Day 18 Cairns-Singapore via Batam Island, Indo

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MERRY CHRISTMAS!!


The last 2 days we have had wind and short sharp chop waves on the nose.  We do have hydraulic stabilisers which really help to stop the rolling from side to side but does not stop the nose from lifting with the wave and dropping over the back of it into the next wave.  This has meant the last 2 days have been slightly unpleasant.  I was almost thrown out of my bunk a couple of times and made sleeping challenging.

Thankfully Christmas day has brought a bit of a reprieve from the waves as they have settled down overnight and allowed us to go from an average speed of 5.5kts to 7.2kts and that was without changing the rpm.  

Christmas Eve is the main day that the Germans, Estonians and probably a few other countries have as the main day they celebrate Christmas, not Christmas Day itself.  It's the day that families get together and the day that the presents are handed out and opened.  The 2 crew who are full time and been on the boat for the last 18mths are Estonians and they had their fun day yesterday with Christmas songs playing on the sound system and had all the red night lights on as Christmas lighting.  Unfortunately the planned salmon dinner didn't happen due to the sea conditions making cooking a challenge, but they had fun.

My turn today!  As the weather has calmed down a bit I am hoping for a steak tonight but will just wait and see what comes out the galley.  Otherwise it's just another day at sea, same as last year!  Looking forward to getting home after being away for a while now.

If this weather holds we should be in Batam Island on the 28th and if we can get all the offical nonsense paperwork sorted quickly (yer right!!) in Batam then we should be in Raffles Marina, Singapore by the 29th or 30th.  

My Christmas day - on watch from 08:00 to 12:00 then again 20:00-00:00




A typical sight here in the Java Sea



The good old tug towing a massive barge (the tow line is 1,000m!) carrying big piles of sand from one island to another.  Previous times when I have been in this neck of the woods these tugs only sometimes had AIS and occasionally would have navigation lights but not always.  Can you imagine coming across something like this at night with no lights?  Nightmare.  It seems times have changed as I have seen loads of them in the last few days and they have all had both AIS and Nav lights. They even put a white light on the barge which would have been unheard of a year or 2 back!




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