Hi everyone,
We had a good sail last night with the wind holding up until about 0500 when it fell from 10-12 knots to 5-8 or so. The wind has now built to 8-10 knots from the WNW, we're heading 140 at 4.5 knots in position 04 38.1S 110 42.7E.
We had to deal with lots of traffic last night. Mainly cargo ships for which we had to change course for two. AIS said they were going to come within a mile when they were still 10 miles away. Our AIS doesn't actually tell us whether they'll pass ahead, behind, to port to to starboard. In the past I've tried using the graphical display to work that out, but at 10 miles range it's difficult. So instead I now carefully monitor the bearing to the other vessel. If it moves one way consistently then I can alter course by 10 degrees the other way. A few minutes later I check the CPA (closest point of approach) to confirm it has increased to over a mile. Simple but I hadn't previously thought of the old fashioned "measure the bearing" approach.
The sky was quite clear last night so we had a good view of the stars, apart from a couple of hours when two squid boats were nearby. They lit up the area for miles with their very bright lights. Another interesting phenomenon was flashes of light which appear to be lightning beyond the horizon. No thunder, just flashes of white light. The loom of lightning.
The wind forecasts for the next few days show it should hold in around the 10 knots mark, becoming W sometime today. We'll see what really happens.
We have now logged 501nm for the passage so far and have 430nm to run towards Benoa. All downhill from here! ;)
No comments:
Post a Comment