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My departure from Cape York is delayed as a wild squall comes through but as my intended next anchorage is only 30 miles away it doesn't bother me. As I'm sailing down the wind is in my favour so I decide to continue further south and have a stormy night dodging 950ft ships.

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Closed Captions (CC):

0:22
Good morning everyone, it's about 7.30 and I'm sort of packing up ready to get going
0:30
but it's not looking very very nice today. Huge squalls out there, it's just black,
0:36
it's still nighttime out there pretty much. Water for uh waterfall rainbow behind me
0:42
yeah it's uh it's not looking very encouraging there's probably 20 knots of wind blowing from
0:47
the direction i want to go i'm not sure how much of that's just from these squalls but
0:52
yeah i'm not going very far today well i've decided not to go very far today
0:58
i did have the option of doing a 19 or 20 hour to another anchorage if the wind had been a bit
1:04
better angle i would have gone for it i was just basically in my head i'm going to start going
1:08
and see what happens but it doesn't look like that'll be possible but about 20 miles around
1:12
the corner here there's a place called escape river and i'll probably go there to escape i
1:17
guess that's what it was called you can go up a river around the corner and then you're in the
1:21
you're in the river and in the mangroves and it's pretty calm it's just a little hop
1:26
but it'll you know it's not really anything major 20 something this thing is 28 29 miles it's not
1:31
really a proper day hop it's only a half a day really but still it's closer and it's more south
1:37
and yeah with this sort of wind that'll probably be enough for today if i can get a little bit
1:44
south i'll be happy anyway i might wait a little while half an hour or so let this wind
1:50
calm a little bit the tide's going the right way for me i think yeah it's going that way
1:56
so i should at least get some current with me the first two three hours which
2:00
you know being nearly enough to get me there so um yeah we'll see how we go anyway day number two
2:15
oh it's blowing 30 knots out there right now i've got to go out through that gap there and it's just
2:21
a massive white caps out there now so i'm going to wait a little while have another coffee read a
2:25
book i'm nice and protected here should be pretty safe and we'll just wait till the squall dies down
2:32
there's no way my motor would even push me against that and the wind is obviously not sailable so
2:37
i think i'll just wait yeah interesting morning
2:54
it is howling it's got to be 40 knots now i hope my anchor's going to hold
3:01
it's only five meters deep and i put out 45 meters so it should be okay but
3:06
yeah we're ripping the windows ripping the power didn't go
3:15
all right it's about an hour's gone by now i've been reading my book
3:19
things have calmed down now it's still spitting a little bit but the sun's trying to poke through
3:23
and yeah we're facing the opposite way now because the current is obviously stronger now that the
3:29
wind stopped so i'm going to use the rest of this current i think it turned at about 8 30 and it's
3:34
probably t 10 now so i've still got a few hours left of it and i'll try and buzz around the corner
3:52
the furthest north point on the mainland australia
3:56
cape york pretty stoked to be going around this just heading south from here
4:03
let's do it
4:10
well the wind's straight on the nose but the current's with us so when some you lose some we're
4:16
motoring pretty slowly but we're doing six and a half knots with the current so it's pretty nice
4:20
we're in the albany channel right now it's just a little it's only four miles long but uh it
4:26
gives me some protection from the the waves out further i see on the maps there's a little fishing
4:33
i don't know if it's a resort i think it's a little house there where you can pay to go
4:37
and stay and they'll take you on fishing tours a couple of boats here though like not yachts but
4:41
uh fishing fisho boats yeah once i get out of here i'll be in the ocean a bit more but it's
4:48
only about another 15 miles and then i'll go up i'll escape to escape river apparently there's a
4:56
a lot of crocs up this river so i might get the drone out if it's not raining and
5:00
try and film some crocs this afternoon i'm gonna get there probably two o'clock we are sailing
5:08
we are sailing yeah stop that let rods jerk keep going with that one but yeah
5:15
we're out of the channel you can see behind me there um and yeah we just got enough wind
5:23
we're on 30 degrees pretty tight but we're doing five and a half and it's a much more
5:28
