Beating into the Ceram Sea

Beating is the term used when sailing into the wind. It can, at times, be compared with beating your head against a wall. The progress can be frustrating slow, and often the journey is rough as the boat is heeled over and bashing into the waves.

So an obvious feature of a good cruising route is to not beat into the wind. But sometimes you just want to get somewhere, and this is what is required. Acceptance and making the best of it, are the keys. Except I've never been good at finding my keys!

We are three days out from the dive resorts and it's been 20-25 knots from the South East. So we tack away and try to balance moving fast, and having a tolerable life aboard. Five knots seems to be the go. The boat only occasionally bangs hard into a wave and the sound of 'splatt, whoosh' as a wave makes it to cockpit, is again, occasional.

Leaks present where none were thought to exist. The hatch on the back storage locker worked loose and a few hundred litres ended up there. The anchor chain demonstrates excellent capillary action and the front hatch, which has never sealed that well, brings a salty drippy ambience to the bow. But our bunks are mostly dry, the cockpit continues to keep the worst of the weather out, and life aboard is tolerable. A few time we've hoved-to which makes the boat lay quite still and slowly creeps backwards.
During these sessions Liz has made bread, pizza and things are tidied up.

The weather seems to be clearing as we head south with a brilliantly clear sky last night and sunshine this morning. The wind has dropped to 5knots this morning and we are motoring (in exactly the direction we want) while we charge the batteries. The forecasts state that the SE wind will stay at 20-25 knots for most of the trip.

We think we will now head for Darwin, instead of Gove.

From the Ceram Sea just off the Papuan coast, north of Ceram.

By the way, I post position reports more often than blog entries.

Colin