We had a great day sailing yesterday, with 15–18 knots of breeze and the wind sitting around 100 degrees apparent.
Yesterday was a day of emotional peaks and troughs, as we had an extremely exciting encounter with a superyacht which was also heading to Mackay. It came past us at around 12 knots.
The reason for the excitement was that it was something else to look at, and it soon disappeared over the horizon, with Ocean Breeze gallantly chasing along behind at a steady 6.5 knots. Poor wee thing was trying her hardest!
It has been nice to have a few days of sunshine and blue sky after all the cloudy, rainy and cold weather earlier in the trip. It is also definitely getting warmer, which I hadn’t expected. I expected it would get cooler as we approached Mackay.
After spending so much time in jackets, long trousers and socks, it’s quite nice to be back in conditions where you can actually remember that we are supposed to be sailing in the tropics.
On the downside, I discovered that I am down to the last roll of kitchen roll, which is one of my favourite things to keep the boat interior clean. This is potentially a more serious situation than the superyacht disappearing over the horizon.
The breeze started to ease off and come around to the east in the late afternoon, so we went back to the headsail and engine at 1,500 rpm to give us a bit of a push. The engine brings us back up to around 6 knots from 4.5–5, which is a nice little boost. By this morning the wind had crept all the way around so we are about 150 degrees off. We should be able to make some of the wind angle back after we clear the next way point.
It’s 660 nm to Mackay, so around four days, which is exciting. I just hope I can stretch the kitchen roll out until then. And 350nm until we sail off the edge of our chart and have to start using our phones which adds another dimension to navigation.
This morning I repurposed the fresh-water pump that had previously been fitted to the engine cooling system and plumbed that in, so we are back to fresh water on demand rather than having to go to the switchboard and turn the switch on the panel. One less thing to remember, and one more piece of equipment that has found a second career.