Elementary, my dear Watson - 1915.49 16626.10

One for the sleuths; at 1254 UTC on May 11 2008, an aircraft passed directly overhead Wake Island (and Berrimilla). It was very high and tracking about 255 M. Who was it? Probably a commercial flight from Hawaii to Singapore?

We are passing 12 miles west of Wake as I write, and directly downwind. No wafting PBX smells, no nothing. I can see the loom of lights - but that's about all. Tried to call them on 16, but no answer. I wonder if they know we are here. Easy to see how the early explorers could have sailed on to reefs at night - La Perouse for one.

Noon 1812.50 16617.30

dtd 2519 so dmg 120. And we are still bucking current. Hard to believe. 15 deg between heading and COG and 1.5 kts speed difference between log and GPS SOG

Happy Birthday Speedy - I'm about to have the first Official Consultation. Still heading for Wake - might just slide to the east. Too hot for any more - will resume later.

Grind, grind, grind...when you are traversing a quarter of the earth's surface at not much more than walking speed, time tends to drag. Wonderful sailing but such a loong way still to go. About 15k in a marathon, mentally. You start to wonder why you are doing this and then you see the night sky again and you know.

We are definitely heading for the Amukta Pass through the Aleutians at 172W. The passes near Dutch are treacherous, busy and to be avoided - google Akutan and Unimak for some gruesome details - 9 knot tides, vicious waves when the wind is against the tide, lots of ships. Dutch is very close to the great circle route between the US west coast and east Asia, so lots of ships use these passes. Too hot again - back later.

Later - sun has just set and we've just altered to pass Wake to leeward - to the west - by about 10 miles. 35 miles to go and I'll give them a call on VHF 16 in a couple of hours.

Banged my head - again! - on the top of the companionway entrance. Hooooowl!

Bog 1750.58 16613.16

Bog
Wind has increased, but manageable. Our sewing job on the small headsail seems to be surviving being rolled in and out and it's the perfect sail for these conditions. Looks as if we will go very close to Wake - but still 90 miles away and plenty of time for adjustments. Some tiny signs that we are getting closer - the nights are noticeably cooler, so sleep is easier and the Great Bear is tickling his tummy on the masthead early every evening. Soon we'll be directly underneath him.

Speed has an official birthday tomorrow - Consultations and good wishes all around please. There will be Consulting going on out here for sure.

Interesting patch of water we are crossing - the divide between Wake, bomb test HQ and the bomb test range in the Marshalls. Would have been well travelled in the '40s and '50s and some famous names - Oppenheimer, Teller, Szilard, Strangelove, Fermi, Beeblebrox and probably some of the rocket scientists too - von Braun, perhaps. Was Einstein ever part of the test team?

McQ: just stuff

Well, it was with slight trepidation that I was looking forward to this evenings meal- Big A was in charge, his turn to cook, and given his fondness for rotting bacon and the fact that I saw him examining the mouldy cabbage earlier, well, I didn't fancy my chances!!!

However, I am pleased to report, that the bacon barely tasted too piggy and there was only the merest hint of foost in every cabbage mouthful (nothing that good old tabasco couldn't sort!!) and the whole concoction, with the addition of beanz and toms and pepperoni was really very good!!!

The ocean is beginning to resemble the Pacific that I remember- humungous swell, pretty regular and long, with a fair old sea on top of that. There is still a long way to go before it is as big as I remember, but we were also further north and it would have been Jan/ Feb time then. As is will do nicely though for us, thank you very much. Wee Berri is surging across the sea, with Ray back in charge, we are just trying to coax Berri across and through the waves without too many rig shuddering moments- she's doing great though, loving it infact, I would guess. Its due to build over the next 48 or so hours so might be an opportunity to try the trysail... in the meantime, we are chomping away at the miles- funny how, not so long ago 20N seemed almost inconceivably far off but now is less than 4 degrees away. crazy stuff.

I am caked in salt- have just mopped it out of my eyes but the rest of me is still caked, my skin has that slimy greasy feel that you get when you have been doused continually with salt water for some time!! Mostly today this is due to being on deck on watch for mere minutes and four huge waves slapped against the hull, then up in the air then down my neck. Unbelievable!! Though at the time I did ask the ocean very politely, no swearing at all, as to whether that was really necessary and whether I really deserved such a drenching. Wherever I moved in the cockpit, the waves would follow and get me, all the rest of the watch- you had to laugh!!!

