Day 7
We're only seven days out of Australia and we've already got two stowaways. One has parked himself on the bow and the other is camping out on our solar panels at the back. And they got quite mad when we politely asked them to leave. Unlike on all of our previous offshore passages, this time we're absolutely surrounded by sea life. And this time it wants to play with us. We've seen birds every day out here, mostly at dusk, and they are very interested in us indeed. I suspect that we had the same three following us for days, and now as the sun goes down each day their numbers are growing. Garth is enchanted by them, which is not surprising considering his history with charming wild birds into submission. They are amazing up close though. They're probably a type of albatross, with a huge wing span and a very streamlined body. We often saw royal albatross in New Zealand, which are huge. And then they came closer and you realized they were actually bigger than huge. You never saw them really close up though - they would swing by at just the right distance for you to admire them but not close enough to have any contact. That was normal bird behaviour. But these guys have obviously decided that our boat is their personal plaything. Every day they fly in circles around us, swooping down over our heads, flying around to the leeward side and coasting above the sails before coming down and heading back to the leeward side to go again. Like it's a fairground ride. They must be getting lift off the top of the sails, or surely it wouldn't be so much fun.
They do the same thing at the stern, flying in circles around the wind gen. Which is terrifying. They swoop down until they're dangerously close to the blades and then hover there for a while before doing a circle of the boat and coming back for more. Their wingspan is well over 1m across, so when they hover over the cockpit they take up the whole sky above us, almost close enough to reach up and touch. The other day I was lying in the cockpit on watch in the dark, waiting for the moon to come up. I heard a big thud and looked up to see a huge black shape being flung towards the water and the windgen blades grind to a halt. So they know it's there... I just really hope that both the wind gen and bird were left undamaged.
Last night they were playing their normal games, with about five of them this time, when Garth commented that he thought they were trying to land. It certainly looked that way. I'm not sure if they just don't have the talons to grip onto things like the cockatoos we found in the Whitsundays, or if it's just really hard to land on a moving object, but they were having trouble. There was one who was obviously trying harder than the others. He would line up a stay or a spreader bar on the mast, then slowly come in for a landing. He would carefully maneuver back and forth as he tried to line up his landing, but the boat was rocking all over the place and he'd give up and bail out right at the last minute. We were sitting down below cheering him on, but it didn't help. Eventually he gave up and tried the top of the mast instead, which moves and rocks around in the waves more than anything else on the boat. He tried over and over, always bailing out at the last minute. Then eventually he must have decided to just do it, and we watched him stick the landing on our windex, right at the top of the mast. Which was not very stable. He unsuccessfully balanced there for a while, then jumped off to try again. This time he landed on the arrow which shows us which direction the wind is coming from. And it started spinning him round and round, confused by the extra weight. He went in circles for a while before managing to jump onto the light at the top, which was just as hard to balance on. The poor bugger didn't last long before giving up and coming down again. Onto plan B.
This involved running away for a while, either to gather his strength or to formulate a new plan. Who knows. But he eventually returned and after a few tries involving him coming stupidly close to the windgen blades, he found a seat on the solar panels. Right next to us. And he didn't seem in the least bit frightened. He let us shine lights on him, take pictures and stand right next to him. Garth was about 10cm from his face taking pictures with my iPhone before he objected, loudly asking us for some privacy. We left him a cupcake, but he wasn't that interested in our non-fishy food. Then he just hung out there. All night. I was looking around for ships a few hours later when I saw he had a friend sitting on the bow, which is the most sensible place for a bird to sit. Though I suppose I only think that because that's where birds usually land. Maybe the difficulty level of the solar panel makes it a much more exciting place to pass the night.
So that's been our main source of excitement so far. We had typical upwind sailing for the first few days - bouncy, splashy and uncomfortable. Steep waves that disappeared out from under the front half of the boat before the back, leaving the bow in the air to smack back down onto the water with a sickening crunching noise. Over and over. But the rest of this trip has been surprisingly calm. I've figured out the solution to my seasickness problem, finally. It's mass amounts of pills! Genius! I just keep popping different ones until I'm not sick, starting with the weakest and moving my way up. I couldn't really do that before because I didn't know which ones you could take at the same time as the others. But I've got it sorted out now, thanks to Garths amazing mother. When there's no more left to take I get into the serious ones, which I've had to do twice. But no throwing up and no sleeping in the cockpit, which is important in the first few days as we're both adjusting and everything is chaotic. I never used to be able to go inside at all for the first few days, and was always too sick to be much use until I got my sea legs. So this is good.