comfortable motion than with the with the engine on because we're just cutting into the waves now
5:36
um another couple of miles and then i can angle another 10 degrees to starboard
5:41
so that should help and then it's not very far but it's nice to be sailing like having the engine off
5:47
ah i get so sick of that in the last week all i've heard is the bloody engine yeah i feel
5:52
sorry for the poor little girl putting that many hours on her the first year i left australia i
5:58
only put about 100 hours on in a whole year and now i've put 100 hours on in the last two weeks
6:04
anyway is what you got to do won't be the last few hours anyway before i get to brisbane
6:10
if i get that far there'll be a lot more hours than that on it heading in the wrong direction
6:15
at the wrong time of the year all right just take a little breath inside and looking at some
6:22
plans we're doing pretty good we're sailing okay um doing six nights and it's not too uncomfortable
6:32
it's only like seven miles to go to escape river
6:36
but as it's as we're going well i'm considering just keeping going um it's another
6:44
80 miles to the next anchorage spot which would mean i'd probably get there at two in the morning
6:48
or something but it looks quite open and quite easy to anchor so i think i'll just go for it
6:56
i'm guess i'll probably get squalls in the night and it'll probably be uncomfortable but
6:59
the angle to the wind is actually better look at this so this is where we are now
7:06
but then as we go further down the wind angle actually i mean i can go further south
7:11
so the angle to the wind should be improved and then yeah down in here anchor down in here
7:20
looks quite easy to get into so yeah that's 75 miles from here which is
7:27
about 14 hours and it's launched yeah it's one o'clock now so get there sometime but
7:33
i might as well do the miles when i can sail if i have to be motoring it's not fun so and
7:39
there's no guarantee the wind will keep going from this direction or or it'll keep going it might
7:44
get more southerly and be 25 knots and that'll really piss me off but
7:48
i just got to take what i can get really and uh it's going well now so if we get another
7:55
few hours of this i'll be pretty happy it's just there's nowhere else to stop in between you know
7:59
so if it really blows up from the south east from the south then i'll be pretty exposed and
8:06
have to motor but against strong winds and waves so it won't be very
8:10
fantastic but here's what it is gotta take some risks because who knows maybe tomorrow
8:15
it won't be any better might as well go while the going's good let's do that
8:21
decision made better clean up all these ropes and stuff i didn't think i'd be sailing very far
8:27
today so i'd have to hang it out but i'll pack them all away now and we'll get a ship shape
8:47
so
8:54
beautiful
8:59
um cruising along at six and a half knots right now
9:05
keep going this speed i'll get down there before midnight and can have a pretty normal night's
9:09
sleep but yeah yeah that's getting ahead of myself i think the weather is so unpredictable at the
9:15
moment that just it's good right now and we'll stick with that and we'll see how far we get
9:36
strange looking cloud that one oh hurricane up there obviously as soon as i just said that out
9:44
loud and to the camera that i'm going to sail all the way down there today and not stop in the river
9:49
the wind died classic i guess we're still really close to indonesia because that works
9:55
in indonesia can't talk out loud about wind being good because then it's just like oh
10:00
sorry didn't really realize it was blowing wind we're going to stop it and that's what happens
10:05
i guess we're still too close so yeah now we're bobbing around at four knots
10:13
still sailing though so we'll give it a bit longer see what happens right i've been motoring for a
10:20
good few hours now the sea's calmed down it's quite nice it's just dead calm
10:25
yeah motoring i mean motor sailing but we've done it quite a few miles but uh
10:31
there's no current now and no wind and it just seems to me like i'm going slower than i should be
10:39
for you know i've been motoring a lot lately i sort of know the amount of revs on the engine
10:43
for the speed i should get when there's no current and uh seem to be going about a knot
10:48
slower than i should be so i'm wondering if there's anything stuck underneath or
10:53
or if there's a lot of growth on there but i can hardly imagine that because i cleaned it spotless
10:57
before i left 2l and since then i've done it yeah i've done 8 900 miles but i have hardly stopped i
11:05
stopped two and a half days in thursday all and i can't imagine that there was so much growth in
11:10
it after two and a half days it is terrible the andy fell but anyway i'm going to jump in quickly
