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July 22, 2000
Solomons to Australia voyage - Update #5
Lat/Long as of 11.08hrs local time
10 degs 12. 93’ S
157 degs 54. 89’E
Day 5.Wind SE 10-15 knots. Heading 195M
OK, the fight is on. It seems that everything is against us getting to Cairns right now: the wind from the SE, the waves driving us driving back up towards the NW and the 1-2 knot current also heading NW. We had a bit of a break yesterday when the weather dithered around for around 12 hours giving us enough relief from the swell and wind to sneak 18 miles south. But since the trades have kicked back in full swing we’ve been struggling to make 1 mile south in every 3 hours. And that’s at a heading of between 180 and 200M, which has Moksha riding at a 45-degree angle against the waves. Its crazy stuff – never before have we had to make such an aggressive heading to get where we want to go. And that’s the problem. We have no choice in our destination it seems if we are to avoid huge penalties from Australian Customs and Immigration - Cairns being the only port of international entry on the NE Australian coast.
But if we can’t make it we can’t make it. The main thing is we reach turf, and ideally Aussie turf considering we’ve taken a huge detour to dip south, pay a visit on our colonial cousins and hit our antipodal point for a legimate circumnavigation (it would have been a lot easier to have gone for China from Hawaii). The first battle we have in the next 3-4 days is to make it south of the Louisiade Archipelago, an extension of reefs systems running SE from Papua New Guinea. From there on into the main body of the Coral Sea the current is supposed – according to our pilot charts for the South Pacific that we use to determine probable strengths and directions of wind/current/waves etc during the planning stages of each leg – to head more westerly or even southwesterly at this time of year. This might make the difference between making it or not. As things stand right now we need to make one mile south for just under 2 west to make the entrance of the Grafton Passage leading through the Great Barrier Reef and from then onto Cairns. There’s definitely no leeway on this voyage. No margin for error. Every hour the pedals aren’t being cranked we lose about a mile and a half west. So April and I are pedaling 3-4 hourly shifts to keep the Good Ship moving around the clock. But its exhausting stuff, not least because of pedaling a 1.5 ton mass into 25ft swell and 20 knot winds. When we’re not pedaling we’re either catching up on sleep or fixing food. Not much time for washing hair either.
Jason
Posted on July 22, 2000 1:10 PM