Port Vila to Sydney
Sunday 13 October 2013
Current position 24 22S 159 40E. Distance covered in the last 24 hours – 140NM.
Hello again from Chimere and crew.
Perkins is still pushing us along with a little help form a light north westerly wind. Good old P he has been going non-stop since Friday morning and his mate Arthur the auto-helm sings along with him. Arthur likes the light weather and keeps us on course without complaint.
Once again the weather man has scored 100%. The light northerly wind has bought higher air temperature and as we are traveling south at about the same speed as the wind it is quite hot onboard today. There is a 1 metre southerly swell against a small northerly chop which is tossing us around but still dry decks and open hatches! The swell is a harbinger of the 20 knot southerly predicted for the day after tomorrow. So, I am hoping our friends at the BOM are wrong about that.
We will pass the half way point in another 11 NM then it’s only 702NM to Sydney. We have started an arrival time sweepstakes for North Head Sydney Harbour. The GPS, who doesn’t know about the predicted southerly wind says 8PM Thursday the 17th. (Go GPS!!!) David is optimistic the southerly will blow out quickly and reckons 5PM Friday the 18th. Cam is still optimistic but has seen Chimere’s enthusiasm for going to windward reckons 12 midday Saturday and Sally obviously thinks Cam’s pretty smart and agrees but can’t have the same time so says 3PM. Carl who has more experience sailing Chimere reckons we’re dreaming and says Sunday the 20th at 10AM and Rob, from long experience guesstimates Sunday at 12 midday. We don’t know what the prize is yet as Bob is keeping it a surprise. If it’s like the Hobart race the winner will get chucked overboard then made to drink 10 beers!
The sea here is still pretty empty. No ships or other boats, no dolphins, or fish and the flying fish are hiding. We haven’t even seen any flotsam. The air is doing better with more birds, a jet way high last night on a reciprocal course and a few satellites whizzing by.
Well so much for saying the sea is pretty empty! Just after I wrote that paragraph the passenger ship Pacific Dawn and the yacht Solstice appeared on AIS and when we looked where the AIS indicated we could see them both. Bob had a chat to them on VHF. Pacific Dawn was enroute to Noumea and the Solstice from Noumea to Brisbane. Interestingly Solstice said his weather forecast was for 30 knot north westerlies by 4 AM tomorrow. If his forecasters are better than ours we could be in for a fast ride.
Well that’s enough excitement for one day.
We are all well and still enjoying the ride.
Cheers
Cam.