Thats all for now folks.
Love and hugs,
McQueen
xxx

Of breeding and perhaps a colour index for hydration

My father, bless him, who taught me to sail, was a naval pilot in WW2. He told me the story of one of his Captains, who was a respected horse breeder in his spare time, and who was writing his annual flimsies - reports on the conduct and efficiency of his officers, written on very thin 'flimsy' paper. Of one particular officer, he felt it appropriate to write, copied to the officer and the Admiralty : 'I would not breed from this man.' Only bettered, I think, by Dorothy Parker and 'No Leica.'

To all my three Consultant Physicians - DRs. Jasper, Dr. Pete and Dr. Steve, - your potions and elixirs have matured superbly. It is a shame you are not all here to sample - and therefore perhaps evolve and improve - your offerings. However, emphatically, I would breed from you all!

Now - to the smelly, daggy stuff - mostly for Belmore South. Do we wash? - no. Do we smell? maybe, but you wouldn't notice if you lived here. I have been wearing the same two shirts since we left Sydney - I rinse one in salt water every couple of days and squeeze it out carefully while wearing the other. Unlike McQ, I don't wear knickers because they do dreadful things to my bum when salty. Just the same two pairs of shorts, rinsed likewise. I shave every three or four days and my whiskers have almost stopped growing. The bum gets treated daily with Savlon and, when sore, as now, with Betadine and I'm being rather careful to sit on it only when essential. We sweat rivers - Niagaras - especially here inside the Cone - and we drink lots of water. I pee into a plastic bucket, (instead of the energy sapping alternative of actually fighting my way forward, opening the two toilet valves, going through the process of pumping out and flushing and closing the valves again) so I can actually look at and assess the colour of my pee. Really useful as an indicator of general health and hydration level - if it looks pale and straw coloured, it's perfect for Sydney, but I'm drinking too much water for out here (or perhaps better expressed as drinking far more water than necessary for survival out here). If it looks dark golden, it's about right. I don't do supplementary vitamins, so no odd variables there.

Hope all that's useful!

noon 1616.29 16550.34 Anyone know anyone at Wake?

Bliggy
DTD 2639 so dmg 121 yeeehaaa! Absolutely wonderful, exhilarating, once in a lifetime sailing. Berri just below her limits, half headsail, 3 reefs, balanced, Kevvo in charge and surging along, over, through the waves - all brilliant blue, silver, hot as hell, sun almost directly above but to south so no shade. When she doesn't quite get over a wave, the nose goes in, white water cascades back down the deck and off we go again. Mast flexing forward rather more that leaves me comfortable but does not seem to be stressed.

This wind due to increase over next 36 - 48 hours, so sea state will be pretty horrible by the end and we will certainly have to slow down. Thinking possibly the trisail if it does build to uncomfortable state - never used it with new track and would be about the right size so good practice.

If anyone knows anyone stationed at Wake, looks as if we will certainly pass to the west, possibly some distance away, but will depend on how this develops. Would love to wave if anyone wants to come and find us...the website will indicate our position accurately enough for a practice exercise. If any likelihood of our being in range, we will be on VHF 16 or can do any HF frequency if advised. Iridium phone number [please use 'contact' to email for number-ed]- probably won't get to it first time it rings - ring back in a couple of minutes and unless we're in pearshape on deck, we'll be ready.

Questions from the Funsters!

Hey there Berrimilla!
We brainstormed a whole stack of questions and came up with the three most popular...
1. Have you seen any sharks yet?
2. At night when there is a storm, what does the boat do and what does the water look like?
3. What do you eat? Some of our favourites are: pizzas (Monait), carrots (John L) bbq chicken and mashed potato (Sonia). It's a bit hard for you guys to go out and get something for dinner. What do you do if you don't like what's on the menu?

We're enjoying seeing your position on googlearth and are looking at your site at school each day- talk 2 u L8r, LOL. We have a BIG test next week. Every student in Aust. in Year 3,5, 7 & 9 are doing this- we'll let you know how it goes!
Funsters at Belmore South.

(in the interests of clarity-these are the questions posed by the Funsters-ed)

MCQ&A!! answer to the Funsters

Exactly... WEST equatorial current not southwest!!! grrrrrrrrrrr....
Anyway, just have to tolerate as nowt we can do!!!

Q&A:
1. No Sharks, as A says. I have only ever seen one shark at sea, near the cost of Japan on a drizzly, grey day. And I saw a basking shark in a bay in Scotand once, it seemed to be nearly as long as the boat I was on (36foot) but I was quite little!!!

2. As for A. The most scary is a lightning storm though. When you think that the metal mast would very much like to be a giant lichtning conductor it is even scarier!!! At night, oin a lightning storm there is usually lots of rain and when the lightning flashes the whole sky lights up purple. mental!!

