Longer one later

Position 0630 4th 4451 08150, trip 77, DMG 55 - very soft westerly, twin poled all night - snailing it.

Pink Predictor - thanks - if you could hazard a guess at a waypoint to jump on the back of the distant low...my guess around 43S 095E ?

Dave J - likewise thanks - confirms our data.

Heggie, G'day!

(no subject)

Position 0630 3rd 4509 08009, trip 97, DMG 46, which includes making up the 37 we lost yesterday so an ok result.

What a difference a day makes, to coin a cliche. Whoever did the upended colander Incantation for us got it right. We have the assymetric kite up, hooning, heading a bit too far north but we'll drop it when we get up to 45N and pole out the heady and point at Hobart. From aaaarrrggghhhh to Aaaaaahhhh! It's just like sailing across the bottom of a glass of milk - one of those crystal glasses with a pattern cut into the base - grey crinkled fluid glass, liquid fog, no horizon and the diffused glow of a silver sun just hanging up there in the milky firmament. Noice, except for the runny drips off everything. This must be the fog Cook wrote about, that he sailed 900 leagues through. Convergence zone classic.

Ferals later - I think we need a new grib so I'll try to send this. Firefly starting to go green at 70+% on the propagation screen for sailmail (green means there's a chance to connect for that hour of the day and the % gives a rough guide as to how lucky you might be) so things are beginning to close in. About 30k in the marathon - way back from half way - the turning point for confidence. Or the hook for Damocles.

ABC radio

Last Sunday morning, 31st Jan, the boys had a chat via satphone to ABC Radio's Macca on his show Australia All Over. The call went for about 14 minutes, and the mp3 version is here:

http://mpegmedia.abc.net.au/local/australiaallover/201002/r506924_2715410.mp3

It is big - about 8mb, and Berri is from 1:00 to 14:30. A very good chat about Kerguelen, both sounding as chipper as ever.

Peanuts

It's been a Charlie Brown day. The sort of day when Lucy took the ball away just as he finished his mighty run up to kick it and he whirled over flat on his back. Stood up, threw his head back and yelled AAAAaarrrrrghh!

One of those days. when little things conspire to make life even more difficult, when we are wrapped first in too much wind from the wrong direction, going backwards, now in too little, in almost liquid fog that runs off everything. And the pasta was all starch - a gooey glutinous awful gluggy mess - almost uncookable in the boat - never seen it like that before. And...and...the list goes on. AAAArrrrrggghhh!

Half an hour later - I tried to connect to Iridium to send this and see whether we have any mail and there's no dial tone. The computer has, once again, removed the iridium modem and substituted it's own internal version so another dreary system restore. Why does it do this??

aaarrrrggghhhh!

Goonery

Position 0620 2nd 4556 07840, trip 60, DMG -37. Discouraging but could be worse. We're walking backwards to Christmas. Bleeah! It's a bummer out there.

Still no sign of a let up except that the wind has dropped marginally. No real conjunction between what we have here and the grib, but I've just been outside in the snake oil suit to put up the trisail and at least now we are going just a teensy bit to windward - north west instead of WSW.

Otherwise, just the tedium of sitting it out. Just like a square rigger! But does anyone know whether this is an unusual series of systems - they seem to be upside down (the highs to the south) and the lows way further north than we expected? Looks as if we will have to work our way north in the gaps up to 40S at least.

Anyway, I think I've got to visit the Surgeon Consultant - I feel the need for some basic medication. Somebody please make the appropriate incantation - go howl at the moon with an upturned colander on your head or whatever is necessary - and get us the westerlies we need.

MJC, thanks for info and I'm in email contact with Kaharoa. They due into Hobart for a day this w/e.
SJ - Foretrex

Iridium still intermittent - often takes several tries to connect. A bit nailbiting.

We'll see whether this one goes

Bleah! We are hove to, drifting SW at 2 kts and sitting it out - can't headbang into it and the old heave sends us downwind (away from Australia) rather slower than bare poling. Uncomfortable as we're beam on to the rising sea and rolling a lot and the occasional big one comes in from left field and crashes against the boat. Wind also rising and it's raining so we're all closed down and hoping to stay that way. At least another 12 hours before the thing dissipates if we can believe the grib. And there's another one behind this one. Looks like a headbang up to about 40S to get us out of here - tedious!

