21/07/2020

8am We left the island. The in-coming tide was very strong. It took a lot of effort to pull up the anchor, mainly because one of J’s fingers was still injured. Currents between these island groups could be confusing. When we chose the way out, we tried to pick the one with an out going current. We thought the north one would be the right one to take but the it turned out to be coming in current. We had to motor out slowly along the shore at a speed of about 2 knots (the closer to the shore, the weaker the current).

Went through the passage and avoided a shoal, we finally turned the bow to the northwest and set the goose wings up, traveled at a speed of 6 knots.

The afternoon voyage was a bit rolly, but I was completely into reading the story of ‘Robinson Crusoe’. The reason I started reading it was that I had recently listened to a program about classics in Enlightenment Era by professor Xu Ben on the ‘Vistopia’ platform. It made me became very interested in some classics since the 17th century. I only had some basic knowledge about those famous works, but had never read them, such as this one. The main character in the novel was born in a middle-class family. He could have lived the most stable, safest, and most enviable life, but he wanted to get on ships to see the world, which was against his parents’ will. According to his father, only the poorest or richest people would take the risk to go overseas and venture out, and they themselves were in the middle class, which they considered is the best class, neither suffered from hardship nor carried the burden of ambition. Moreover, being free from disasters and illnesses can guarantee a stable and peaceful life, so he was advised to start a career and family in his own hometown, but this unsettled guy took a opportunity to jump on a ship and left hometown, starting a thrilling adventure… Although he always involved himself into disasters, and kept saying that he had regretted and wanted to go back, but I guess if he could choose again, he would still plunge into the sea adventure without hesitation. Just as a quote printed at the back of a business card given to us by an other sailor:

‘Life should not be a journey to the grave with the intention of arriving safely in a pretty and well preserved body, but rather to skid in boardside, in a cloud of smoke, thoroughly used up, totally worn out, and loudly proclaiming, wow, what a ride!’

At 3pm, we arrived at Curlew island, a five-meter tidal change was reserved, because the full moon and no moon are the periods of biggest tide change. We sailed 32 nautical miles in total today.

We had Thai curry coconut milk pumpkin pot for dinner tonight.