3. Food... yep, bit hard too go to the shops- if we don't like the menu, which is a variation on tinned brown stuff or tinned red stuff then we add lots of tabasco and hope its dark so we can't see what we are eating!!! (and remind ourselves that out here food is fuel!!) I always miss steak and salad and ice cream most!!!
Monait, we have bread mix and pizza tomato sauce so we could make a sort of pizza, we have pepperoni and tinned sweetcorn that could go on top, but as alex said no cheese left!!! John L, We had some carrots in our veggie box when we left but most went rotten- surprisingly quickly!!! We have tinned carrots now though. And, well, Sonia, BBQ chicken, out here, thats in a different world!!!!

Lots of luck in the BIG test, everybody, Love McQueen xxx

noon 141505 16529.34

Boggle
And we've changed back to our sewn up sail in 20 kts, supposed to be rising...Sail seems to be working fine but appendages all crossed bigtime. 2 reefs, glistening day, sea that lovely iridescent turquoise - quite steep, lumpy, little breaking tops with spray blowing off them in downy jewelled wisps. Best we can comfortably do is direct track for Wake - the Americans won't be pleased if we arrive on their beach, so we'll divert around as we get closer.

Later - much too hot for more that 5 minutes in this little hell hole - I've just noticed that today the sun is to the south of us - no shade in the cockpit. Yeeehaaa! Belmore South, this is important for a couple of reasons. Can anyone work out why?

1352.54 16522.56 More Funsterism

More on current - I had taken the EAC into account in the original back of envelope calculation, but ignored the equatorial current transit, thinking (actually assuming - silly child) the effect would be negligible. But it all gets taken into account by my conservative average of 4 knots overall - we'd be averaging close to 6 but for the current and we're getting about 4.5 now, in it.

More Funsterism - and storms at night: Of course, it also depends on what the sea state is (what sort of waves, what shape they are, how high, how far apart) which depends on which way the wind is blowing, whether there is a current and things like that. And finally, on the direction you are trying to sail relative to the wind and the waves...But phosphorescence in a storm almost - almost - cancels out the scariness! You seem to be surging along in huge cascades of diamonds, vast fans of blasting sparkling spray, sometimes just diamonds, sometimes rubies and emeralds as well as the drops and the dinos take on some of the colour of your red and green masthead lights. And in very special storms, dolphins are sometimes swimming along as well.
Food - we filled about 10 trolleys at Woollies and Coles - almost anything that is canned, plastic packed or waterporrfed or otherwise opreserved. But no glass bottles! (Why?)so we have biscuits, cans of stew, cheese (but doesn't keep - we have no fridge)bacon (also has to be eaten as soon as you open the pack - did you see my description of eating it when it's rotten?). Yesterday, McQ cooked a hash of bacon, tinned stew, creamed corn and maybe other stuff. Looks like dog food, but it tastes ok! And we brought some spuds, tomatos, a pumpkin, onions and red cabbage. Only spuds and onions left. And some eggs, which we hard boiled to preserve them.

Enough for the mo - I am having difficulty sending these long ones so will try to keep them shortish.

Hi The Funsters - 1337.38 16518.36

My take on the current is the simple spinny one. There is a westerly flow of water across the pacific at the equator, the northern half being diverted up the Japanese coast and the southern half becoming the east australian current. We have been either directly headbutting the eac or diagonally traversing the equatorial current and have lost about 800 nm as a result, which we won't get back as we will be too far east to pick up the japanese current. Poo in buckets but that's how it is.

Funsters - Hi! What year are you? And good luck with the test Is this something the new Government has set up or has it been happening for ever?
Sharks - sorry to disappoint you but I've never ever seen a shark from the boat - at least nothing that I could definitely say was a shark. Sharks (except basking sharks, perhaps) don't usually swim on the surface - they chase other fish for food, deeper down. But I don't really know enough about them to say any more. We have seen lots of dolphins - hundreds - and there are lots of different types of dolphin. Also three huge fin whales - second largest animal on earth - near the Australian coast. And th greenish gold fish I described a few blogs ago.