My Iridium fix hasn't worked, unfortunately. The connection fails intermittently at the first attempt to open the port, which, I think, means that the computer is not reaching the phone. The problem is probably still somewhere in the data kit, which was never designed for these conditions. I think the phone itself will work so if the iridium connection to sailmail fails completely, I'll phone in a daily report until we are in HF radio range of Firefly in NSW.

where in the world is...

The penultimate leg... Kurguelen through to Hobart. They are a long way south!

... but perhaps not that far south. This one shows the Rhumb Line, or Great Circle route, from Cape Town to Hobart. As you can see, the shortest way is not always the best. They are staying well north, both to catch the more favourable weather, and to stay a trifle warmer. Cape Town middle left, Hobart lower right, Antarctica that big white bit at the bottom.

too early to say but...

I may have found the Iridium problem. To use the phone to talk to sailmail, you need to buy what is called the data kit - a fitting that clips on to the end of the phone and has a PCB inside it and an RS232 to USB cable to connect it to the computer. Intermittent problems are often just loose connections so - sure enough - the RS232 connector on the cable was loose and I applied some gentle screwdriver and held my breath for a test connection and it connected...If this one goes too I think I'm winning.

Grib shows low to NW tossing 35 knots from the NW at us tonight and dissipating and moving south tomoz. With a bit of luck we'll be far enough up its ugly face to pass through it before the sea has time to rise to the vicious. Cross 'em please

And talking of ugly faces - the massive igneous extrusion on the south side of Baie de L'Oiseau had the Mt Rushmore face in it - I described it as lizardlike, I seem to remember. Nah! It's Slarty, leaving us his self portrait for posterity and poncing it up like he's the Greatest. Which, of course, he is! On second thoughts, it may be one of his pupils with a sense of humour.

Hey Carla! G'day!

Ok - let's see whether this works...

Iridium

V. quickie - might not go through - I'm losing Iridium - intermittent com port problem - port disconnects during initial handshake - getting worse, don't know why. So if no comms for a week, don't stress - Firefly should be in range soon. Will try with backup computer and phone if this one really karks.

SPBF

Location is everything

Position 0630 1st Feb, 4642 07909, trip 109, DMG 41 - just trying to get north but it all helps - a little game of chess with the Examiner. I'll get another grib when I send this and we'll see perhaps what's in the bucket.

Middle watch, 0200UTC As always, it's the waiting that gets to corrode the gut, this time subtly assisted by the cold, clammy, misty dim grey daylight outside as we wallow along in the last dregs of the previous system. For those who know, just like a claggy winter's day in England's industrial midlands but without the smoky smell. There's a front approaching slowly from the west with a tight little low forming to the north west. The low looks as if it could intensify into something way out past the 10 on the McQ Viciousness scale, but there isn't enough detail on our gribs yet to know much more than that it's out there. Meantime, the anticipation born of experience brews acid where honey would be noicer. So we wait. The plan is, as before, to get as far north as possible in these dreggy fillips of breeze, perhaps burn a bit of diesel if it really drops out and hope that we can get across the face of the low into the northerly stream and out of the 30+ knot easterly which is due down here. We shall overcome.

0630 - unusual sea - calm surface except for small ripples, almost no wind so the swell is obvious. Silver grey sky, reflecting from the surface so very difficult to judge swell height because it all looks flat - but it isn't. Probably about 5 metres, coming in from the west.

We cracked the 11000 mile mark on the GPS odometer a couple of days ago, so there's a Talisker due but we have decided to postpone it until we have got past aforesaid Examinatorial discombobulation. Now at 11226, with 2828 to Maatsuuyker.

Phil W again - the ICOM AIS box has its own separate VHF aerial - works much better than a splitter. Disadvantage is that the aerial is on the pushpit, so range is limited to about 25 miles. Usually enough - in the English Channel, it clogged the screen every couple of minutes.