11:16
i've left the sail up but um we're not really moving
11:21
so i'm just going to jump in quickly and have a look under the bottom make sure there's
11:24
no plastic bag or ropes or anything stuck on there you know jump in with me and have a look
11:46
so
12:03
so
12:11
yeah i mean it doesn't look terrible i mean it does look terrible but not
12:16
not super gnarly that weed that was around the uh sail drive wouldn't have really made
12:20
any difference so yeah i don't know i don't know really what the problem is why we're going so slow
12:30
oh well at least i'm not going to think about it all night think oh
12:34
we're going super slow we're just burning fuel and not getting anywhere but it's just weird
12:40
but it is probably just because there's the whole bottom is just not clean there's no hard shell on
12:48
there it's just a lot of a lot of [ __ ] anyway i'll get cranking and moving again okay guys
12:56
that was a tough night i just threw down the anchor now here in cape grenville
13:02
i said at the start of this video that i was going to go to escape river but i went past escape river
13:09
and i was still sailing really good engine off you know doing what was supposed to be doing and
13:15
i was like i'm not going to stop i'm not going to stop kept going and about probably another three
13:20
four hours it was good and then the wind came straight on the nose so it wasn't terrible but i
13:28
had to run the engine as well as the sails until about eight o'clock at night then a squall came
13:37
and uh not crazy just 20 something knots and some rain but then when the rain stopped the
13:45
wind just didn't stop anymore and it was just straight on the nose and 20 knots maybe 25
13:52
and then the seas picked up a bit and then i was just bashing into them and well it was just
13:59
so slow after that i was doing sometimes three knots three and a half knots you get
14:06
three waves one after another boom boom and the nose would dig and you're down to 2.7 knots and
14:13
ah it wasn't terrible it wasn't real rough or dangerous or anything but the the sail was just
14:20
doing nothing because it was directly in front and i tried going 30 degrees this way 30 degrees
14:25
that way it didn't really change much and anyway i'm in the shipping channel i couldn't really do
14:30
much zigzagging didn't have much choice so it was just a painfully slow night i thought i
14:37
would get here at two in the morning but here i am six o'clock in the morning just arrived
14:41
but anyway it's a good big leg um instead of just going 25 miles to escape river i've
14:47
done 110 miles or something so it's pretty good i would say i'm about a third of the way to cairns
14:55
so i'm good and it's uh yeah it's just after sunrise now i'm gonna go to bed now
15:01
i'll probably sleep the whole day hopefully and either i'll it's so calm now i couldn't
15:07
believe it's just been blowing 20 knots all night as soon as the sun comes up it's gone
15:13
in theory i should just keep going now but i'm too tired i only slept about two hours last night
15:19
um i should have slept more really because there was no reason not to it was just
15:23
i was just frustrated because we're going so slowly
15:27
and i started calculating how much diesel i was going to need because i didn't get uh full all
15:34
my tanks up in thursday island because it was very expensive up there it was 2.49 a liter
15:39
and i said i won't need that much and i did all the calculations and i thought i'll have plenty
15:44
about 60 litres spare but then i figured if i was doing three knots three and a half knots
15:51
the whole way then i'm going to use a lot more diesel so i was calculating all that and thinking
15:56
too much and i just wasn't sleeping so go to sleep now and either wake up in the evening
16:03
or whenever and leave or if it's windy i'll sleep i'll stay the next night here and uh
16:13
leave saturday morning the weather report did say that saturday sunday monday tuesday were the
16:19
calm days like no trade winds blowing it's not great for sailing but at least it won't
16:26
be like it was last night because if it was like the next i've got another
16:31
300 something miles to go 350 miles to go if it was all like last night was i wouldn't make it
16:38
so and there's nowhere to stop for gas there's not a single town all the way down here until cooktown
16:44
anyway that's enough for now i'm going to bed hope you enjoyed that video and we'll see you
16:48
in the next one thanks patrons thanks paypal thanks to all of you watching these videos
16:54
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17:03
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17:07
so the more you guys interact with it the better thanks guys see you next time bye bye