Author: Ning Xue

24/10/2020

Still staying in North Keppel today and loving the seclusion. Walked two kilometres up the island through the mosquito-infested bush to a campsite on the west side of the island for a fresh water shower. The shower room was built in the outdoor with a wooden fence around a shower head, using collected rainwater and no heat. Luckily, it was hot enough to take a cold shower. Picked up a couple of coconuts on the way back to the boat and cracked them. They didn’t have much water in them, but they had plenty of coconut meat, which I used to cook a green sauce curry in the evening.

After dinner we watched a documentary called My octopus teacher.

I was amazed by the intelligence and amazing structure of octopus. Also admired Craig Foster for diving every day for more than a year to observe the same octopus. He says that “gentleness” is what you learn from nature, where you begin to love all creatures, including the tiniest… Indeed, after a few months of sailing in nature, not only have I learned how to enjoy a very basic life, but also I care more about the wildlife and environment around me. At least I don’t think I’ll be eating Takoyaki (grilled octopus balls) anymore.

23/10/2020

Went to bed early last night and woke up naturally at 8am this morning. Finally we were able to sleep in as the plan for today was to relax.

After delicious egg and avocado toast for breakfast, we gave our beloved boat a good clean. J adjusted some of the stays and ropes on the boat, and dived into the water to clean the hulls. He scraped out a lot of strange sea creatures. He also found that the propeller on the stern was small and not in hydrodynamic shape. No wonder the it didn’t work well in the waves. So it looks like it’s not the gearbox problem but the propeller needs to be replaced.

A pile of red vegetables and stir-fried meat for dinner.

22/10/2020

In the morning the wind had completely stopped, but the remaining waves were still very big, so we were going up and down with the waves almost at the same spot. As the wind started to blow from the land, J stepped on the boom to cut the ropes that caught the mainsail and raised it to get the boat running again. We finally passed the reefs with the lighthouse that we had been looking at last night but had never been able to reach.

The sky cleared up and the westerly stopped again before long. We found out that the engine was not working well in waves last night, and now we had to try the spare outboard. It took a little while to get it into the water and fixed it in the right place. 18hp with 20 litres petrol can run for about 10 hours at the speed of 3-4 knots, it won’t make it to Great Keppel only with that.

As we passed Pearl Bay, I sent the lobster shell that we kept all the way, back to its home, thanking it for being my model and also praying for the Lobster god to give us a little wind… J went into the cabin to catch up some sleep and asked me to wake him up if the northerly pick up persistently (he could see the ripples in the northern skyline, so he thought the wind was coming). It was only about 20 minutes later that I felt the cool breeze on my face to the north, and a darker coloured, wrinkled patch of waves was spreading over. Finally the northerly caught up with Mustang. We raised the genoa and Mustang started to ran smoothly again, maintaining 7-8 knots in the afternoon. It was a very pleasant ride. Especially after a storm, we appreciated normal weather like this more.

We arrived at North Keppel Island at 5:30 p.m., finished the 36 hours, 180 nautical miles cruise.

We were all exhausted. I made three shreds stir-fried with pork for dinner, and then collapsed to sleep.