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Senility strikes

I have just re-sent a block of five blogs which I had mistakenly sent to the old blog address and I think they may have arrived in reverse order - they should make more sense if read as follows
1.Comfort in adversity
2.Examinatorial Uglies
3.Delayed Con
4.This 'n that
5.Trying to outguess the examiner

I will try to keep my mind on the job in future. Now where did I put my woolly hat with the pompom? And my coffee? On my head you say? The coffee?

Phil W - AIS box is ICOM MXA 5000 receiver only, feeding into Software on Board (www.digiboat.com.au) in the laptop. We are changing the much travelled Kiwiprop for a new and slightly bigger one to go with new engine (Kiwi want the old one for analysis and display and they have generously subsidised the new one).

Lorraine - good to hear from you - glad you are enjoying this bit of fluffery.

Fenwick, not sure whether it's alcoholic stupor or senility in your case. 12 bottles of scotch?

Sue, sorry no pic of Pinkakerg in Kerg - all too busy avoiding kelp and P had face to the wall anyway - doesn't like the killer whales the troops saw in the bay as we were leaving.

MJC - don't know about the rats but I expect they all jumped off various ships - I can find out if you really want to know.

Tryig to outguess the Examiner

Sent the last 4 to wrong blog address - tks steve - resending with this one

Position 0630 31s,t 4811 07741, trip 116, DMG 97. I seem to remember that we had it much easier last time. Poo!

Still a bit busy out here - both into full TPS dry suit party gear to gybe the pole and optimise our course along the leading edge of the next front to try to ride it as far north as possible before the wind goes east. Just hoping the low doesn't intensify until we get into the front of it rather than the bottom.

more later

This 'n that

The lull between the uglies. I've just got into full party gear - after sponging the grot from the bilges - and poled out the headsail (no main in this drop of the turbs). There's a 30 kt easterly - at 48 south, an easterly! what's the world coming to? - due tomorrow but it looks like a fairly narrow band on the grib so we are trying to use the remains of the last nasty to get us as far north as possible, way into the easterly band and if possible through it. We will have to see what happens but that's the plan. Will be very interesting to compare the gribs with our track iff we get to Hoibart. bHeadbanging into 30 kts in these seas is not good karma, so we might just heave to and let it blow through. 24 hours lost, in that case.

Macca seemed to go better this time. Now that we have sorted how the programme works, it's easier to prepare. Hope it was worth the early rise.

There seems to be a bit of anxiety as to who is getting a Kergy envelope. If you asked for one, you will get one - but it's not instant gratification as I've said before, they will leave Kerguelen on RV Marion Dufresne at the end of March and reach Reunion in April. After that, it's regular snailmail. To all of you who have contributed to the iridium tin, many thanks.

On Iridium, we are in the only bit of the world that I know of that is out of range of a Sailmail station. We are roughly mid way between Maputo in Africa and Firefly in New South Wales and I haven't been able to connect to either since before Kerguelen. Firefly is just showing on the propagation screen and will slowly come into range but it's been exclusively iridium for quite a long time.

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Delayed Con

Position 0630 30th Day 2 from Kerguelen. 4847 07504 trip 103 DMG 70 - slowed us down a bit, that little nasty. Temperature inside 9 deg, outside a lot colder.

Less that 48 hours out - great start followed by inquisatorial bashing with what looks like another to follow. I hope the seas have timer to subside a bit - it's still blowing ephelaunts off chains but the barometer is rising fast. Big waves - it's always when things seem to be dying down that it's dangerous. Heading NE or where the wind takes us but basically north seems the go for an easy life.

Consultative process seriously discombobulated by excess business with the Examiner. I have just managed lunch - imagine, old fart in red and blue neoprene dry suit, strapped into wildly gyrating galley, wild waves cderashinjg against the windoew (as you can see, also with gloves on)inches from face, marrying a tin of smoked oysters, a slice3 of french loaF AND some mayo and getting the lot into the interior tubing - ever4y6t5hing moves with the boat, but in opposite directions tricky.

