The SE waves, 6-10 seconds and 3-4', roll steady under Sea Child, occasionally banging the underside of the main salon. The north swell the jumbled the SE waves yesterday seems to be gone for now, winds steady and light from due east at 8-10 apparent. Our direct course to the southern tip of Sri Lanka is 267 degrees, but with the easterly winds, we are sailing a course of 230. This course keeps Sea Child moving along around 6-8 knots, much more comfortable than yesterday, when we saw +15 knots boat speed as Sea Child surfed the +6' ESE waves on a port tack. The skies are hazy, and the absolute remoteness of our location has us all reflecting on various emotions and excitement. The InReach Expolorer is continuing to post our position every 20 minutes, and while we have a long way to go, its encouraging to see how far we've come.
Its been quite a while since Sea Child has done an open ocean crossing. Looking back through the ships log, it was way back in September 2012 when Sea Child sailed from Noumea, New Caledonia to Mackay, Australia, around 1200 NM. We certainly don't discount all the miles sailed since then: The almost 2,000 NM from Brisbane, AUS to Darwin, AUS, or the 300 NM crossing of the Gulf of Carpenteria which was one of our roughest passages. The roughest, however, still belongs to our July 2011 crossing from Opua, North Island, New Zealand to Lautoka, Fiji. On that crossing we saw 35 knots wind from the south as Sea Child sailed into 5 different wave patterns, from almost every direction except south! That 8 day crossing, with our good friend Karen Wyatt, takes the top honor so far of being the roughest passage to date.
The 430 NM crossing from Darwin, AUS to Kupang, Timor, Indonesia was a quick 2 night passage, as was our visit to the Andaman Islands of India from Phuket, Thailand, about the same distance, last year, 2015. So this current crossing, +1,400 NM from Phuket, Thailand to Uligan, Maldives, is the longest passage in the open ocean that we've seen in quite a while. Our longest open ocean passage was back in 2009, from Galapagos, Ecuador to Hiva Oa, Marquesas which was over 3,000 NM. Sea Child covered the distance in 12 days time. We downloaded GRIB files this morning, and learned that the wind forecast is light. What we hoped to be a relatively fast crossing, averaging around 200NM per day, is looking a bit slower.
As with most open ocean crossings, our hopes for an event free sail has not panned out, either. Our first night out of Similan Islands was mostly flat water, steady NE sailing along at 9-10 knots. As the night grew longer, the half moon rose high above Sea Child, illuminating the dolphins playing in our bow wake. After moonset around 3:30 am, a large black cloud descended upon Sea Child with a 30 degree wind shift and soon after, heavy rains pelted Sea Child. We were sailing with a full main and our new screecher (which we love, thanks to Phil & Ingrid Auger in Langkawi!!) became overpowering. As Eric went forward to roll up the screecher, only a few windows down below were still open. We soaked the shelves above the fridge/freezer as well as the shelves above the binoculars. Thank God the windows above the beds & electronics were latched as the squall opened up. As Eric went forward & I fed out the sheet, it was so black I could not see Eric at all and in the deafening, pounding rains I could barely hear him, too. I was thankful he was wearing his safety harness and securely attached to Sea Child. After the squall passed, we rolled out the screecher again, sailing fast in the 18 knot apparent breeze and surfing the 6' SE swells. The rocky, rolly fast sail continued all day yesterday, our 24 hr average was 7.1 knots over 171 NM. Todays average should be much higher as we speed sailed most of yesterday afternoon and evening, and todays projects include repairing the roller drum on the jib, repairing the broken boom vang, and repairing a broken galley fan that crashed in the rolling seas.
Last night around 11pm, we jibed as we approached Little Nicobar Island in the Andaman & Nicobar Islands of India. I studied the coastline through binoculars during my watch, searching for 2 listed navigation lights. A 20 NM 20 S white light at bearing 218 and a second 10 NM 10S light bearing 234. Even as we passed Little Nicobar on port tack, no lights were ever spotted. We got as close as 8 NM to the island, and I wondered if they were even working. We jibed again around 2 am to avoid "Coral Banks" just north of Little Nicobar. We have vivid memories of Spitfire Banks just north of Moreton Island, Australia, where the rough water was brutal. At the "Coral Banks" the depths went from 2,300' to 1,030' to 321' to 61'. Plenty of room to sail over, to be sure, we just didn't want to chance the rough water at 3am.
This morning, we noticed that our Ipads and Iphones have changed time on us. We are using Phuket, Thailand as ships time and built our watch system to that same time. Thankfully, our wrist watches are keeping this ships time; setting an alarm on my Iphone this morning made me late to wake for my 7am watch as the GPS on my phone changed to reflect local India time! John Conser took the extra hour for me, thank God!, with no worries. Since John had a brain injury 20 years ago, he is unable to take a night watch and is taking an hour watch in the morning and and hour watch in the afternoon. Geri Conser, however, is doing great, holding her 3 hr watch as scheduled. We are all well rested, 3 hours on and 6 hours off. With John taking his 2 hours daily, Geri & I alternate a 7 hour off pattern once per day.
We are 721 NM from the southern tip of Sri Lanka. Uligan, Maldives is another 400NM west of Sri Lanka. With the projected winds and swells, we are looking at another 7 days at sea.
CURRENT POSITION:
06 DEGREES 47.395 MINUTES NORTH
092 DEGREES 33.730 MINUTES EAST
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