Unclad and Unclear

28th Jul 2010

Well; after the difficult evening as predicted, the winds dropped around 21:00 and the night became not only tolerable but almost pleasant. Indeed I slept soundly through to about 04:00 when a topside inspection revealed calm conditions and clear skies. We were still hopelessly isolated in this vast stretch of murky water, surrounded by non descript marshes and virtually no sign of humanity but for the faint glow of distant industry somewhere around Aye.

Be that as it may, when we got up around 06:30 the sun was on its way up into the clear skies of the day and the water had stilled to a mill pond. After a quick breakfast, I got to the task of raising all the anchor cable I had put out. Well aware that this would be a muddy and messy business I armed myself with my favourite bucket (on a rope) in the hope of clearing the mud and weed that was surely to have inflicted itself on the chain. After about 10 mins I gave up and simply pulled the it, mess and all, on board with a plan to clean it up at our next port. Giving Paul the thumbs up to motor off, I continued with my efforts to clean up the deck, now covered in the stickiest and blackest mud one might imagine.

OK, here you need to understand that getting water from the sea, while underway, has its traps. Notably, if the bucket bites the water and the boat speed is high, there is little hope of holding onto the lanyard as a full bucket at 6 kts is just too much to restrain. The tactic then is to avoid a full bite by dropping the bucket in the foamy water off the bow wave. This I done successfully with this very bucket for almost 9 years; that is until today – when I lost it!

Not a real big deal but the water was calm and time was on our side we decided to turn and try to retrieve this errant item. Giving Paul steering instructions, I am pleased to report that we soon had it right on the nose but unfortunately our speed was far to high and we over ran my attempt to pick it up as it disappeared somewhere under the boat.

While almost certainly on the bottom by now the problem I had was that I needed to be sure the lanyard hadn’t been picked up by the prop, a catastrophic possibility! The only solution was for me to get into the water, murky and horrid as it was, and visually inspect under the boat. To save time I stripped off ( I grant you this is a very unattractive image) and over the side I went. The visibility in the water was about ½ metre so I needed to grop about under the boat until I was satisfied all was clear, all the while wondering about crocodiles (which are certainly found in these waters) and other such dangers of the far North.

With that done, the next 4 hours were a simple motor/sail in calm conditions all the way to Cape Cleveland (left), about 10 nm south of Townsville. Here we needed to thread our way between a couple of rocks and once around the corner we set sail for a gentle drift into Townsville.

Now snug in the marina, he plan is the usual maintenance, restock tomorrow then head of agiain to destinations North!