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Nearly There

It's starting to feel very equatorial – lots of gray skies, squalls, and that hot, sticky humidity. We've got about 80 nautical miles to go before we reach a channel between two islands by Irian Jaya Barat, the western end of PNG. The plan is to navigate through there in daylight, which will leave us just 35 nautical miles from the marina in Sorong. So we will slow down later to arrive at the channel at first light.

Yesterday was a bit of a mixed bag, with some slow sailing and some slow motoring. It's funny how the wind could spring up from 360 different directions but always seems to come from every direction except the one we want when it finally decides to show up! We ended up doing a few tacks yesterday because it was constantly shifting around.

We've seen a bit of shipping traffic and the usual assortment of fishing boats. We can always tell when a fishing boat is nearby without even looking because suddenly there are flies buzzing around the saloon. I guess even they're trying to escape the smell and grime!


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