Now I'll see whether I can get iridium connected to send this. Then I shall Consult.

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Examinatorial uglies

This one's a real doozy. Not especially severe, 40-50 kts, but very nasty sea and sleet driving horizontally across the boat. The wind lifting the breaking crests and mixing them with the sleet. Wonderful colours if you can find the chutzpah to appreciate them - glassy green sea, glorious translucent iridescent green under the breaking crests where the light from the sky gets through (yep, we're looking up at most of them!), the crests themselves densely frothy with a greenish tint surging towards us and leaving acres of white feathery water behind them. Crashing blast of white beating thudding water as one occasionally breaks over the boat. Trickling flushing gurgle as it drains down every little gully above us. The usual wind streaks on the surface whenever it is smooth enough to see them. No fun out in the cockpit, where I've just been with the video cam. Small signs that it's dissipating - a bit of light through the soggy grey felt overcast, occasional lulls in the howl. The Examiner is clearly punishing us for our temerity in coming this far south and visiting Kerguelen - she's got another one of these lined up behind this one, again to the north of us so we get the adverse and nasty bit at the bottom. Le bum of ze cochon - we are supposed to be in westerlies here.

It's been so busy and beastly that I haven't yet written personal thank yous to the Kergulen mob. It will happen.

Possible Macca session this evening our time - we'll do out best to describe it all but it's hard sustaining that sort of rather one sided conversation. Love yez all - enjoy your lattes in Sydney and your bacon and eggs in Blighty. Margaritas in Texas and scotch in Lake Placid. Coopers in Nome. We might just have a taste of the Talisker if this little troll ever rolls away. Could be soon - the barometer just clicked up two hectothingys and there's a hint of blue in the overcast. But still blowing 44 knots.

Yickapooo! Sunlight - through a glass starkly but it's there! Big wave just broke over us but it's still there, even reflecting off the stanchion I can see through the window.

SJ, do you still you have the software to download tracks from the old Foretrex 201? Little green dinosaur.

Nereida Jeanne - great news! Good to hear.

Comfort in adversity

You awake Alex?...Yep! Bloody don't want to be but I am. I'm warm - to the ends of my toes warm in my toasty minus 20 arctic bag which I keep unzipped from the knees up so that I don't get stuck in it if we roll. I can hear the howl of the wind, the slat of the rain on the coachroof, feel the motion, a nasty corkscrew and I know beyond any denial, any rationalisation that I really really don't want to get up. So I fumble for my clogs to keep my socks dry and contort myself to reach up for the handrail at fingertip height above my head and swing my legs over the bar holding the leecloth. Lurch and stagger as Berri cops a wave. Pete tells me the story of his watch as I hang on with one hand and put all the warm stuff away and shiver into the cold damp fleecy overall and thermal tops that go with wet weather gear and into the pants and then the jacket. For convenience and warmth, I'm using my Canadian flote coat - the jacket is almost runny wet inside - it leaks and, I suspect, was never meant for this stuff. Yeeark - my hands shrivel as they slide down the slimy tubes of the sleeves but it all warms up quite quickly - just damply uncomfortable. And balaclava, headlamp and out into the howling roar that is the cockpit. Cold, driving rain, wind chill savage, quick assessment and ease the sheet till the heady just starts to flog and haul in with all my strength on the furling line to get the thing to about half its already small size. Make it all fast again, the rain by now running down my face and into my collar. Back inside, jacket off, kettle on, hot sweet cuppa with Kerguelen bread and honey and go through it all again to tack (actually wear) the boat to get the wind on the other side as it goes from east to south to south west. Grey, not black out there, the moonlight just getting through. It's only 35 knots but it's an awful sea and you have to be here to appreciate the beauty of it all.

We are just sitting it out, as comfortably as possible. No need to try to go anywhere, just keep the boat as unstressed as we can and wait. Remember Abe Lincoln - "And all this shall pass away..." I hope in about six hours.

3 hours later and definitely not yet - barometer 985 wind steady 35 gusting 40, almost freezing rain, sea building. Bleah!