The boat in a storm - wow - what a difficult question to answer properly. Last time, I talked a lot about paintings by an artist called Turner and Mrs Harrison's classes did some lovely work using copies that they found on the internet. Turner gives you the 'feel' and the scariness of a storm and an idea of what the light is like, but being there is always different. Technically, the boat pitches, yaws and rolls as well as going up and down on each wave and it does this all the time, even at anchor, but in a storm everything is magnified and much more violent - the boat feels as if it is corkscrewing savagely and crashing through or over waves. The wind is unbelievably noisy - it shrieks and howls in the rigging and across your face in big storms and you also hear the rain and spray hitting your waterproof hood rather like a jackhammer. It is almost always black dark in a storm at night but you are in a little cocoon of light from the boat's instruments and from its masthead light. Imagine being in a car at night - the lights of the instruments on the dashboard glow inside the car and tend to reflect and cut off the light from the outside. The sea surface is black, woolly and shapeless and often it feels so thick that it is wrapped around you. As th boat crashes along, it throws huge surges of white water and spray out to the sides and these often reflect the boat's lights so they glow. And then there is the phosphorescence - one of the true wonders of the sea! It is caused by tiny animals called dinoflagellates and we were sent a good description of how it works in our first website - I'm sure my sister can organise a link for you. Lightning is something else again. McQ might add to all this when she wakes up. This is getting too long - food in the next one

McQ: I like raisins but I HATE CURRENTS!!

Wednesday afternoons, years back, oceanography lectures at NOCS with Professor (I think) Harry Something-other, (sorry I forgot your surname). He was American and a brilliant lecturer and I used to really enjoy Wednesday afternoons... until, that is, the day that we learnt about the Coriolis Effect. No longer was my simple but understandable spinny explanation that I had in my brain, satisfactory, no, this day saw the coriolis force become a series of equations that took pages and pages and pages to decipher. I recall lots of something about standing on ice (an analogy for a frictionless surface would be a guess, perhaps??) and throwing a ball in the air and then some fiendishly complicated differentiation (probably) followed by some fiendishly complicated integration (probably) followed by more fiendishly complicated integration (probably and so we aren't back to where we started) And there in front of me, six curly pictures of integral signs, rho's, deltas and x,y,z's to describe what used to be a simple spinny concept in my brain.

Anyway, totally digressing... I remember, too, a day where a slide went up depicting in 3D the surface currents and deep water currents across the oceans- it looked a bit like a London Tube map wrapped around a notional sphere, but with arrows clearly showing which currents go where (totally to do with good old coriolis in fact, so not digressing so much after all) And they, suprisingly enough go round and round, replacing each other. There were two pics, one for atlantic side and one for pacific side. What I definitely DO NOT recall is the Pacific one showing one great big current flowing from Canada to Tasmania, forever. I am sure it is impossible!!! Should there not be a generally north flow on the western side, in the northern hemisphere, to start with, and then the rest of the ocean currents follow round???

So, Professor Harry, MJC, Simon R, Andy F, anyone in fact who knows these things, please please explain why oh why oh why have we had at least a knot of current pushing us SW ever since Sydney (EAC excepted)and when will it stop????????????? It just can't keep pushing us SW forever!!!! I don't believe it!!!
(It isn't calibration error as boat speed at 6knots and SOG 4, heading north, we are only covering 4 mins latitude in an hour so its got to be current, surely!!)

Meanwhile, I'm going to stick to raisins.
Lots of love
McQueen
xxx

noon 1237.47 16450.27 28 days at sea

Dtd 2867 so dmg 101 and dmg overall 2952 out of 5819nm. All approximate...

At about this time in any long journey - for me, in a marathon, it kicks in around 25 k - one becomes conscious of distance travelled, which focuses the mind on distance yet to go and, for me anyway, there's always a tendency to anxiety and depression. I've never started a marathon, let alone anything like this, knowing absolutely that I would finish it and there's always that corrosive doubt travelling in company - what if...Then, in a marathon, perhaps around 37-38 km, certainty takes over and while the body slowly eats itself, there's an end and an achievement in sight and the pain is diminished. We're not anywhere near there yet on this gig.

As you may have gathered from my last, the downer is upon me. Everything is now so finely balanced and the feather brush of an sparrow's wing one side or the other could make the difference. So it's grind it out, metre by metre and keep grinding.

Have just finished 'Frozen in Time' for the second time. Fascinating book - the victorian ideals of adventure, imperialism and self sacrifice examined through a 20th century analysis of what went so desperately wrong. And there's an untold story behind it that I did not notice first time around. The victorians were pioneers in so many ways, some of them, like imperialism, no longer recognised as acceptable. But they were industrial pioneers as well and the hidden story seems to me to be that of Stephan Goldner who supplied the canned food for Franklin and many other Admiralty ventures. He must have been an interesting man, honest or dishonest, principled or unprincipled. How must he have felt under the criticism he must have endured? Was he stubbornly convinced in the face of the evidence, that he was right - canned foods do preserve the properties of the fresh version - or didn't he care as long as he made a profit? How did he get started, did he go on to found an industrial giant or did he die in poverty after the danger of lead poisoning perhaps killed his business? I'd love to know more about him and will follow up when I can get back on line. There's a project lurking in there somewhere.

