I woke at 06:00 with the sun in my eyes and immediately put
the kettle on and pulled the anchor.
For weeks now, every anchorage has been over mud. It’s good
holding but every time I pull the anchor all this horrible mud comes up with
the chain and anchor, splattering everywhere and filling the anchor well with
thick gooey mud. And every time I drop the anchor, all this thick gooey mud
gets flicked off the chain and goes all over the place.
Until now I have been throwing about ten buckets of water
into the anchor well to wash it all away each time I pull the anchor, but the
torn tendons in both my shoulders that were starting to heal have been causing
me so much pain at nights, so I have decided to just let the dam anchor well
fester and fill with mud and I will wash it out good and proper sometime in the
future.
We headed around the Bougainville Peninsular in hot steamy
conditions again without any wind and with a hot penetrating sun. This peninsular
is rocky, but what stands out is that it is totally covered in trees, unlike
the previous country we have been in.
Phillip Parker King must have had a hell of a time surveying
this peninsular with the weird shape it is, as it looks like a hand with
fifteen fingers.
We rounded Gibson Point around 09:40 and Hat Point around 10:30
and finally rounded Cape Bougainville at 11:30.
There were three more unnamed capes to round before we
entered Fresh Water Bay on the east side of Vansittart Bay.
This bay, along with most of the other bays in the
Vansittart Peninsular has a Paspaley Pearl lease covering most of the area so I
had to take great care upon entering so I don’t get caught up in hundreds of
thousands of dollars’ worth of pearls.
Unlike other companies, Paspaley leases are usually pretty
good, having yellow boundary markers with radar reflectors, although some of
them get moved around a bit by the currents or disappear in cyclones.
The pearl leases are shown on my electronic charts, but many
of them are abandoned or no longer exist, so you just have to be very careful if
cutting across one.
My normal routine is to turn the radar on to look for the
boundary markers and to look for the long strings of black plastic pearl floats
using binoculars.
The Fresh Water Bay lease was being used and was full of
float strings as well as some small boats and barges taking up most of the
space. There was only just enough space left on the south side to head in and
up to the anchorage.
I dropped the pick just on sunset and went for a quick zip
around in the dinghy just to have a quick look before it got dark.
We were close to the mangroves and without wind, so the
midgies are going to be bad tonight, so we shut the door, put on all the midgie
screens and put the fan on to stay cool. So far, this technique has worked
reasonably well, but we still get bitten a lot, but that’s just the way it is
up north.
Track Sirocco’s
progress
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