Month: July 2020

04/07/2020

In the morning, wind was strong, water rushed out of the channel of the lagoon. Two boats outside were waiting to enter. One was rushing in with full engine power, and the other was waiting for a while then return without success.

Since we can’t go out and play, lets do some experiments instead. There are three bottles of powder for cleaning the seawater desalinator. The labels had been corroded and they are unrecognisable. We only know one is acid, one is alkaline, the other is preservative. How to identify which is which? Just take some blueberries from refrigerator then we can start the litmus test: crush blueberries and squeeze the juice into three transparent containers, labeled them with letter ABC. Take the powder from each bottle and add into the juice in front. Observe that the colour: A becomes dark purple green, B turns orange yellow, and C does not change colour. From the result we can see that A is alkaline, B is acidic, and C is preservative. This experiment used anthocyanins in blueberry as tester, which is the same as litmus reagents. Using blueberries for this experiment is much cheaper than buying test strips, and the rest can be eaten, yum.

In the afternoon, wind was weakened a lot, and we took the motor dinghy to explore the island. the beach is covered with dead corals, there is a nice forest in the middle, the moon rises from the east of the island and the sun sets in the west, the sea turtles are swimming around and sea birds flying over, what a nice little shelter in the ocean.

Made fish-flavored eggplant for tea tonight.

03/07/2020

At 12am last night, J came and took over the shift and I went to bed. At 2am, my alarm rang. I asked J if he wanted to change shifts. J said he was not sleepy, so let me continue to sleep. I fell asleep and woke up at 5am. Got up and take over, at this time the Venus has risen, a layer of clouds was floating on the horizon, the wind was tighter, the jib had been pulled in a bit to slow down the boat, because we didn’t want to arrive at the island too early then we have to wait for the noon tide to enter. The boat was still traveling at a speed of about 6 knots, with this, it only need another three or four hours to reach the destination. I thought that the wind should be evened out to yesterday’s.

At sunrise, all thoughts in my mind were blown away like clouds in the sky, and it was a new day…

We were close to Lady Musgrave Island before nine o’clock and had to wait three hours. J adjusted the angle of the jib to cancel the wind with the main sail, it is called ‘heave to’. This way the ship can stay almost still.

The boat was swaying in the waves, and while I was about to fall asleep, it came a family of three whales. They decided to give us a show. They jumped out of water and spin, made big splashes. Bravo! I don’t know why the whale love jumping out of the water with so much effort. It must felt good getting out of the water and into the air. Whales and dolphins always want to jump out of the water, while people want to dive into it, whether it is to take a glance at an unfamiliar world.

At 1:30pm, the tide began to flow into the narrow lagoon entrance. We dropped down the sails and started the engine to cross slowly. The water changed from dark blue to turquoise, and the bottom was so clear so you can see coral beds underneath. Many boats were already in, so were many big ugly power boats.

This coral cay Island has an area of ​​14 hectares and is located at the southern tip of the Great Barrier Reef. It is navigable in the lagoon. However, we must pay attention to the ‘Bommies’, they are coral group under the water. Some conjectures saying that this deep water channel into the lagoon is not natural phenomenon, it might be dug by Taiwan or Japanese fishermen in the early days. From satellite image, you can bird view the whole lagoon.

We chose a flat sand bottom and dropped the anchor. We ended the 100-nautical mile voyage that started yesterday morning, and the rest is just to have fun.

Made spaghetti with vegetable protein for tea tonight.

02/07/2020

Pull up anchor at 7:30am, only with jib we sailed into the wide Harvey Bay, I heard there are lots of whales.

The wind stopped at 9 o’clock, and the water is like mirror. I took a nap on the deck in the sun, woke up and found that we are almost still at the same spot. I took a novel to read and waited patiently. We tried spinnaker after lunch but not much better so we took it down.

J asked if there was a formula for seeking the wind. I said yes, it needs 12g toad skins, 100g green mushrooms, two cat whiskers, a little bit of toenail from the rear left foot of an elephant, spitting and mix evenly, and bake in the oven at 180 degrees for one hour, rub it into balls, swallow them with warm water, and then do a folk dance till the wind comes… J said that the wind will eventually come before we collect all these.

At around 3pm, the wind finally came. I said that I smelled the wind. J asked does it smell toad skin and elephant toenail… Spinnaker was raised again and the boat ran again. But we changed our destination, instead of going to Rooney Point we headed for Lady Musgrave Island which is further away. It takes 80 nautical miles to sail, so we have to do night sail again.

Spent 12 hours just in the bay, as if it was reluctant to let us go. In the words of J, we got “bayed”.

We had curry potato claypot rice for dinner. My hands and feet were warmed up for night sailing. I went out to watch and J went in for nap so he can do the midnight shift.

Tonight the moon is very high and bright, and stars are less seen. A few dolphins were chasing our boat in the silver waves very closely, sometimes passing under the bottom of the boat, and sometimes leaping out of the water, one jumped so high, and I applauded.

Tonight is much warmer than last Monday’s night sailing. Blowing a gentle northerly wind, it seems to be able to smell the tropic…