Dec 27 Despite the barometer rising 4 millibars in 24 hours, the waves have picked up considerably and are tall and confused. At one point we hit 8 knots surfing down a wave and have been easily reeling off 130 mile days. All the deck fittings forward of the cockpit are sprouting salt crystals like frost.
Dec 28 We have entered a shipping lane and it seems we will be running along it for a while. After days on our own, we saw 4 cargo ships, coming from, or heading to the Cape. One of them, the ALS Venus, bound for Brazil, hailed us on the radio to “salute” us and wish us safe passage. There is security in having other boats around but it also means we have to keep an especially close lookout when on watch. There have been incidents involving shipping in the Red Sea, resulting in many ships choosing to take the much longer and rougher, but politically safer, route down around the Cape of Good Hope, which is why we are seeing so much shipping.
Dec 29 We opened one of our cans today to find the contents rotten and stinking. There were no signs of rust or damage to the can, so we have no way of knowing how many have gone off. Strangely the police officer who cleared us into Cocos was just talking about John Franklin and his issues with canned goods on his ill-fated Northwest Passage expedition.
Dec 30 We had been suffering some bowel discomfort over the past few days, which we now believed to be a result of our canned food. We decided to test this theory by only eating dried goods that day, and sure enough, the discomfort went away. This leaves us with a bit of a conundrum as probably 75% of our supplies are in cans… The evening brought rain squalls that pounded the crests off the waves and washed our decks clean of salt.
Dec 31 With heavy cloud cover obscuring the moon, the night was so dark you could not see the wind vane 6 feet away, never mind the seas which had been building from the SE. On the early morning watch, I was alerted to the approach of a particularly large wave by a low rumbling. It hit on the port quarter, washing out the rudder, and laid Saumure broadside to the wave. The crest knocked Saumure on its side and sent it skidding sideways down the face, before passing underneath. That morning we had a haul of 6 flying fish and a squid which contrived to get right up on the coach roof and made a mess of black ink on the deck.
Jan 1 2024 The start of a new year! We had planned on doing a polar bear swim of sorts, but with the boat surfing down the large seas, hitting up to 10 knots, we deemed it unwise to do so. In terms of longitude, we were on almost the exact opposite side of the world from where our family was celebrating the arrival of the New Year in Ontario. It has been almost two months since we last had a shower and our hair is getting to be long and greasy. Unfortunately trimming hair in a large swell is not the easiest thing and buffeted by a wave, I caught a chunk of Cianan’s skin in the scissors. Despite the dribble of blood and decidedly patchy outcome, I would classify it as a success. Not wanting the same experience I went for a shaved head. Unfortunately, Cianan being the barber, this turned into shaved with an inch wide band of hair connecting from ear to ear.
Jan 2 There are now three tropical revolving storms set to cross our path. Two near Madagascar with wind speeds of 55-75 knots and one closer to us at 30-50 knots. At the moment they are far enough away that that we don’t need to worry about them too much, but we will be keeping a close eye on how they develop.