Nothing else has really happened. We found a flying fish on deck and saw two dolphins jumping out of the water as they crossed our path the other day. We've been having power problems, which is bad. After having to run the engine in the wee hours of the morning twice in a row, Garth figured out that we've got a short in our nav lights. Seriously, it's always the nav lights. When we bought the boat they weren't hooked up properly. Then they didn't work. Then our new light got stolen off the top when the mast was off to redo the rigging. THEN the bulb kept jiggling lose, and then the cover fell off somewhere between New Caledonia and Australia. And now it's got a short. I can't even comprehend how that light has managed to cause so much trouble. It has probably screwed up our dying batteries a little more as well, which is worrying because now we have a chartplotter to power on top of everything else. Thank god for the windgen, or we wouldn't have enough power to get through the nights without running the engine.
Day 9
Sunsets at sea are amazing. I can't even describe them or take a picture that would do them justice, because the camera just wouldn't be able to capture how epic they are. Our whole world is sea and sky. So when the sun comes up or goes down, I'm looking at 360° of colour. When I'm lying in the cockpit looking backwards (for this trip at least) the sun goes down behind the boat and straight in front of me. Half the world is orange and yellow as the sun sinks below the horizon, with 180° of the sky lit up brilliantly. Then if I stand up and look around, the rest of the sky is painted the soft pinks and blues of a good sunset. But all I can see is sky. It's hard to imagine the sky stretching out over your whole world, because there's always something. Trees, houses, even in the middle of nowhere there's rocks and other shapes breaking up the horizon. But out here its just one clean line separating water and sky, all around me. I love it. Although probably because we've had lovely weather, I'm not wet or cold and I'm not ready to start begging for land yet.
The suicidal birds are really upsetting us. So far three of them have hit the windgen and been flung into the water. They all got up again, but we've got no way of telling if they were hurt. They may have just been trying to land on the solar panels but their wings are too long to keep out of the way. Or they may just be crazy daredevils, seeing how close they can get to the big spinninh blades. We're still having power issues, so can't turn the windgen off for long. Surely birds are smarter than that? Every time they swoop down near the blades we hold our breath and try not to look. Garth's stress levels are extra high because of this. It's really upsetting when they get hurt, especially considering they don't really have anywhere to go hide while they get better.
Day 11
When the boat smacks into a big wave, the whole thing shudders. You can feel when it's about to happen - it moves differently to its normal up and down motion as it cruises over the swell. The bow gets jostled left or right by whatever chaos is going on up there at the front. There's a 'thud' as a wall of water smacks into the hull. If you were watching from a dry vantage point, the following scene would be almost beautiful. The water moves in slow motion, flying high up in the air. Then there's the familiar pattering noise like summer rain as it makes its way towards the cockpit before dumping the bulk of the wave right on the wheel. The safest place to be is on the low side, huddled up near the dodger. Which actually does what it's supposed to - it blocks most of the water. I will forever associate the sound of water hitting plastic with fear and the memory of having face full of salt water. As soon as I feel the boat lurch when a wave smacks into it, I find myself instinctively curling up in a ball and throwing my arms over my head to protect my face from the wall of water. At the very least I look away and close my eyes to save my face. If we have a friend at the wheel, I usually unfold after the water hits to see them looking very wet and very betrayed.
The other night I was asleep in bed when we ran into a huge wave. The noise startled me and I woke up to find my arms in the air, holding the blanket over my head to shield myself from the water. And that pretty much sums up the last few days. I can't even escape when I'm sleeping. It's cold, wet, windy and rough. The sea has been chaotic and angry. Cooking has been almost impossible and the wind has been too strong to put up the shade cloth during the day. Overall a most unpleasant upwind experience. I hate going upwind.
We're almost there, although it certainly doesn't feel like a tropical paradise. It's not hot, the sea is angry and turbulent instead of calm and turquoise, and Mother Nature decided to twist the blade one more time by sending us clouds and rain. It's just drizzling today and it's supposed to rain more tomorrow, so that's something to look forward to. We're less than a day out and the VHF hasn't started up yet, which is strange. Maybe there are just no other ships around here to chatter with. If this country doesn't have pinapples, coconuts and profiteroles, i'm going tobe most dissappointed. If we'd gone to New Caledonia again instead, i would already be drinking out of a coconut and trying to pick out french pastries by now.
Day 13
Screw this. Over the last day or two there's been no more hiding from the waves. There's water pouring in through the gaps in the hatch, the hallway is flooded and the boat is trashed. We're wet and cold. The boat is not happy. We are not happy. This is not fun. I want my coconut and I want clean hair. We're so close now the hours just drag on and on and it feels like we've been out here forever. I guarantee that if we weren't almost there it wouldn't take this long.
