E26 – THE GULF OF CARPENTARIA (2/2)
Morning of Day 2 see’s us having made about 140nm after the first 24 hour run, so even though the Gulf was living up to it’s reputation of having a sloppy sea state, the crossing was on track and the miles respectable. During the night before, we had a fixed wing overflight from Border Force, just checking on shipping movements in the area. That’s the 3rd time we’d been checked in 2 days !
As the morning of day 2 progressed, the clouds cleared away and we got some solar charge to add to my depleted battery bank. Our nav lights needed to be changed to LED to save power but I hadn’t had time to do it yet…and the problems with our Fisher Panda generator was rearing it’s ugly head again as it would consistently for the next 18 months…Am I a fan of Fisher Panda after owning one for 5 years ? Hell no!
Daybreak on Day 3 gave us a steady light breeze of 10-15kts and kept Starlight running in a sloppy sea on a broad reach. The seas in the Gulf were coming from all over the place and I couldn’t figure out why. I guess it has to do with the fast tides in GTorres Strait and the shape of the Gulf in general. Either way, we ended up with competing seas coming from 3 directions which meant we never really settled into a rhythm onboard and it was very tiring.
The waters at the north of Cape Vessel is heavily influenced by tides and seas and even though I passed someway offshore, the seas were really standing up there and I made a mental note that next time, I would pass way further north than the 1nm I did on this occasion.
