At Sea, now bandwidth impaired on a slow iridium satellite link
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Tuesday, March 25, 2008
March 24th: Cruising in lighter winds
Monday 24/03
A long day sail trying to make up the distance lost during the rescue (and recovering from a boozie night onboard a big flash boat parked next to Kuna the night of the rescue). 70 miles got Kuna to the back of Curlew island ( S21° 35.7 E149° 47.8). The handcrafted windvane is working brilliant, so could have an afternoon nap! Despite the full moon, approaching amongst the familiar dark rocky reefs and islands was quite intimidating because of some large overfalls and reasonable speed! Anchored safely yet too far out and made for rolly anchorage in the current, bugger!
Tuesday 25/05
Now hurrying to Mackay, or trying to, because he winds have abated for the first time in three weeks. Heading directly downwind from Curlew Island with light Southeasterlies with the headsail poled out, Kuna cruised between 5 and 6 knots all the way, so that's hurrying on a 10T cruising yacht...
The forest of empty cargo ships at anchor near Mackay there is always impressive. I tested the radar detector (Kuna does not have radar, just this 20 years old piece of equipment that detects ships radars and produces an excruciating tone as a warning!)
Reluctantly had to go into the marina as that's where the customs office is, and it'll be convenient: Will do hull repairs from the pen there and sort out last minute needs before clearing. The hardest will be to disconnect from the convenience of the internet, but I worked out how to send sitreps with just the iridium phone!!! But this marina place feels extremely claustrophobic, can’t wait to get out!
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March 23rd: Rescue
Thursday 21/03
A brief visit to the Keppels.
Friday 22/03
Enter Port Lincoln (S22°32.14, E150°45.2) at night, in nice moonlight, been there before on the Mudcat..
Saturday 23/03
Off Cape Townshend
on Saturday Kuna picked up a family of four in a swamped dingy in rough seas 45 mins after their 55 motor cruiser caught fire and they abandoned ship with nothing but the clothes on their backs. It was in a remote area and there's few boats transiting this time of year, so they were very Lucky Kuna was in the area. No time to take photos. They're all OK (the boy had a broken leg) but in the process of coming along side their swamped aluminum dingy in very choppy conditions, it repeatedly banged violently on Kuna's hull, so she's got a few scratches. 3 hours later a rescue shopper (against our polite advice) tried to drop a Medic down onto us by winch and succeeded in only fouling our rig with their line! Was rather unpleasant in 25 knots of wind and heaving seas to be tied by your mast to a hovering chopper! Having had to stop sailing because of rescue chopper orders, Kuna was now unable to sail because of tangled rig so we had to motor around the back of Cape Townshend. The coastguard rescue boat met us there with the medic onboard but they were so fast pulling along side even before Kuna's was anchored properly. The evening was spent climbing up the backstay to detangle the rescue line from the topping lift, salvaged the yellow line to turn it into a reefing line, good bootie!
Tuesday, March 18, 2008
March 15th A long maintenance list completed
The list is long and I haven’t got the time to post it tonight but I will, soon, for general yachtie awareness.
Here are the before and after shots anyway.
Thursday, March 13, 2008
Thursday, March 6, 2008
FW: March 6th
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