Day 4, Year 3: Pearl Bay to Percy Isles
Date: Tuesday, May 13, 2008
Weather: Partly Cloudy Skies with Lots of Sunshine: Winds 20-25 SE
Water Temperature: 75 degrees F
Latitude: 21 degrees 39.199 minutes S
Longitude: 150 degrees 14.599 minutes E
Location: West Bay of Middle Percy Island, Queensland, Australia

We sailed 62 miles today from Pearl Bay to Middle Percy Island. I think there must be a permanent high pressure system that hangs over this part of Australia at this time of year. The weather report for everyday is the same – SE Winds 15-20 with isolated showers. We had no showers today and the wind exceeded the report. It was another downwind wing and wing sailing day with the headsail out to port and the mainsail out to starboard. For part of the day the winds were 15 to 20, then 20 to 25,
and then 25 to 30. This pattern cycled throughout the day making for a rock ‘n roll passage. We rock and roll so much that it is hard to get anything done during the day. We spend a lot of time working with the sails and then it takes energy just to hang on.

We have traveled about 250 miles in the four days since leaving Bundaberg. Since sailing is never in a straight line, we have actually traveled only a 190 miles due north. In those 190 miles, the water temperature has gone from 69 to 75 degrees F. Not bad. We are starting to see palm trees on some of the islands, so it is looking tropical once again. We are also seeing lots of wildlife. Our resident yellow moth was still with us this morning, but finally with encouragement from Mark, she flew
off toward shore. For over an hour today, a pod of dolphins played in our bow wake. They would swim so fast toward the bow that they looked like torpedoes and then they would dip into the bow wake and out the other side. Once in a while, a lone dolphin would fly out of the water and do a little flip. These little dolphins were so fast that it was almost impossible to get photos of them. Of course, the fact that Windbird was rocking and rolling didn’t help much. But we did enjoy the live show.
And then just after we anchored for the night, twittering little Australian “welcome swallows” (hirondo neoxena) did water level fly-bys and then some of the bolder ones would land on our life lines, obviously to greet us.

We are hoping that our anchorage tonight is a little more settled than the one last night. Sometime in the middle of the night, I woke up as I was being thrown out of bed. Windbird was rocking wildly from side to side and I was about to become her first casualty for the night. I tried sleeping on the main cabin settee, but that was not much better. Our anchorage tonight is on the west side of an island and again is not very well protected. We are sloshing around right now, which is tolerable,
but we’ll have to wait and see what things are like in the middle of the night. It is hard to find protected anchorages out here, so I guess we are just going to have to learn to love the rolling from side to side or learn to do without sleep. Both days and nights are challenging out here-not the easy sailing we learned to love in the South Pacific.

We will stay here throughout the day tomorrow. We haven’t been off the boat since we left Bundy, so we will take a walk on land and then leave around dusk to do an overnight to our next destination. It is too far to make it during daylight hours but really not far enough for an overnight. But if we leave late enough, we should be okay.

080513 Day 4 Pearl to Percy