Happys for H

Position 0630 29th 4911 07310 trip 130 (22.5 hrs) DMG 103 Odd feeling having only open ocean between us and Tasmania. So beginneth act the umpteenth.

Into the last of the baguettes, now about 24 hours old, with marmelade and a dose from Herself from Windhoek to wash it all down. Luxury unbounded - we were eking out the bikkies a bit before Kergs. Desolation Island - that's what it would have been called if Cook had got there before Kerguelen. The early explorers tended to compare the lands they visited with the gardens and fields they were used to at home and missed the delicate diversity and the bleak beauty of places like Baie de L'Oiseau. The early settlers in Australia yearned for their rose gardens and lush grass and tried to plant them in the desert, completely ignoring the wonderful natural flowers and the astonishing adaptation of the vegetation and the animals. But desolate Kerguelen ain't - after all, it does have its own cabbage.

Time for a coffee - filtered courtesy of the chef - and to attack the block of choc with a pickaxe. Yeehaaa! I'm wearing my Kerguelen hat - I went for a walk around the little bay at Port aux Francais amongst the seals, penguins and rotting kelp screaming gulls and cormorants and took hundreds of photos. On the way I found two un-matched sneakers which i left there and a tea cosy fleece hat with ear flaps. Grotty, sandy smelling of aforesaid rot and bird poo. Took it home, rinsed it multi times till the water ran more or less clear and dried it on the radiator, to find it impregnated with the tiny sharp seeds that come from one of the (I think introduced) plants that grows everywhere. A bit prickly. The french call the seeds pics or perhaps piques as in piquant. So to work with the tweezers and I'm truly the old fart about the boonies now.

Hey Dale - good to hear from you! The Bunger Hills sound interesting but I suspect it's a good deal colder at 75+ south than it was at 75 north - we'd need a heater. Glad we gave you an excuse for a scotch - our ears are burning - we have a drop of the Talisker and we're due for a small dose so keep your ear flaps tight and we'll cuss at you too. All the best for Axel Heiberg.

Ships that pass...

Pete had a ship on AIS during the night - he says it stayed with us, about 12 miles south, for a while and then disappeared. Odd. Sea Shepherd and its Japanese shadow are down here somewhere so perhaps one of them.

Cape Petrels, prions, dark petrels that look bigger that the white chins, the occasional Storm Petrel and several albatrosses - a few black browed and at least 2 very big ones. The water is 10 deg and definitely green. I've been sitting in the cockpit in my dry suit in the sunshine - it's cold out there! I hope, pace the Examiner, that we are now heading gradually north directly towards Maatsuuyker. Our furthest south, just off the Baie, was 4934 - we are now at 4915. Time will tell.

A bit more on Kerguelen - we were able to contribute a tiny speck to the place - one of the young researchers had spent quite a lot of money on a camera to record his stay on the island. On his first field trip, he found himself unexpectedly up to his armpits in water and his camera was drowned. I offered him my spare one that I seldom use and he's a happier boy. And my albatross photos found a home there too.

Not sure whether my French was up to the detail but there are a lot of rabbits - I think I heard 18 million - fewer cats and a lot of rats and there's a queasy balance between them all to the detriment of the original inhabitants and the natural vegetation. One species of introduced brown trout is gradually taking over all the rivers from all the other introduced fish. There are invasive insects (aphids?) which are also vectors for viruses. There are sheep and a species of what I think are caribou. We have some good contacts who, I suspect, would like a chance to visit Australia and collaborate, so if there's anyone out there working on similar ecological or biological projects (SW - UoW?) or perhaps schools who would like to be put in touch, let me know.

Merci!