And I think there's a burst on 'adventuring' germinating somewhere as well. Time for daily Con - I feel a need for the Alchemist today - I need gold! Dr Steve, extract the elixir!

On which - real gold to talk to Leroy half an hour ago. Perspective all over again. Onya mate - keep kicking the can for us! That's an Oz expression - hope it doesn't offend any one else.

In the Slough

Having a severe attack of the Desponds - sounds like something out of 'Pilgrim's Progress' - but it is 0300 and the time never to think about all the scary things in life. Circadian rhythms gang up on you at this time of day and make it all seem much worse. But it does seem to me that our actual chances of making this one stick are very slim indeed. We will need to be lucky in so many ways. The first decision point, if we get that far, will be at Dutch - do we go on? Will depend on ice predictions and local advice but almost certainly a 'yes' to that one. Then again at Nome and a 'yes' a bit less likely. The point of no return, it seems to me, will be at Barrow and the decision will depend, again, on ice reports, advice about the availability of diesel and other possible supplies if things start to go wrong further along the track. And we have to get around Point Barrow by the end of June, early July, at the latest, for us to be able to see the eclipse and get out at the other end and into a safe port.
So - current plan - go through Aleutian chain via Amukta pass @ 172W. Arrive dutch whenever - am compiling to-do list. Kimbra arrives 12th june, aim to depart by 14th. Then 700 odd nm to Nome which we could mostly motor as long as fuel in Nome. Then same again, roughly to Barrow - need to find out about faciities if any in Barrow. Does not appear to be a harbour or anything except anchor offshore...Thence - if reports favourable, to Point Barrow where the ice piles up and where we will have to make the big decision.

Stars from horizon to horizon - most unusual, rivettingly beautiful though still hazy and so slightly fuzzy. Hard to believe that this calm and beautiful night covers the scene of so much violence and destructive force - when was the last Noocular test? I expect that this bit of ocean is where the three Mutant Ninja Turtles originally mutated - and all the fish swim backwards to preserve their night vision.

Before we left, I bought a cheap and nasty 12v fan - the sort you plug into the socket in your car except had no plug, just leads. Wired it into Berri's lighting circuit and it's been a little gem - just circulating enough air at night to make sleep possible. It's a noisy little beast and its stand has long since collapsed but life would have been hell without it.

McQ: little us

Crikey folks, its tomorrow already- where do the days go??? It has been a typical 'Simpsons' sky all day today- light baby blue with blobs of white cloud all over and it stayed like that for most of the day. Another magnificent sunset, presided over by the merest fingernail sliver of a moon way up above. The sky fully glowed bright bright orange for ages and the sea was lit up, flickering blue, then green then pinky red all the way from us to the horizon. Magic!!

Earlier we saw this big dolphin leap out of the water a bit ahead of us and went right across from starboard to port gliding through the air, landed and did it again, a bit away to port, literally flew through through the air at afair rate of knots!! We wondered if something was chasing it??? Which makes you stop and think: here we are quite happily trundling along across the sea, occasional fish, flying or otherwise, some debris on the surface but completely disregarding the fact that not one metre below, and then miles below that, a whole ocean world is vibrantly thriving!! Its good to be reminded of that once in a while, as we traipse across the roof of someone's home!!! Just to remind us how small and insignificant we still are out here!!

Love to all
Bol
xxx

Noon 1106.14 16414.36 May 7th

We crossed 11N @ 1032 sydney time at 16414.55 E. Tried to call Pascal but perhaps too late. So we drank his health, as the brains behind all this. Also tried Leroy, likewise. Will try both again over next day or so.

For Kimbra to consider first, then maybe ask Tom

Thanks to both. Tom, no plan as yet for a particular pass - thought we'd leave that as a decision that may be made for us. Would there be any advantage in going through say to the east of Seguam @ 172 E and then NE along the chain to Dutch or even much further SW at 180 degrees and east of Semisopochnoi? That would seem to get us across the Aleutian current the most efficient way. Would there be wind on the other side, or a nasty lee shore? Or should we just time the tides at Unalaska? I have rough tidal times in my digital charts but no directional flows. I assume the ebb flows SE from the Bering into the Pacific and v.v. the flood. Also some limited Argos tidal stream info.
The Aleutian current seems very similar to the East Australian Current - largely coriolis induced, flowing along the continental shelf - good to know it's there.

Tom, if ok, I will try to contact you by satphone when we get closer if there is anything else we need to know. But I think we can work it out.

K - could you please contact Brian Shilland on (number sent via email-ed) to decide whether you could carry a new sail up with you as excess perhaps. I spoke to him on the satphone this am and agreed we don't need a new one unless things go pearshaped between here and dutch in which case he'd make one and try to get it to you...

