Be The Jam

Position: Indian Ocean

S 09°45.33'

E 067°00.45'

Heading 300 degrees with a Light South Westerly.

The wind last night was very strong till about 0230 hrs. We had the sails set in a Goose Wing set, with the Genoa poled out. It brings home the meaning of driving through the seat of your pants, it was; literally that. The wind was very strong and it had to be kept behind you, one little twitch, 20 degrees, either way and you were in serious trouble! The boat was flying. The swell got up and up and soon we were surfing on the waves, doing at times, 20 second rides!

Hair raising stuff: the wave would loom out of the darkness, pick up the back of the boat, then the stars disappeared from in front of you and water started to cloud your vision (The boat is at 20 degrees by now looking down the face of the wave! Perfect Storm (the film) eat your heart out), you feel the boat, take off; the sails are billowing with wind, and hold your breath you're off! Like playing on the arcade machines, 'Welcome to Ocean Speed Master!!!' After a twenty second ride you slowly fall of the back of the wave and slow down, at which point you start hyperventilating because you have been holding your breath the entire time without realising it. Then a couple of seconds later you pick up the next wave and you're off. The whole cycle starts again. By the end of you three hour watch you a bundle of gibbering, dribbling, shacking mess. Then it was; hit the sack to find you can't sleep because the poor guy that is on after you is going through exactly what you left. One moment you're on the ceiling, the next you're stuck to the wall, then you find last nights boxer short stuck to your face (Unwashed and abused from over use), then you remove the shoe that you lost last week from your rectum, then you hit the ceiling again. So woke up this morning to find (No the shoe wasn't still stuck up my arse) No wind! Surprise, Surprise. So stopped Goose Winging it and we put up the Large Spinnaker. Still heading for the Seychelles on 300 degrees. We broke our distance record yesterday as well, we did 175 miles and if the wind hadn't dropped we would have made 200 easily. That's an average of 7.3 miles per hour! Well it's not going to go down in the Guinness Book for any records, but on sail power it's not bad, not bad at all.

Well we're just now hoping for the wind to come back, if we had the wind we had yesterday for the next few days we would get to the Seychelles sharpish, the way it stands now, it's looking like a week again. We think things won't change because we had this fluky weather at this latitude on the other side of the Indian Pond. Well here's hoping anyway...

Position: Indian Ocean

S 11°00.37'

E 069°15.96'

Had a bit of rough night; because of the way we had the sails set (Goose wing), we had a roley night. Then as I came on watch the wind had got up drastically and we decided to take it down. We still made good headway - 140 Nautical miles yesterday. We have poled the Genoa back out this morning again, opting for this instead of the Spinnaker because there is a heavy swell today; it is easier to control the boat this way. (The reason being the Genoa pulls the boat from the Front Stay - meaning pulling all the way down the front of the boat, where as the Spinnaker pulls the boat from the top of the mast, so by pulling from the top of the mast it exaggerates the roll of the boat in a swell making it very hard to control.)

Enough of all the jargon, I had a shower this morning. My hair was beginning to look a little worse for wear. (Normally washing consists of jumping over the side hanging onto a Sheet from the Genoa )

Had about a dozen Chumy Chumy (Squid) come flying out of the water onto the boat. .I didn't know squid could fly? I think they were desperate to get away from something. The stupid thing is that we only found a couple last night, thought it was a little strange but through them back in, not enough for a feed and felt a little sorry for them. Then this morning we found the whole boat had been splattered with them!! More than a dozen! Well they would have been a really nice Spanish tapa. Chances of it happening again are near none, so we were a little slow on the up take.

It continues to be a pleasant day; we are galloping the swells, towards the Seychelles …

Position: Indian Ocean

S 13°00.47'

E 070°33.21'

Yesterday evening Rupert and I had a wakeboarding session. Using one of the sheets of the Genoa and the kite surfing board we wake boarded behind the boat under full sail doing about 6 knots! Had a great laugh and we managed to launch from the boat and then haul ourselves back, without falling in? I had a dodgy old start, it looked as though I might fall in at one stage, but after that all was fine.

We have made a tack today. This morning we set a new heading - North or 350 degrees. The reason being with the deviation this far South it look as though we are going West (270 degrees) on the, compass, but in actual fact we are going 240/250 degrees. The way the wind is coming constantly from the South-east we are being pushed further South each day. Each day the deviation gets bigger exponentially, so this morning we finally hit 13 degrees South! The Seychelles are on about S 5' E 55', so we have a lot of sailing to do yet! At the moment we are heading straight for the Chegos Archipelago, but we will tack way before them on a heading for Seychelles.

