Friday, 11 April 2008

The Plan - Alex

Actually there isn't one, except in the broadest sense. We have to get to Dutch Harbour as fast as possible without breaking anything and still talking to each other. Planning requires 100 miles per day on average giving us about 60 days for a 6000 mile voyage. Or a pooptillionth over 4 knots.

We have just achieved the first 100 miles in 24 hours, if you count the distance down Sydney Harbour.
a pretty busy 24 hours with lots of almost no wind, a short burst of 15 knots under a mini front off Port Stephens and lots in between from all over the place. Big nasty sea over a NE swell of about 3 metres so heavy going too. Diesel, therefore, occasionally, and a minor contretemps with one of our diesel containers which we had to decant into another one when it started to leak. I'm covered in the stuff but all ok.

We will try to send you a noon position each day - noon our local time, as that's easier to remember than noon UTC. Todays was 3242.32.4 15225.13.0 and we're now about 10 miles south of Seal Rocks where, AGW - that's a TLA for all going well - we will part company with the Oz mainland, which turns sightly left and we go straight on, trying to maintain a heading of 017 magnetic for a point SE of San Cristobal in the Solomons. About 1426 miles away. Speed over the ground at the mo is 5.5 knots.

And we're not yet past Coffs so McQ still has the yips.

We send these emails by High Frequency radio (HF)and the best time to send (and receive your emails...)is at night so we will probably stick to that as a plan.

Loverly day, dolphins all around earlier. And it's getting warmer.