WooooHooo-ish 1021.31 16416.44

The first almost cloudless night for ages and ages. Still humid and some haze but the universe is out there with attitude. Because of the haze, the stars don't have that magic clarity and definition you sometimes get out here but wonderful to behold. The Milky Way - that slash of dolphin phosphorescence across the whole sky, with (I think) Saturn just below it to the SE, Squornshellous Zeta up high and the Frogstar lurking green and slimy in the Coal Sack. Kakrafoon just rising in the east and I've just heard the first bars from the band...No sign of Prostetnic Jelz and his fleet of yellow ships filled with ruthless poets, but we do have McQ down here offering strong competition - if you can't find a Vogon, she's clearly in good trim. Early each evening, we have Polaris ahead, under the great Bear and climbing every night, with the Cross astern and dipping. Orion in all his splendour out to port and dear old Betelgeuese doing his red giant act in one corner.

We'll cross 11 N in about 6 hours. Too early for a full on WOOOHOOO but perhaps a little anticipatory one. We keep being headed - average track at the mo back to a bit west of North. Interesting to see how far we can climb if the wind drops a bit and the seas abate.

1015.48 16417.18

MJC- So it is Bikini! I had a feeling it might be but has no name on my chart. We're 90 odd miles SW and should pass it about 40 miles to the west. Will advise on nighttime son et lumiere. All googlable, but I think it was the first H bomb test, in about 1954...We'd be passing 40 miles dead downwind of a very big bang. I seem to remember a photo of old warships anchored in the lagoon being tossed in the air by the early part of the explosion. And, I suppose, Wake just up the street as the base for it all. Eerie - I've been to Woomera and close to the Monte Bellos but somehow not the same historical grip as this one. Did I read recently that they have just allowed the original Islanders back again?

Brian - thanks for very kind offer - I think the old sail is fine, but the UV protector is dead and all its stitching. And it's the UV protector that seems to be holding the leech line - no reinforcement. Tacky! Oh what a shoddy pun! I'm sure there will be someone in Dutch that can fix it. So as long as we actually get to Dutch, we should be ok. But I have learned a big lesson. We should have taken it for a sail before we left.... Your big sail is great - just the right size - and it works really well - but there just ain't no way to stop the leech buzzing once it's rolled in a bit. I think it must be something that happens to them all. Sends me bananas, but I'm learning to live with it! I'll call you on the satphone tomorrow.

Duncan - lanolin is definitely part of my daily routine - industrial strength stuff that we use to waterproof everything electrical and grease shackle pins and the like. And my hands. Savlon for the gunwale bum though.

Not much to report - had the three or four most profound consecutive sleeps ever in the last day or so, but now up and around again mid off watch sleep time. My arbitrary 11 degrees N half way point is about 200 miles too short in actual straight line distances, so we won't celebrate just yet - nevertheless a big milestone. I'll try to call Pascal once we're past 11 N.

Corrie McQueen: Poet Laureate

I have written a poem (Though Alex declared,'That's no poetry'):

Lurching around in a monstrous sea
Lurchety, lurchety, lurching we be

Lurching around in a monstrous sea
Lurchety, lurchety, lurching wee B

As you can see, in each verse there are, as the Qantas safety checklist lady/voice would say, 'subtle differences'

You repeat the two verses continually until one of the following;
a) you distract yourself enough to realise that you are now almost dry from the last wave that smashed you in the face
b) you get smashed in the face by a new big wave and come back to reality
c) you lose your marbles
d) you decide, in a moment of clarity, that these words must be written down as a blog for squillions of readers and generations to come to have the benefit of such profoundities...

Brian, that's so kind of you to offer us a new sail, thank you, as Alex says we think its ok. I was wondering though if maybe (for the good of McQ, AND the project) you could come and hide out in our forepeak for the rest of the trip, instead. and do my sewing detail for me when required??? We can disguise you with orange hair and Alex will never know that I am not doing my own share of sewing!! I think that would be a far more productive use of your resources!!!

Lanolin for the boys, vaseline (and until 'The Incident' WD40) weapons of choice for the girls...

On a slightly more serious note, this evenings sunset was something to behold, totally and utterly breathtaking, one of the most amazing I have EVER seen, stunning red sky with streaks of bright gold and orange and blue- I have photos that almost, almost do it justice.

Lots of love
McQueen
xxx

~This blog was brought to you by the letter 'k' (karine Polwart and Kings of Leon on the ipod) and the number '18' (roughly average windspeed)~

McQ: Puffings and biscuits

Got distracted by the profoundities of my last blog and forgot a few things (is it ok to make up words like 'profoundities'??)

