Friday 29th November 2013
24 05’S, 159 18E
380nm to go
Day 4
Well today its calm yay.
I for one so need this I hate the rough oceans it really terrifies me especially at night when I’m on watch by myself and its dark and you can’t see anything but feel the motion of the boat, which feels like it’s going to capsize any minute. You really cannot do anything but hold on and hope like hell nothing bad is going to happen.
So this calm ocean is such a welcome relief, The Captain on the other hand looks at it as if it’s the worst thing in the world, we are doing around 2-3 knots he wants to be doing around 5-6 knots.
I open my eyes to calm and serene man it’s so nice The Captain is itching to get up and change course, sails the whole lot, I plead with him to just let me enjoy the calm for a little bit.
To his credit he last about an hour, than up he jumps, I’m thinking there goes my comfy ride, now he fiddles, with this and that changes sails and stuff, and still nothing is happening...hahaha there is a god.
He eventually gives up and lays down for a sleep, me with a little skip in my step and a smile goes down to face that what looks like an explosion has gone off in the galley... smile fades some.
The good thing about gentle seas is I can once again get the boat back in order, two days of neglect sure builds up quick.
I’m busy down there for hours, and yes I am on watch and I race up the steps and look around very often, although we do have the radar alarm on so anything that gets 8nm to us, it will go off, although the AIS is not working now at all, so that alarm is gone with it. It’s just sitting here on the wall looking smug as it has got the better of us, what a piece of crap equipment it is, seriously it causes nothing but problems, and the other piece of nasty work on this boat is Aut (the auto pilot) he decided to have a hissy fit last night while I was on watch I’m sitting here enjoying reading a book with a torch for light, man I miss my ipad, when the alarm goes off, I quickly jump up looking around thinking a cargo ship is about to run us over, when I realise it’s Aut, not the radar, I have not named the radar yet, will have to think on that one.
Well he has switched off Autopilot and gone back to Standby, which means nothing is steering the boat. I quickly switch it back on to Auto and it works but we are now way off course, I fiddle some but nothing is working to get us back on track, I wake The Captain who jumps up presses a button or two and all is fine, with a sigh of relief we sit back down.
Our butts barely touch the seats when off it goes into some other mode, flashing all this stuff at us, once again The Captain tries several buttons but nothing is working this time, with visions of hand steering the next four days and panic setting in I race down to get the trusty manual, that I can now put my hand on in about two seconds flat.
I race back up torch in hand and start reading, as per usual its useless and tells us nothing, in sheer desperation I switch the thing off, and no not the main power as we know what that does, just the unit itself up here, I wait a few minutes and start it back up again, we hold our breath and Yes once again its working fine, man I look over at The Captain and we both agree that it’s the first thing we get fixed when we hit Australia, seriously it stresses me out so much, I almost have a stroke every time the damn thing goes mental.
Ok rant over...hahaha
Back to my cleaning I decided to clean and organise the lockers and do a new list, as we have been told Australia is the worst country to come into with very strict rules and regulations, we are starting to get very concerned about this, as we have been told how bad they are and will go over your whole boat with a fine tooth comb, so all my hidey holes are out, it’s better to play dumb than look like we are hiding stuff.
So out come all the goodies that were hidden the list is accurate now which sucks, as I hate to abide by rules, but I tell you if they try and take it off us there is going to be one hell of a fight. Especially my sand I don’t care who they think they are they are not getting that. The Captain just rolls his eyes, but man he has not seen the real me when it comes to fighting for my rights.
Well tomorrow is another day.