1600 hrs -

We have poled out the Genoa out on the Spinnaker boom. We have now got the sails in a Goose Wing set and heading straight down wind doing about 8 knots (This is including the 1.5 knots of current that's with us as well), so we are flying. Hoping to keep the sails up that way through the night, but we will have no moon, and if the wind picks up we will be stuffed.

Position: Indian Ocean

S 11°43.33'

E 074°10.12'

Had a mad day yesterday. My watch was at 0500 till 0900 yesterday morning. Well the wind and the swell nearly drove me mad! You just couldn't keep the boat in a straight line. At the end my arms felt they were going to fall off; really tiring. Then we set about the engine as a last ditch attempt to be able to go to Solomon Island (Chegos Archipelago). Well we spent all day on it, in-between on the helm for another 5 hrs! (Because the auto helm is buggered we are having to helm 24 hrs non-stop.) So by the end all we achieved in doing is blowing up the battery charger, so now we are completely stuffed, when these batteries run out, that really will be the end of the juice. We thought we would be able to charge the batteries with the small portable Genny and charger, just so we could run lights and instruments. Now we are completely without power and engines. We have been plunged back into the dark ages!! No running water, no nothing. What power is left will be used to power the GPS once a day so we can get a fix. Navigating last night, no light for the compass, it was; line up with a star and head for that (quick check with the torch once in a while). Fortunately it was a starry night.

The Stars were like a patch work quilt, and so many shooting stars that is almost looked like the stars themselves were falling out of the sky. Phosphoresce were going mad, it looked like the boat was driving down a path of diamonds. Everywhere around where a wave broke, it was lit up by a million little lights.

There was something very strange I forgot to mention the other night (2 nights ago). We were sailing along, and suddenly I had a torch shinning up at me from the sea!! It was the same colour as the phosphorescence. I honestly thought for a split second that I had nearly run over a diver! What the hell is a diver doing out here in the middle of the Indian? Then I realised it couldn't be a diver, so what was it?? Rupert thought I had finally lost my marbles. Then 10 minutes later, another!! Rupert just saw it before it was past. Rupert then did his watch and told me he saw a few more, we conclude that it must be a phosphorescent eating jelly fish or something of that nature, purely because it was the same green light. The only other explanation; maybe it was a U.S.O. (Unidentified Swimming Object)?? Maybe when I get back I'll try and research the matter, and do a paper on it! They haven't been seen since. Maybe we're being watched THIS EPISODE WILL CONTINUE SAME TIME NEXT WEEK...

Position: Indian Ocean

S 11°08.00'

E 077°38.79'

So the decision has been made. We are going for long haul, serious, no stopping, and manic, exhausting crossing. We are now heading for the Seychelles . We have still not got an engine and we had a very heavy night of storms and squalls. So the general feeling is not to go to Chegos Archipelago, for one the Navy Base (British) won't really help us and two the prospect of approaching a set of islands surrounded by coral heads and reefs that aren't properly charted without an engine; well let’s just leave it at that. So as I was explaining earlier we were all set for a couple of days rest on Solomon Island (Nice lagoon with white beach, and coconut trees, lots of fish, excellent snorkelling, and no people, completely uninhabited, really pissed off), but no we have opted for an extra 10 days to two weeks at sea to reach the safety of a good port in the Seychelles. We are all gutted to say the least. This is a one chance in a life time opportunity passing up here. Chegos or Diego Garcia is smack bang in the middle of the Indian Ocean , miles from man and our polluting ways (OK there is a fuck off base there, but..), as far a pollution is concerned and fishing there is very little that has affected this area at all since the beginning of time. It would have been an awe inspiring feeling diving in these waters, waters that have no fear of MAN; natural. I don’t want to think about it anymore, I’m not sure my brain will cope with the fact that we will be stuck on this boat for another 2 weeks!!

I have to think positive; carrying on will mean we will catch up on a couple of days on our schedule, meaning plenty of time for repairs in the Seychelles .

I'm still knackered from last night, the storms had the boat at one point completely on its side, we had to get the Genoa down ASAP, it was raining, it was dark, and there were monster waves crashing down on us. We then spent the rest of the night with just the main sail up, which equals a very uncomfortable ride indeed, since we have no other Genoa's that are serviceable at the moment. Just feels shit. I feel shit, and we are in for another night of shit!! In fact at this rate we are in for 2 weeks of shit!