Mommy, I am soooo sorry I forgot about Puffins, how could I??? Of course, of course I can positively identify a puffin- they are brilliant little birds with multicoloured beaks and they taste soooo yummy smoked!!! (Don't be alarmed, Vegetarians/Puffin fans, it is a private joke between me and Pam McQ!!)

Puffins are awesome little creatures: they have podgy little bodies that defy gravity, especially with those little wings... when you see them on the water it is impossible not to stop and watch them and urge them on, 'go puffin, go, flap those little wings' and they do- those little wings are flapping at at unbelievable rate but you still wouldn't believe they would manage to get themselves into the air... 'go, little puffin, flap flap flap,' and then when they finally get airborne, you just feel so proud for them!!!

Do they have Puffins in Alaska??? I hope so. (we are obviously miles and miles too far south to see puffins yet!!)

Funsters: great to hear from you and know you are following us. Alex tells me you are going to send some interesting and intellectually stimulating questions for us- I'm looking forward to it and I know Alex is too, since it means he will get a break from answering my questions:

Me: Alex if you were an animal what would you be?
Alex: [sigh]
Me: I'd be a tiger, what would you be, if you had to be an animal?
A:[sigh again}
Me: If you had no choice?
A: bacteria
Me: [looking puzzled] Ok, why?
A: so I could live forever
Me: ok
[Pause]
Me: If you were a biscuit, what would you be?
A: [sigh]
Me: I'd be a ginger nut, what about you?

and so on...

lots of love
McQ
x

Of romantic, classic and Baroque and Boring

Or a slightly different take on 'Hi Mermaid...' - you can go and find the original if you are interested.

Robert Pirsig wrote a book called 'Zen and the Art of Motor Cycle Maintenance' beck in the early '70 s and it was the cult book when I was at Uni. He used Zen as a contextual basis and motor cycle maintenance as a metaphor for life and how it is lived. Lots of bits of it that I remember, but the difference between the romantic and the classic attitude to life has always stuck. The romantic is the person who sees a motor cycle as a glorious sculpture of chrome tubes, alloy gizmos, glossy paint and a sexy leather seat. The classic view of the same object is as a groovy collection of moving parts that just happens to constitute a motor cycle.

We have both extremes in the boat. For McQ, this gig is one big, coool, mental as anything Adventure. For me, it is a series of planning lists and milestones, each of which has to be ticked off in order to see an eclipse in august. And get out again safely. Everyone fits somewhere on the bell curve and, of course, we all carry , inevitably, part of the other. Pascal, I think, might be in the middle somewhere. Leroy and most of his colleagues out at my end, Speed - interesting - probably out towards Mcq even though he's a brilliant inventor of very clever gizmology. Kimbra - dunno - towards the middle? But enough speculation.

And on to some more. In Consultation with Dr Pete - onya mate - I've just been listening to the Bruch and Mendelssohn violin concertos - I bet for the first and only time they will ever be heard in this part of the ocean. I do not understand music - As the way out classicist, I love it for the virtuosity and the skill - wow! how did he get that violin to do that?? and the conductor - all those people, all so together...but I still get some sort of emotional experience from it, as long as I am not distracted and have time to actually listen to the music and not the boat babbling away at me. Someone Who Knows once told me that the Bruch is Baroque and Boring. No bloody way! Flogging leeches, again, unfortunately, got in the way just enough too distract. Going to have to learn to live with them for a day or so if the Grib is right, then this 18 - 20 kts will ease and we can roll out the sail again.

McQ: Life should be about challenging oneself...

I have just been on deck thinking: I am incredibly lucky to have, through a series of fortunate and bizarre coincidences, the opportunity to be here on this trip. Alex has put so much time, effort and personal resources into this that it is a huge privilege to be part of it. It is great to sail with someoone who knows his boat so well and is so knowledgable: I think that is the thing about sailing that captures my interest so intensely; there is always, always something new to learn. No one knows it all when it comes to sailing. I believe that anyone who says they know everything there is to know about sailing probably doesn't have a clue!! It truly is fab to be here and I really really hope that we manage, one leg at a time, to achieve all the little goals we are setting ourselves...

People sometimes say, 'Isn't it boring being on a boat and seeing nothing but sea for days on end?' Far from it, apart from the daily jobs to keep things ticking over smoothly: there is always something to be done to keep you occupied, the sea itself is beautiful, a constantly changing visual landscape all around. Mostly blue, (or grey at the moment) but often every other colour imaginable from vivid ochre-red to insipid pale grassy green. Stunning, not boring at all!!

