Day 45, April 20

Last night after my second brandy (Bottles of hard liquor do not last long on Pachuca once they are opened.) I stuck my head through the companionway and saw Orion behind the boat, the first constellation that I learned from Mike Mckay, the third mate of the 12 ton freighter "Ashbank" that was taking me to Australia in 1966. Ahead I could see the Southern Cross, "Bigger than dogs' balls", as the Australians say. The wind had slackened but was due to strengthen in a couple of hours, and we were ambling along pleasantly under a half moon. It was on the Ashbank that through Roderick Gunn the first mate and Mike McKay the third mate I first became aware of the Scots, among my favorite people of the planet. The Ashbank was part of a fleet of 55 ships owned by the Bank line. This was before the container revolution so the ship had its own cranes. Navigation was by compass and sextant and I remember watching officers drop a log over the stern to measure our speed through the water. We called it the Trashbank but it was a romantic old ship, small and intimate. I slept in the pilot's cabin behind the bridge and we 5 passengers ate at the captain's table every night because there was only one dining table and there were only a few officers running the ship. I remember Captain Bridger (relate to Jim Bridger, the American mountain man), Roderick, Mike, and Hedley the radio man. There was also a second mate and several engineers. It might have been the captain's table but I was not impressed with the live weevils on my dinner plate most nights. A visit to the fantail where the Bengali crew lived was like a walk through Calcutta.

At 2100, 3 hours before dawn, I woke up to find that the wind had shifted and strengthened and we were now headed SE. About 30 minutes later I went topside and gybed the boat and was pleased to see that we were now headed more or less toward Fremantle. I looked at the spot forecast and was pleased to see that I could expect at least 2 days of good westerly winds.

At 1400 the wind was stronger. According to the spot forecast it was at 19 kts but would strengthen to 24 kts in the coming hours, so I went topside and rolled in headsail that had been set for a 10-12 kt wind. Yes, it slowed the boat but the ride was much better, and I did not want to worry about finding myself over canvassed in the coming strong wind. I had a good look at the sport forecast (issued the day before) and the wind prospects for the next 2 days were excellent, with winds in the high teens and low twenties, mostly from SSW. These were superb prospects and I was looking forward to covering some serious distances in the next few days.

I had a difficult but satisfying morning session with Graham. There was so much static that I could understand only a few of his words, but at least I could tell when he was speaking, which enabled me to speak at the correct time. I gave him my status information, repeating everything once and I heard his reply QSL QSL which told me that he had received my entire report. I consider letting Graham know my position and status even more that receiving his weather reports because I can get weather information from other sources. However, what made the session a success was that I managed to hear his summary that for the next 3 days I could expect winds of 15-25 kts from the WSW. Both the speed range and direction are important to me, and he confirmed that what I repeated back to him was correct.

I shouldn't tempt fate by speaking too soon, but it looked like I was at the beginning of a good long downwind run. It was now a matter of managing the boat properly and allowing it an the wind to do their work.

The numbers for the 24 hour sailing day were:

POS 37S55, 100E19
NND 96 nm
DMG 4010 nm
DTG 830 nm

I considered the NND of 96 miles very good, given that the first half of the day we were dealing with light 10 and 11 kt winds.

I had a look at the Ocean Passages climate chart for this half of the year and was pleased to see that at the longitude of 100E I was at the maximum latitude of iceberg sightings in the annals of maritime history, and that suited me just fine.

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