Wednesday 2nd December 2015
26°22'S 14°43'E
Well it's 9.47pm I'm on my first official Watch, we are motoring at the moment, as their is no wind at all, if I look at the wind speed we have about 8 knts we are in 158 meters of water and about 25nm off shore. Ok I just said the depth was 158 meters is now flashing 17.3 meters, this always freaks me out, it usually means something big has just swam under us.
It's dark cold and misty, there is no moon out yet so it's really really dark.
Ok now I'm getting seriously freaked out the depth has just dropped to 6.9 meters, what ever is under us is getting closer, and Yeap I just checked both charts and we are still in open water and no land in sight, not that you can see it anyway, but I have to have faith in the charts, surely two charts can't be wrong.
What a day we have had, we were up and running by day break, while I did the usual last minute tying down, packing away, securing everything and closing all the hatches, The Captain went to shore, to clear out, this is always a long process, going to customs and immigration and it takes forever.
Then he had to go draw out money from one bank, deposit it in another bank so we could pay for the fuel as they don't accept money, credit cards, nothing.
Ok depth is back to 169 meters am happy now.
So where was I? We were going to get fuel from the port dock at 11am, 12pm comes and The Captain is not back, i'm starting to worry, eventually I hear the outboard engine thank god, he had massive problems with everything, and has changed the time to 2pm to get the fuel.
With a sigh of relief we slow down a bit, we had a bite to eat and then got stuck into doing the final pre work.
I got all the fenders out on the port side, bitching about the dirt and dust on them and man was I filthy, I came inside and washed up a bit, only to poke my head back out on deck and face The Captain, telling me the wind has just changed directions and we need the fenders on the starboard side now.
So not happy Jan! but I did it and Yeap bitched once again, we really need rain on this voyage, so with luck some of this dirt and dust will wash away, there is that much sand on board, we would properly make another island out here when it all washes off..haha
While I was bitching away The Captain was busy stowing the dingy, getting the outboard secured on deck, and getting all the ropes in place for our dock visit.
Two o'clock comes we radio port control, and ask permission to come in and hoping that the guys are there to grab our ropes, and Yeap no one is there.
We do a 360° and wait, still no one turns up from the fuel place, now you need to understand this is no ordinary dock, this dock is major league, for the big big guys, tankers, cruise ships, cargo vessels you name it.
We come up to this massive cement wall with huge tyres attached to it, and there is no way we could of climbed up there to tie off our ropes.
We then see a smiling face looking down at us, and then more and more pop up, I have no idea who these guys were, but they were all willing to give us a hand, but they knew nothing about tying up boats or catching ropes for that matter.
Now I'm not the best at throwing ropes, but I do ok, but when you have to throw them up at a huge distance I failed miserably, and they sucked at catching them, it was bedlam with The Captain running back and forth trying to throw ropes as well and steer and tell them how to tie it up, but eventually some how and I'm still not sure how we manage to get tied up with no damage to the boat or anyone else.
Then the fuel guys eventually turn up once all the fun was over, well so we thought, they come with a handful of papers that have to be filled out first and we need to fly a red flag.
Serious we don't even have a red flag ( and yes I did check ) and it was not really a good idea to fly one in front of The Captain at that moment.
They settled for our flag on the man over board pole, off comes the cover and even though it was orange and not red they were happy.
One of the guys jumps down on a tyre and then jumps on the boat almost falling in in the process, helps The Captain fill in all the papers and then they were passed up on the dock checked by another guy and all was happy.
When we get fuel like this it comes in really fast, so we sort of do a tag team, The Captain stays inside checking gauges and opening and closing tanks, I usually am the relay person, I stand in the cockpit and just relay, well it was like a five way relay, The Captain would tell me he was ready for them to start, I would tell the guy with the hose, he would yell out to a guy on the dock, he yelled to other guy, and this guy gets on his two way radio and radios them to start the pump.
Now we have four tanks, so this went on not just four times but about eight or ten, it seemed the whole process had to be done when we wanted them to stop or slow down as well so The Captain could change tanks, it was just crazy.
Eventually all was finished, but wait they needed more paper work done, so The Captain climbs off the boat and stands on top of the tyres hanging off the wall and signs and reads it all, serious they had to of cut a tree down just for this one little adventure.
We got them to cast off for us and finally after two and a half hours we were out of there.
And here we are rocking and rolling but all is quiet, except for the engine running and the auto pilot moaning...haha
Well tomorrow is another day.