Out to Sea

Time and bad internet in Isla Rodrigues are working agianst me getting a post from here but here is something I wrote on the passage from Bali to Rodrigues:

We left Bali’s Benoa Harbor on October 26^th, shortly after lunch time.  We motored out of the harbor and then dropped anchor again so we could ‘cat’ the port anchor.  That means we pulled the large anchor aft and up and then tied it securely to the cat head and the top edge of the foc’sle head.  There wasn’t any wind for the first two days so we motored but, on the third day the wind started to pick up so we hoisted all plain sail, shut the motor down and began to sail.  If you’ve ever been on a sailboat, you know there is something magical about that moment when the noise and vibration of the motor stops and the wind takes over; it’s a beautiful thing! 

The weather has been perfect and very consistent throughout the voyage.  The wind varies in strength from time to time but it’s consistently from the east or southeast and blowing from force 3 to 5 (from about 15 knots to 30 knots).  The days have all been mostly sunny and warm, but not hot.  There are always clouds on the horizon, all the way around, but overhead we just get scattered clouds blowing quickly past.  The nights have been cooler and we’ve has some light rain on several nights but those are usually 10 minute light showers.  The ocean is the most amazing shade of blue!

We’ve been at sea for 27 days as I’m writing this and the scuttlebutt is that we’ll sight the island of Rodriguez early tomorrow.  We’ve had a couple of changes in our itinerary.  We’re not going to visit Madagascar or Mozambique; Madagascar because of civil unrest there, and Mozambique because of tricky navigational issues.  In addition to those stops being dropped, the captain says that this has been the best Indian Ocean passage the Picton Castle has ever made, so we’re ahead of schedule to get into Cape Town.  The captain has decided to stop at Rodriguez for a few days before we go on to the scheduled stop at Reunion.  There are 3 islands east of Madagascar, several hundred miles, which had been claimed by the French; Rodriguez, Mauritius and Reunion.  The British captured Mauritius and Rodriguez around 1800 and have held them since.  The captain doesn’t like Mauritius so we’re not stopping there.  He tells us that Rodriquez is a little more third world but; if you’re reading this, they must have internet.  I’m not sure how long we’ll be staying.  Reunion is still a French protectorate and is more modern.  It’s about 400 – 500 miles west of Rodriguez.

We got wind of a tropical disturbance, forming several hundred miles north of Rodriguez, which was predicted to head south, toward us.  The captain decided to turn south away from the possible storm and to put us well ahead of it, in the event that it turned into something.  It did turn into a named tropical storm and it did track pretty much as expected.  Rodriguez did get hit with the weather on the southern edge of the named tropical storm before it turned west and then dissipated.  Our course continued to the south until the storm actually turned west.  The captain pointed out that we could have turned back toward the island based on the storms predicted track but that was always a gamble because the predicted track was always just an educated guess.  Storms have been known to take unexpected tracks and catch ships by surprise.  The detour caused by the storm added about 6 days to our voyage but our weather stayed very fine.

Life aboard a sailing ship at sea becomes routine pretty quickly.  I stand watch from 12 – 4 twice a day, so the midday and midnight watches.  My watch has 10 people, including the mate and our AB (Able Bodied Seaman).  The watch would be like our manager and our AB would be our supervisor.  When on midday watch we work on ship’s maintenance unless sail handling is necessary; generally it wasn’t.  On the midnight watch we do small housekeeping, that can be done quietly, and keep watch for hazards. We also rotate hour long turns at the helm, steering the ship.  We sailed the first 25 days on port tack so the only sail handling was setting or taking in sail when the wind strength changed.  Some days we didn’t touch anything.  We certainly do a lot more maintenance than sail handling.  We also have training clicks most afternoons before supper.  We’ve learned sail making basics, along with more advanced seamanship type skills.  I have also been learning celestial navigation, which is awesome. We’re taking sightings of the sun at local noon and learning how to calculate or latitude.  Next we’ll be learning how to determine our longitude.  On the midnight watch we’re learning the constellations and the names of the stars.  The night sky is amazing, especially the last couple of nights, with the new moon.  We also do safety drills for fire, man overboard and abandon ship.  The advent of the storm gave a timely opportunity to talk about preparing the ship for rough weather preparation.

Food aboard is pretty basic.  Donald, our cook is a great baker though so we have fresh bread on most days.  The food is good enough but there is not a lot of variety, except when we catch fish.  We had a couple of days when we caught some fish, which is pretty exciting.  We caught one wahoo that was big enough to feed all 46 of us for one meal.  The next day we caught 2 smaller wahoo and then a couple days later we caught a mahi-mahi.  All were excellent eating.  I do believe I’ve lost a little weight.

In all I would say that the trip so far has been about what I expected.  I did expect to do a lot more sail handling but much of that is dictated by the wind.  I still have a lot more time to work on those skills.  Everyone is pretty excited about making landfall.  The first thing everyone mentions about landfall is what kind of food they want to find… 

Hopefully the internet at out next stop will be more reliable and I'll be able to add some more pictures.  Our next stop will be the island of Reunion, about 5 or 6 days of good sailing from here. We should be there sometime during the first week of December.  I will post more then.

I wish everyone a safe and Happy Thanksgiving!