This morning, after a beautiful sunrise we received a visit
from a large school of dolphins who swam on the bows for ten minutes before
bidding us farewell.
We saw our first Indonesian fishing boats this morning that
were around 220 miles out from Timor. They were way off in the distance, but it
looked like they turned and ran towards us when they saw us, but gave up as we
were going way too fast.
We also started to see the first Indonesian plastic floating
around at about 210 miles out.
One strange thing I saw was hundreds of cuttle fish back
bones all floating in one place. I was thinking maybe it was from a sperm whale
fart? I never saw any more after that?
I passed the time away doing some more boat jobs in the
tropical heat. I replaced the topping lift that had chaffed during the Kimberly
trip. It was just about to snap again, so I caught it just in time.
I then rewired all the turnbuckles shut and attempted to replace
the dinghy tire & tube. This proved to be too hard and I decided I’d pay
some poor basted in Kupang to do it for me.
I then fixed the spot light. The cable had an intermittent
connection due to some corrosion where the cable had been nicked.
I checked the fuel and we were down to around twenty litres,
so I put in 40 litres from two new jerry cans I had stored on deck.
There was very lite wind all day today and the sea was
glassing out a bit. The wind finally came up a bit and at a favorable angle,
so I unfurled the jib and we were motor sailing along at seven plus knots for
most of the day.
On the very edge of the Australian territory there are lots
of sea mounts rising up from hundreds of meters to within tens of meters from
the surface. As we cruised through these underwater mountains they were
fascinating to watch on the sonar.
I was dragging a lure and was sure I would hook-up sooner or
later as the summits of these mountains were all swarming with fish and sure
enough just before sunset the reel went off with a scream as I hooked up with a
small mackerel. Unfortunately, it got off just before I landed it.
It would be incredible to dive on these sea mounts or even
to stop and have a bottom fish, but we don’t have the time or the freezer
space. From some of the sonar imagery, it looked as if some of these sea mounts
could be active volcanic vents, as some looked to be very porous and venting
gas or hot water.
Just after a beautiful sunset, I detected a small wooden
boat that had entered our radar guard zone and I tracked it for quite some time
as it got within a mile or so from us. It had no lights on and as a precaution
I gathered my spear gun, gidgie, baseball bat and some rocket flares just in
case they were required, but they slowly disappeared of our screen and that was
the last we saw of them.
I decided to get all our spare fuel out and refuel the boat,
as we were going to have to do a fuel run tomorrow, so I might as well be
prepared. We probably will have used 220 litres going 470 miles from Darwin to
Kupang.
Throughout the night we saw several more small fishing boats,
none of them having lights, so we just keep chugging along and hope they see us
and keep out of our way. My worst nightmare would be running over and getting
tangled in one of their fishing nets and having to cut ourselves free.
We have been lucky to have a full moon for this passage
which has lit up the night sky making it easier to see things. The other thing
is how beautiful blue and clear the water is, the colour is really amazing.
We are both dead tired tonight and it’s getting harder to
maintain a watch.
Track Sirocco’s
progress
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