Xxx Monique
We're only seven days out of Australia and we've already got two stowaways. One has parked himself on the bow and the other is camping out on our solar panels at the back. And they got quite mad when we politely asked them to leave. Unlike on all of our previous offshore passages, this time we're absolutely surrounded by sea life. And this time it wants to play with us. We've seen birds every day out here, mostly at dusk, and they are very interested in us indeed. I suspect that we had the same three following us for days, and now as the sun goes down each day their numbers are growing. Garth is enchanted by them, which is not surprising considering his history with charming wild birds into submission. They are amazing up close though. They're probably a type of albatross, with a huge wing span and a very streamlined body. We often saw royal albatross in New Zealand, which are huge. And then they came closer and you realized they were actually bigger than huge. You never saw them really close up though - they would swing by at just the right distance for you to admire them but not close enough to have any contact. That was normal bird behaviour. But these guys have obviously decided that our boat is their personal plaything. Every day they fly in circles around us, swooping down over our heads, flying around to the leeward side and coasting above the sails before coming down and heading back to the leeward side to go again. Like it's a fairground ride. They must be getting lift off the top of the sails, or surely it wouldn't be so much fun.
They do the same thing at the stern, flying in circles around the wind gen. Which is terrifying. They swoop down until they're dangerously close to the blades and then hover there for a while before doing a circle of the boat and coming back for more. Their wingspan is well over 1m across, so when they hover over the cockpit they take up the whole sky above us, almost close enough to reach up and touch. The other day I was lying in the cockpit on watch in the dark, waiting for the moon to come up. I heard a big thud and looked up to see a huge black shape being flung towards the water and the windgen blades grind to a halt. So they know it's there... I just really hope that both the wind gen and bird were left undamaged.
Last night they were playing their normal games, with about five of them this time, when Garth commented that he thought they were trying to land. It certainly looked that way. I'm not sure if they just don't have the talons to grip onto things like the cockatoos we found in the Whitsundays, or if it's just really hard to land on a moving object, but they were having trouble. There was one who was obviously trying harder than the others. He would line up a stay or a spreader bar on the mast, then slowly come in for a landing. He would carefully maneuver back and forth as he tried to line up his landing, but the boat was rocking all over the place and he'd give up and bail out right at the last minute. We were sitting down below cheering him on, but it didn't help. Eventually he gave up and tried the top of the mast instead, which moves and rocks around in the waves more than anything else on the boat. He tried over and over, always bailing out at the last minute. Then eventually he must have decided to just do it, and we watched him stick the landing on our windex, right at the top of the mast. Which was not very stable. He unsuccessfully balanced there for a while, then jumped off to try again. This time he landed on the arrow which shows us which direction the wind is coming from. And it started spinning him round and round, confused by the extra weight. He went in circles for a while before managing to jump onto the light at the top, which was just as hard to balance on. The poor bugger didn't last long before giving up and coming down again. Onto plan B.
This involved running away for a while, either to gather his strength or to formulate a new plan. Who knows. But he eventually returned and after a few tries involving him coming stupidly close to the windgen blades, he found a seat on the solar panels. Right next to us. And he didn't seem in the least bit frightened. He let us shine lights on him, take pictures and stand right next to him. Garth was about 10cm from his face taking pictures with my iPhone before he objected, loudly asking us for some privacy. We left him a cupcake, but he wasn't that interested in our non-fishy food. Then he just hung out there. All night. I was looking around for ships a few hours later when I saw he had a friend sitting on the bow, which is the most sensible place for a bird to sit. Though I suppose I only think that because that's where birds usually land. Maybe the difficulty level of the solar panel makes it a much more exciting place to pass the night.
So that's been our main source of excitement so far. We had typical upwind sailing for the first few days - bouncy, splashy and uncomfortable. Steep waves that disappeared out from under the front half of the boat before the back, leaving the bow in the air to smack back down onto the water with a sickening crunching noise. Over and over. But the rest of this trip has been surprisingly calm. I've figured out the solution to my seasickness problem, finally. It's mass amounts of pills! Genius! I just keep popping different ones until I'm not sick, starting with the weakest and moving my way up. I couldn't really do that before because I didn't know which ones you could take at the same time as the others. But I've got it sorted out now, thanks to Garths amazing mother. When there's no more left to take I get into the serious ones, which I've had to do twice. But no throwing up and no sleeping in the cockpit, which is important in the first few days as we're both adjusting and everything is chaotic. I never used to be able to go inside at all for the first few days, and was always too sick to be much use until I got my sea legs. So this is good.