Massive thank you to all our friends in Port aux Francais - for tolerating our awful French, for your much better English, for telling us about all the fascinating science that's going on there, for the trip of a lifetime around the Baie in L'Aventure in wonderful company and for generally enriching the lives of a couple of dozy old farts who blew in for a shower and a glass of milk to drop their false teeth into. Special thanks to Nathalie Deschamps for being such a cool Chef du District and to Renaud Huez who took us in hand and looked after us so well, and to Frank for the trip around the Baie. And to the cuisiniers, for all the goodies - we have bread, cheese, fruit, cold chook, coffee, sugar and an industrial chunk of chocolate It's about a foot square and three inches deep with nuts - yay! - and we only got half the bar. When I was a kid at boarding school, we used to get chocolate in lumps that had been hacked off a huge block too - takes yer back a bit!

I discovered why the scientists at least have better English than our French. One of our friends was studying for an exam next week and he had Feynman's lectures open on his desk - in English. It seems most academic textbooks that are written in English are too expensive to translate.

Could not have dreamed of a better start. Apart from a little contretemps with a big patch of kelp which took a fancy to Kevvo, no problem getting out. I borrowed an idea from Cook, who climbed Endeavour Hill in Cooktown to try to see a way through the Barrier Reef after they had careened and repaired Endeavour. I climbed the hill at Port aux Francais and found a gap in the kelp that gave us a shorter sail out of the bay and lined up a transit and off we went. And it worked.

Lovely night, poled out, 2 reefs, hooning under a three quarter moon, 20 kts from the west - rolling a bit - some signs of Examinatorial perturbation to the north west but the grib says - well, it does - that all should be reasonably cool and froody for the next couple of days. I shall only believe that in hindsight...and there is a nasty low forming in the NW in that couple of days. We'll see.

Poitrel Jack, if you are reading this, you need at least a 2 inch drain in each corner of the cockpit. Heavy duty flex hose to through-hull valves with venturis on the the outside to stop water flowing into the cockpit. Much more efficient than bungs. Happy to talk when we get back. Good luck!

Kerguelen glimpses part 3 or whatever...

First, you need to know that in Kerguelen, and probably all over France, they drink their breakfast coffee out of pudding bowls - half litre size. Second, conventional table manners are for the conventional. It's fair go to mix whatever you like in your coffee - cornflakes, cream, honey, sugar, the works. Scene at breakfast this morning - my lean, hook nosed hollow cheeked scrubby bearded friend who, with a bandanna would be perfectly cast in "Pirates 4" or whichever mixes a devils mix of black coffee, honey, milk, sugar and cream in his bowl - looks like baby poo by the time he has finished. Then he cuts a foot long length of bread from a french stick, slices it in two lengthwise, smears in in butter until every last square millimetre is covered. Then he spreads Nutella (for the uninitiated, a sort of soft chocolatey spread based on hazel nuts) all over it with the same concentrated care. Then, with enormous relish, he dips one end of a slice into his poo coloured coffee bowl just long enough to soak it but before it goes completely mushy and loses its structural integrity - and bites off the end, wipes the dribbles off his chin with great delicacy and repeats until all gone. Wonderful - I must try it when we get home.

And the eerie. I went for a walk this morning while we were waiting to be ferried out to Berri and visited the chapel. It's rigged inside just like a catholic one, but it is accepted simply as a place where people can go to commune in their own private way. Poignant memorials inside, some very personal. Outside, about 50 yards away, there is a lovely statue of Our Lady of the Winds. Under the pillars that form the arch of the porch there's an old blackened bronze bell with a short braided rope attached to the clapper. The bell swings in the wind and the clapper grates on the ring it hangs from inside the bell. I was looking from the arch to the statue and the bell started to grate and resonate - perfect movie SFX for the spirits of the dead - the ghost of the Ancient Mariner at my elbow.

Seals - they are everywhere, lying around in gross floppy heaps, some moulting, which makes then really ugly - they bark and the elephant seals snort. And they get around by undulating their bodies from front to back and pushing with their tails. But only 10 metres or so at a time and then they expire with a massive exhalation into a flaccid heap and rest for a couple of minutes. The King penguins are just finishing their moult - some are still scraggly but the rest are sleek and beautiful.

Prions, Cape Petrels, a couple of Skuas and a big albatross, Kerguelen a hard crenellated edge 10 miles away in the haze and advancing cloud around the setting sun.

And we're pointing at Australia.

More later.