We prepared Sirocco for departure before retiring for the
night. Purnama departed around 3AM and I had a rather sleepless night as the
wind strength increased. Around 6AM our anchor started dragging and so we
quickly got up and raised the anchor in quite nasty conditions and made our way
out through the reef on a four-hundred-mile course to Broome.
Once we got the sails up and trimmed the ride improved but
it was still quite rough although we were making very fast progress.
There was a lot of marine traffic in the area with lots of
iron ore tankers coming and going and lots of oil & gas infrastructure. One
very large iron ore tanker was intimidating as it came bearing down on us and
passed very close by.
It was tempting to sail by North Ranking Alpha & Bravo and
the Goodwin platforms where I spent so much time, but they were just too far
off course to justify the deviation, but our path did take us directly past the
Wandoo platform for a closeup look.
In the late afternoon the wind started to increase and on
sunset several large birds rousted for the night on our safety lines and hard
top.
Before dark I put a second reef in the main and reduced the
genoa just to be cautious and so I dint have to go on deck in the dark later on
to reef if the wind increased and we settled in for a long night.
Track Sirocco’s
progress
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