing too so Chimere is making almost 6 knots most of the time which is OK. The chart plotter says only 873NM to run to Sydney so by tomorrow evening we should be half way there. If these conditions persist we won’t want to stop!
The weather man has so far been very accurate with his (or her – no sexism here but I won’t write weather person!) forecasts and predicts much the same weather for the next two days. It is a good thing the people who built Chimere put in such big fuel tanks!
Sally has prepared a curry for dinner and is helping Bob sort and reorganize spare parts, David is resting, and Carl is standing watch. Well that is stretching the truth a bit as Carl is lying on the cockpit seat reading a book, but still ever vigilant! Bob is very happy as he has found the Soda Stream and a new canister of gas so now we will be blessed with some bubbly cordial!
Since setting sail we have only come across two other vessels both on the first night and within an hour of each other. Both of these boats were first visible on the AIS (Automatic Identification System). It was a dark night and being able to “see” other traffic and immediately know if a collision risk exists when they are still a safe distance away is very comforting.
Surprisingly there has been very little wildlife. We’ve seen a couple of long ranging ocean birds, probably petrels, and a few flying fish. No dolphins or sunfish or and certainly nothing is interested in our trolling line.
So life continues to be good onboard Chimere.
Cheers,
Cam.