Author: Ning Xue

20/07/2020

It was a beautiful morning when I woke up, but only little breeze in the bay. J’s fingers seemed to stop bleeding. Around 8am after breakfast, we motored the boat out of the bay, and wind began to fill in the sails. It was not fast but quite stable, there were no waves, so boat was not rolling at all, then you can enjoy the picturesque coastal rocks and have a cup of tea.

Passing a water way at noon, current was rushing out, and there was a resistance of 1.6 knots. We were pushed by wind from behind but against the tide so we could not go faster. In the afternoon, near Supply Bay in Townshead, we hesitated whether to get in or move on, because the current resistance weakened and wind gradually picked up. We didn’t want to waste the pleasant condition so we decided to go to a further island ‘Marble Island’. It’ll save us 20 nautical miles tomorrow.

In the evening, I cooked potato rice with the salty and spicy muddy burrito from the day before yesterday. Just sauté onion and green pepper to make fragrant, add diced potato and tomato to stir fry, then add the leftover burrito and half-cooked rice with water, cover and simmer until rice is cooked. When it was cooked, it turned into a magical result. What was brown and sticky became delicious, and it tasted a bit like curry rice.

Wind gradually weakened after dinner, and it seemed to decide not helping us anymore, but fortunately, the current continued to push us forward.

There was no moon but very starry with long Milky Way, so it was not totally dark, can still see the silhouette of the islands vaguely. Not far from the destination island, wind almost stopped. The tide came from the righthand side and pushed us a little bit, so we had to start the engine. There were boat lights near the island, they looked like navigation lights at night. (It was discovered the next morning that it was a house. Who would live on this remote island?)

At 9:30pm we were in the bay and anchored, a five-meter tidal change was reserved. We sailed 42 nautical miles today.

19/07/2020

It was originally scheduled to leave at 7:30 this morning. Wind was relatively strong. Mainsail was raised to give the boat a bit of momentum to pull the anchor up. J asked me to tack to the wind. I though it as an ordinary 90 degree tack, so the boat was over powered. The winch that controlled the anchor chain happened to slip again. The chain kept running out, and cut J’s right middle finger (no gloves). He quickly lowered the mainsail went to the cabin to deal with the wound. He asked me not to look at the wound so I knew it must be serious. It was very deep, and still couldn’t stop bleeding after washing, disinfection and bandaging. I feel very sorry. The plan to set off today was cancelled. We will stay in Pearl Bay for one more day.

A few boats around us were sailing away one after another. J looked a little disappointed. So I decided to make something delicious to comfort him. I made fried rice for lunch (so he can eat with a spoon). I don’t usually wash the dishes and I had to take care of it today, the result is pouring out a nice spoon with a bucket of dishwashing water. Oh, before that, a gust of wind blew away my Daiso hat. It seems that today I’d better to stay in the cabin and continue painting lobster…

In the evening, I made mapo tofu that can be eaten with a spoon too. I use a carton of room temperature tofu, which tastes good.