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“I remember sitting in that Awesome boat along with Winnie, Isis and Maus four months ago shortly after my arrival when we were visiting a few of the Yasawa islands. This time I’m sailing out of the harbour with a very different goal in mind, though: getting to Australia and finishing the Zeeman Ocean Challenge. Three hours later we were 15 miles further and had got through the reefs, by which time the other three boats had arrived as well. Just needed to get the boat ready, and the misery started right away. The auto-pilot didn’t work. Luckily I got it working again in half an hour using – you guessed it – the magic Wet Protect 21 Spray.
I was finally ready to leave at 13:30, accompanied by loud horns, applause, shouting and a parachute flare being let off. One last beer before I began my journey westward. You make such good friends in those few short days only to have to leave them again. Another place I’ve said I’ll definitely be going back to, but you just never know what the future has in store. In any case, my heartfelt thanks go out to David, his girlfriend Eli and Franko from Yachthelp, Grant, Valentino and Yvonne from SailingFiji.com and Billy from BP for all their help and support, Hardrock Café for giving me free breakfasts and no thanks at all to Mamas Tropic of Capricorn Guesthouse, who still haven’t fixed my airco after six days.
The wind set in from the south-east and after a few hours the waves began to swell too, which gave me a decent bit of speed. After three hours the auto-pilot’s remote control stopped working, which got me royally cheesed off, but I decided I’d look at it later on. Around sunset I had the first fish meal on board – raw tuna sashimi with soya sauce and wasabi – after which I went to sleep early. I was tired from the previous week. I woke up every hour to check on the GPS if I was still drifting away from Fiji, which luckily I always was.
I really didn’t feel well on Monday morning. I was feeling seasick and it had got incredibly hot considering there was no wind and the sun was shining straight down unhindered. I didn’t get hungry at all that day; the only things I managed to get down me were bananas. At the end of the day it was time to try a hot meal. I’d tested the burners before I left (just like I’d tested the auto-pilot and the remote…), but they caused problems as well. I lit the burner, and at first everything seemed to be going well until the petrol suddenly started coming out of the bottom side of it as well. No problem, I thought, that’s easily put out, it’s happened before. Not this time, though. There was a bang and the burning petrol began to spurt out, setting the well of the boat on fire as well as my right foot and left hand. I didn’t even think about it, just grabbed the thing and dived overboard, burner and all. Quickly got back in the boat again, where I discovered to my relief that the flames had burned themselves out.”
“I think that’s the fifth time I’ve burnt a foot on the Pacific so far, only my shin’s got no hair left now and the burn wound was a little deeper this time. Well then, that was my meal down the drain. I wasn’t really hungry though anyway, so it wasn’t too bad.
Tuesday morning wasn’t much different; rowing seasick without eating, with yet again no wind and high temperatures. I drank about seven litres of water in those first two days because of that, but had well under a litre’s worth of urine. Must’ve been a lot of sweating.
On Wednesday, however (Commonwealth Day), things began to look up with the current. I made 29 miles westward that day, whereas it was no more than four on Tuesday. This was partly because this was the first day when I rowed the full eleven hours. I started to feel better in myself in the afternoon too, and the evening saw the first successful hot meal which went down reasonably well. A group of dolphins came to keep me company around sunset.
There’s a fantastic starry sky here at night again too.
Had a light wind against me today which, in combination with the weak and variable current, means La Niña is showing no signs of disappearing and getting to Australia won’t be easy. Today I was pushed back towards Fiji at one mile an hour every time I rested. When I was rowing I was going about two miles an hour minus the one mile that I’d lost, making the distance covered either way during the rowing and resting hours roughly equal; 24 hours later, and after 11 hours of rowing, I was still in roughly the same place.
La Niña’s continued presence here is also the reason for the extremely high water temperature, meaning there’s a constant chance of hurricanes over the next few months. I saw a huge cloud forming in a very short space of time 50 kilometres to my east yesterday. I could see very clearly how it was growing in both width and height. It was lucky that the whopper disintegrated shortly before sunset, or it could well have become a depression.
Today, then, it was time for the first daily report. To do that I needed to charge up the laptop using one of the two universal 12-volt laptop chargers with 12 different plugs, which did fit, but for some reason it just wouldn’t charge. Unbelievable. So I tried the universal 220 to 12-volt converter from Panasonic. And, would you believe it, that simply wouldn’t fit. How can they get away with calling it universal? After an hour of sawing and filing I luckily managed to get the convertor working with my gear, so I should finally be able to send the first photos and reports from out here on the ocean tomorrow.
Now I’ve just got to hope I get the wind and currents back on my side over the coming days.”
[Photo below: the Zeeman Challenger, nearly ready for departure. Photo below that: dozens of mice were having a whale of a time in amongst the mess Ralph was confronted with when he arrived.]
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