Day 53, April 28 - Early Morning Edition

I put my head down at 1300, 9 PM local time, and the sail immediately began to flog frequently enough to get me out of bed. The wind had died so I put the pole up in the hopes of keeping the boat moving, but by the time I had the new arrangement set up the wind had died to nothing, so I brought in the sail and let the boat drift in the moonlight. I was not worried because good winds were predicted for the coming day.

I was up at 1750 to the hum of the Rutland wind charger and it was time to set sail. I dressed up and went topside and one glance forward revealed the beautiful sight of a ship crossing my bow close, but not dangerously so. This was my first sight of humanity in more than 6 weeks. I looked up and saw that my tricolor was shining brightly and then went down below and saw that the ship was showing up as a target on the chart plotter: the Lucy Oldendorff, a cargo ship bound for New Plymouth, NZ. She was crossing 2.3 miles ahead of me, just outside of the 2 mile safety perimeter that would have triggered an alarm on the chart plotter. Thirteen miles ahead the Zosco Huzhou bound for China had already crossed my bow going the other way and must have passed close to the Lucy Oldendorff. I was in a shipping lane and my AIS system was working fine. I had been broadcasting an AIS signal continuously since Cape Town.

The wind was a good one: moderate but steady. The boat was pointing the right way so all I had to do was to roll out some headsail and alter the airvane just a few degrees, and just like that we were now making 5.5 kts across a calm sea. Down below I saw that we were now well north of Bunbury and 99 miles from our destination. I felt safe from ships because of the clear visibility as well as the AIS, so went back to bed.

I was up at dawn, 2230 UTC, to find the boat still sailing directly toward Fremantle 75 miles away.
There were scores of sea birds of at least 3 different speciens zooming all around the boat. We were 50 miles of the coast, making a good speed of 4.5 kts, and the moderate SE winds would continue until after my arrival at Rottnest Island. This was turning out to be a dream run up the coast.

I was now within the coverage of the set of Navionics charts of Australia on the chart plotter so now I was working with very detailed, recent, and well presented charts. The C-Map charts had done a great job of getting me from Mexico to this point, and in fact they were good enough to get me into Fremantle, but they could not match the Navionics charts. Undoubtedly the modern C-Map charts are to the same standard, but I was using C-Map 93, a much older version. The other great tool at my disposal was of course Marine Plotter running on the laptop because using it I would see the progress of the boat against very detailed Google satellite images. Imagining the ocean bottom from contour lines and spot depth is one thing. Being able to actually see the ocean bottom is another.

I expected to arrive at the holding position between Rottnest Island and Fremantle at about midnight local time. I planned to enter Cockburn Sound through the South Passage and station myself 5 or 6 miles E of Rottnest Island to await the dawn. I did not want to wait too close to Fremantle in order to avoid shipping movements. Once I established the direction and rate of drift I would see about getting a few hours of sleep with anchor alarms and timer set.

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