Nothing else has really happened. We found a flying fish on deck and saw two dolphins jumping out of the water as they crossed our path the other day. We've been having power problems, which is bad. After having to run the engine in the wee hours of the morning twice in a row, Garth figured out that we've got a short in our nav lights. Seriously, it's always the nav lights. When we bought the boat they weren't hooked up properly. Then they didn't work. Then our new light got stolen off the top when the mast was off to redo the rigging. THEN the bulb kept jiggling lose, and then the cover fell off somewhere between New Caledonia and Australia. And now it's got a short. I can't even comprehend how that light has managed to cause so much trouble. It has probably screwed up our dying batteries a little more as well, which is worrying because now we have a chartplotter to power on top of everything else. Thank god for the windgen, or we wouldn't have enough power to get through the nights without running the engine.
Day 9
Sunsets at sea are amazing. I can't even describe them or take a picture that would do them justice, because the camera just wouldn't be able to capture how epic they are. Our whole world is sea and sky. So when the sun comes up or goes down, I'm looking at 360° of colour. When I'm lying in the cockpit looking backwards (for this trip at least) the sun goes down behind the boat and straight in front of me. Half the world is orange and yellow as the sun sinks below the horizon, with 180° of the sky lit up brilliantly. Then if I stand up and look around, the rest of the sky is painted the soft pinks and blues of a good sunset. But all I can see is sky. It's hard to imagine the sky stretching out over your whole world, because there's always something. Trees, houses, even in the middle of nowhere there's rocks and other shapes breaking up the horizon. But out here its just one clean line separating water and sky, all around me. I love it. Although probably because we've had lovely weather, I'm not wet or cold and I'm not ready to start begging for land yet.
The suicidal birds are really upsetting us. So far three of them have hit the windgen and been flung into the water. They all got up again, but we've got no way of telling if they were hurt. They may have just been trying to land on the solar panels but their wings are too long to keep out of the way. Or they may just be crazy daredevils, seeing how close they can get to the big spinninh blades. We're still having power issues, so can't turn the windgen off for long. Surely birds are smarter than that? Every time they swoop down near the blades we hold our breath and try not to look. Garth's stress levels are extra high because of this. It's really upsetting when they get hurt, especially considering they don't really have anywhere to go hide while they get better.
Day 11
When the boat smacks into a big wave, the whole thing shudders. You can feel when it's about to happen - it moves differently to its normal up and down motion as it cruises over the swell. The bow gets jostled left or right by whatever chaos is going on up there at the front. There's a 'thud' as a wall of water smacks into the hull. If you were watching from a dry vantage point, the following scene would be almost beautiful. The water moves in slow motion, flying high up in the air. Then there's the familiar pattering noise like summer rain as it makes its way towards the cockpit before dumping the bulk of the wave right on the wheel. The safest place to be is on the low side, huddled up near the dodger. Which actually does what it's supposed to - it blocks most of the water. I will forever associate the sound of water hitting plastic with fear and the memory of having face full of salt water. As soon as I feel the boat lurch when a wave smacks into it, I find myself instinctively curling up in a ball and throwing my arms over my head to protect my face from the wall of water. At the very least I look away and close my eyes to save my face. If we have a friend at the wheel, I usually unfold after the water hits to see them looking very wet and very betrayed.
The other night I was asleep in bed when we ran into a huge wave. The noise startled me and I woke up to find my arms in the air, holding the blanket over my head to shield myself from the water. And that pretty much sums up the last few days. I can't even escape when I'm sleeping. It's cold, wet, windy and rough. The sea has been chaotic and angry. Cooking has been almost impossible and the wind has been too strong to put up the shade cloth during the day. Overall a most unpleasant upwind experience. I hate going upwind.
We're almost there, although it certainly doesn't feel like a tropical paradise. It's not hot, the sea is angry and turbulent instead of calm and turquoise, and Mother Nature decided to twist the blade one more time by sending us clouds and rain. It's just drizzling today and it's supposed to rain more tomorrow, so that's something to look forward to. We're less than a day out and the VHF hasn't started up yet, which is strange. Maybe there are just no other ships around here to chatter with. If this country doesn't have pinapples, coconuts and profiteroles, i'm going tobe most dissappointed. If we'd gone to New Caledonia again instead, i would already be drinking out of a coconut and trying to pick out french pastries by now.
Day 13
Screw this. Over the last day or two there's been no more hiding from the waves. There's water pouring in through the gaps in the hatch, the hallway is flooded and the boat is trashed. We're wet and cold. The boat is not happy. We are not happy. This is not fun. I want my coconut and I want clean hair. We're so close now the hours just drag on and on and it feels like we've been out here forever. I guarantee that if we weren't almost there it wouldn't take this long.
Xxx Monique
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