Day 187, Year 2: Sixth Day of Passage to Aussie Land–Almost There
Date: Sunday, October 28, 2007
Weather: Beautiful and Sunny; North 10-14 Knots
Latitude: S 24 degrees 09.471 minutes
Longitude: E 153 degrees 42.202 minutes
Location: On Passage to Australia
Miles to Go: 84!!!!!

The race is on. After motoring for almost 24 hours, the winds returned this morning and we were in the sailing business again. Right now, we can see two boats, and we are starting to hear traffic on the VHF radio. If all goes as planned, we should arrive in Bundaberg tomorrow, along with Scot Free II, and probably with New Dawn, Monkey’s Business, Rendezvous Cay, Dutch Touch, Rascals Two, and Ranger. This is based on miles to go reported on the radio net this morning and the radio traffic I am
hearing. We are having to motor again right now as the winds died down a bit in the late afternoon, but we have hopes that they will increase again after sunset. In any case, it has been a wonderful passage with less motoring than most and great sailing. It has been a wonderful ending to the cruising season. The last 50 miles tomorrow are in a shallow bay and up a river, and tides and winds could cause some havoc there, but we hope we have things timed right.

I was having so much fun yesterday when I wrote the log that I forgot to mention that I was eating Brie and French bread and drinking Pouilly Fume to celebrate our anniversary. Maybe I had just a little too much wine, but it was a wonderful evening. This morning when I got up for my 4 AM watch, it was dark. That has not been the case on the rest of the passage. I have awoken to first light each day. We changed our clocks to Aussie time as soon as we left New Caledonia and that gave us very early
sunrises for the passage. Obviously we have moved further west and now the sunrise is closer to 5 AM. This morning I got to watch the full moon go down as the sun came up. I love that time each month. It makes me feel like the world is in balance. I know this is an illusion, but I enjoy it just the same.

We talked to our son Justin on the SAT phone this morning. We had talked to him breifly while we were in Noumea, but he was in meetings at Marina Del Ray in Los Angeles at the time, so we didn’t really get to talk. Today’s conversation was great but it reinforced just how much we miss our kids. We’ve always had them both close to home, but now that Just is in New Mexico, Heather is in Massachusetts, and we are half way across the world, seeing each other becomes most challenging.

It is time to send emails, have dinner, and start the night watches. We will have to be especially watchful tonight as we are nearing land. We have seen two cargo ships today, the first on this passage. We also hear that there are fishermen that set out from Bundy before daylight, put their boats on auto pilot, and go to sleep. So we will be especially watchful for them. If the skies stay clear, at least we will have great light from the moon.