Travel Reference
In-Depth Information
with aching body and eyes. Probably a bit of food poisoning. (Something all sailors suffer
from now and then when out there with no refrigeration. I have been very ill in the past,
eating the wrong food; mayonnaise is a bad one. Uncooked meat is a very bad one, and
some fish contain high quantities of mercury, creating siccatera in mainly reef fish. One
has to be so cautious about what one eats. A lot of food poisoning occurs from canned food,
particularly canned meats. I always tried to cook mine first, but it was not always practic-
al.)
No weather reports, only New Zealand land weather. It is late summer there now. “Cloudy
with showers, oh don't you know!”
The dorado fish I caught is drying nicely under the spray dodger, don't you know. Every
time I go outside I get clobbered by a length of drying fish and the stench of it!
It is constantly cloudy, making sun sights very difficult. I now have to do my navigation
without the humorous assistance from Gavin, who would always draw in a funny cartoon
on the page he was recording my information on. I have to go above deck and sit safely
on top of the dinghy on the cabin roof. I am armed with the heavy, old 1932 brass sextant
around my neck on a lanyard, my wrist watch (Seiko quartz digital, typical diving watch) a
piece of paper, and pencil. I position the sextant, adjusting the arc until I see the sun in the
mirror, and then carefully bring that image down to where it just kisses the horizon. I have
a micro adjustor to set it very accurately.
I spend a lot of my time on my back just reading or sleeping when I can. It is important to
catch up on sleep. I sometimes take out my guitar and the instructional tapes I was given
from the American couple in Bundaberg and practice those.
14
th
Mar: Another day in the Tasman, very uncomfortable at times. Unable to get a noon
latitude today due to poor sun and rough seas, but got a lop for the morning and one in
the afternoon. Found I had been driven north by a current. Now that I am aware of this, I
can vector it in to my compass course. For example, if I am traveling in an easterly direc-
tion, and I am being swept slightly north from a northerly setting current, I can draw this
out on a chart with direction lines, and in a twenty four hour period I will see how strong
this current is. This particular one was about two knots an hour, which showed up as the
discrepancy on my line's drawing. I can counteract the effect of this current by heading a
little south of my previous course. I know how much now to deviate as I know the current's
strength, and I apply this in the opposite direction. (Clear as mud, right?)
Still no sign of Olivia, but in radio contact. They are at least within a fifty mile range. With
the height of our two masts, where the radio antennas are mounted, we should be able to
