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August 14, 2000

Solomons to Australia voyage - Update #27

Lat/Long as of 0900 hrs local time (15th August local time)
14 degs 13. 86 S
146 degs 13. 86’E

Day 28. Wind SE 25-30 knots Heading: N/A
0949 hrs (local)

Nothing seems to be going our way right now. Absolutely nothing. Yesterday late afternoon the wind strengthened again to 25-30 knots and shifted further to the south. The long and the short of this was that we could no longer keep Moksha’s bow at a heading of 180M and we started losing ground to the north (as you can tell by our disastrous latitude reading for this morning). Even with the assistance of the sea anchor which we deployed shortly thereafter, we are still losing a nautical mile north as well as one west every hour.

So, our plan to make the tide this afternoon into Cormorant Pass is out of the window. Kenny has a boat coming all the way up from Port Douglas – nearly 120 miles away – to see us through ‘Water witch’ (sp?) passage further to the north.The local resort owned by Quantas have refused either of their dive boats to come and assist us because of the primary concerns of their high dollar paying clientele being able to still go out on recreational activities. Wonderful stuff money – brings out the best in human nature…

Another spanner in the works is a feminine health concern that April has been battling the last 2 weeks and has now reached a stage that she needs to get to a doctor asap. So if we can rendezvous with “Wee Jock” – the vessel coming up from Port Douglas – sometime later today or first thing tomorrow morning, April will change places with Kenny and he and I then continue on up inside the reef to Thursday Island and then round to Weipa (as re: our Plan B).

So there’s a lot going on right now, and the situation is being exacerbated by mountainous seas and our drift north, which already has us 35 nms from the reef and increasing. By the earliest time Wee Jock can make it to us, we could be 5 miles from the reef. The skipper might refuse to go out so far in these conditions. We’ll find out this later on today.

The priorities seem to be:
1.Get April off the boat.
2.Get Moksha inside the reef.

We’ll keep you posted.

Jason+April

Posted on August 14, 2000 2:58 PM