Lat: 10 50.838′ S
Lon: 136 17.102′ E

I’ve just started my night watch at about 3am. Watches have changed quite a bit now that we’re on passage with just the two of us. We’ve adopted a system of longer night watches that’s closer to the way our friends on S/V Imagine do it. Lauren takes a night watch from 8pm or so until 2 or 3am — I get to go to bed early (I’m always sleepy anyway). I get up when she goes to sleep and am on watch until 8 or 9am when I get on the radio to listen to the nets and she wakes up and makes breakfast. I usually end up dozing off quite a bit between 9 and noon while she keeps an eye out and then we take turns watching through the afternoon and evening depending on who’s feeling like dozing and who’s awake.

Just as we were leaving Seisia, we thought we’d lost one of our favorite pieces of gear — the dana. The dana is basically a word processor. It has a full size keyboard and an 11-line LCD screen that lets us type blogs for almost no power (it uses 3 rechargeable AA batteries) instead of using the laptops. With just the two of us we have too much power, if anything, but with a larger crew, it’s pretty handy. Lately it’s been acting up, with keys that randomly stop working and then sometimes work again. It seemed hopelessly lost when "t", "y", and a couple of other keys absolutely refused to work yet again. I thought it would be worth taking apart since I used to design this sort of thing. Even though I don’t really have the tools on-board to properly troubleshoot and repair electronics, we got lucky. As soon as I opened the back cover I could see a loose keyboard cable. I guess all the shock and vibration from passages since Key West had worked the connector loose. Anyway, it’s back now.

DSC_0477 Most of our blogs start here

We thought the trip through the southern Arafura sea across the north edge of the Gulf of Carpenteria would be with following seas and winds from astern, but we’ve ended up with a fair amount of wind on the beam and pretty good sized beam seas that have been a little uncomfortable for the last couple of days. Uncomfortable seas means that Lauren and I spend a lot of the day laying down in the salon reading, listening to music, watching movies, or listening to audiobooks. It’s been a little warm, though and we’ve had to shut the hatches because the waves are large enough that occasionally the crest of a big one slaps up against the port side of the boat and the very top part of the wave gets thrown as a heavy shower over portions of the deck. Tired of being inside, I suggested this afternoon that we sit outside for a bit where it was sunny with a nice cool breeze. We were out there only a few minutes when I saw a large wave build up like a translucent light green wall beside us with a small gray body swimming quickly inside it — dolphins. It’s been a while since we’ve seen a pod of dolphins. These dolphins were smaller than the ones we’re used to seeing but were pretty playful, and the pod of 20 or so spent quite a while playing in the bow wave, darting back and forth, lining up in groups of 3-5, and swimming along just under the surface. It seems like one of their favorite games is to dart in from the side so that they’re swimming just inches in front of the bow and then to swim there in a small group of three or four as we surf down waves and have small bursts of acceleration. They were a lot of fun to watch until we caught a large, steep wave on the port hull again and Lauren and I got an unexpected salt water shower. Oh well, it was time to put on a new pair of shorts anyway.

We also got buzzed again today by an Australian Customs plane who then called us on the VHF to check on our details and itinerary. It’s really amazing how close they get. They could read the port of registration off the stern even underneath the dinghy and if you’re out on deck when they come by, you can see their faces in the cockpit. They really do make the US border security look like a joke. We’ve sailed to the Bahamas several times and never once been stopped by the USCG or customs; the one time we did try to clear customs and immigration properly we had to drive all the way over to their office at Port Everglades and try to catch them before the office closed. Granted, Australia doesn’t have a land border and doesn’t have to worry about immigrants from the east (they let the Kiwis in pretty freely), south (everyone in Antarctica volunteered to be there), or west (Africa is a whole ocean of rough water away). But, they do patrol their 1000-1500 miles of northern border waters incredibly well. We asked the Navy guy who we met in Cairns how many boats of immigrants get through and he said, "None — zero." At this point, immigrants just float out into the Torres Straits and wait to get far enough that the Australian Navy picks them up and takes them to Christmas Island for processing, with some hope of getting to the Australian mainland as legal residents. I asked him where the people filling these boats come from and he said they’re mostly from Iraq and Afghanistan and are seeking asylum. Hmmmmm. Who would start wars there that create so many refugees and then not volunteer to take any of them in? Must be those pesky Australians getting what they asked for again.

DSC_0494 Customs plane flying by

We had planned to stop in the Wessels, but we haven’t made the best time and are arriving in the middle of the night, so we decided to keep moving. The nights have been cloudy and incredibly black (we wouldn’t even be able to see the bow if the nav lights weren’t on), so it’s not really worth the risk to try a night approach, and we’re trying to make time for a longer stay in Bali anyway. At least the wind has less fetch now that we’ve neared Cape Wessel so the seas are calmer. It’s a welcome change from the steep 8-10-footers that were rolling in on our beam.