All the little jobs to do are made all the more challenging by the fact we are generally lurching about or at the very least continuosly moving!!! Making a coffee at the moment requires attaching yourself to the galley by a strop and just as you put the coffee in the mug, we lurch over a wave, get airborne, land, slightly wonkily so the strop cuts in to the kidneys and the thin film of WD40 underfoot means you start to slide down hill and that the instinctive handholds become millimetres too far away, but we save the coffee!!! Despite all the 'grrrs' and 'hmmphs' that are required as a soundtrack to this procedure, boy is that mug of coffee appreciated!!!

Life, I think, should be all about challenging oneself and success, I believe, is the achievement of personal goals that we keep setting ourselves and challenging ourselves with.

You can tell we've finished sowing, can't you????!!!!

I hope everyone is having a happy and enjoyable Tuesday 6th May too.
Lots of love to all
McQ
xxx

noon tue 6th 0908.18 16420.38

dtd 3075 so dmg 207 in about 24 hrs as we didn't send you one yesterday. Sail finished, will try it when needed and see how well we did. If there's a sailmaker in Dutch - and we get there - we'll have it all undone again and properly sorted.

Not possible to say with any certainty where we will go in the next few days - wind backs in squalls for hours at a time and we're all over the ocean. I think we will pass west of the atoll more or less on our direct track, so a bit of a climb to K's waypoint 1. There should be enough grist in t'mill for the ETA predictors to start to get some accuracy. I'll stick to June 3, although I think that's optimistic.

Hot in the HellCone - Pirsig next time perhaps.

0830.34 16416.40 Berri to the Funsters!

Go the Funsters! Great to have you on board. Is there anything you want to know about what we are doing? We can try to answer your questions if you send them to us, but we have to keep it all short so that we can actually transmit your questions and our answers over the radio. They go from the internet to a computer in a sailmail station somewhere in the world (we're using the one in Honolulu at the mo) and the computer converts them into digital signals and sends them over the radio to our modem in the boat and our computer converts them back into text. All rather slow by mobile phone standards and we are only alloowed 10 minutes per day on the radio. I can use a satellite phone to transmit as well, but that's very expensive.

Kimbra - got yours re DB - noonsite prob has the details. Would like to have Hbrmaster's phone # and vhf freq if poss. DB prob v busy. We may not be able to get as high as your GC courses, especially if the wind kicks in further north so could end up west of your waypoints. I have looked at your files and that seems ok. I have the pdf arctic pilot #9 but hard to access - if you have time. cd you please just check the unalaska stuff and make sure there are no potential showstoppers.

H - well fed! and well done. Hang on to the books - can't remember who or why at this stage. The sea here is dark grey blue - not the bright iridescent deep ocean blue but that may just be that it's mostly overcast.

End of 0200 - 0400 night watch. Took ipod on deck but never got it out - spent the time thinking about Robert M Pirsig. Next blog maybe, but it will be a 'Hi mermaid...' blog if I do.

McQ: Love and War...

Now, I am not Australian (though I would very much like to be!!) but I do know that wee Berri is quite special to have such a superb piece of kit on her bow, that is Love and War's old furler and sail. It's funny though that it is our headsail and headsail furler but L&W's little hankerchief of a staysail and furler!! Well the whole system has been doing us proud until we realised yesterday that the leech was coming apart.
On closer inspection today it appears that the stitching is rotting under the UV light, so today we have meticulously and lovingly sewed it all back together. I only had one little tantrum (to myself) during this sail fixing- most who know me know that if there is one way to make me have a grump it is to put me on a boat that is lurching around violently in the ocean, and give me a back to front and not quite happy palm, needle and thread and make me sow a sail!!! I get so frustrated cause I like things to be neat and perfect and it is pretty impossible to do that along the entire leech in this sort of lumpy sea!!! Anyway, our little sail got flaked and bagged at failing light and we shall finish her tomorrow, hopefully with no battles and she'll be good as new- she's almost finished and looking good.
Kimbra- thanks for such detailed weather info- it al looks pretty positive really, thanks. I expect we will end up a touch west of your route due to sea state/ sail choice/ wind but it doesn't seem that's a bad thing in the long run. Either way, really really helpful, thanks.
Speedy, I forgot to thank you for the crossword too- brilliant distraction!!! thanks hope everyone is well and happy too on dry land...
must go take my vitamins whist I remember as I have forgotten all day today.
very tired and ready for bed now!!!
lots of love
McQ
xxx

0748.21 16405.12 later May 5th

Kimbra thanks for 'stuff' really useful.

Flogging dead leeches all day - sore fingers 'n thumbs. And a sailmaker's needle is a fearsome thing to behold and to use. Stitching rotten along the entire length of the leech and leech line had burst out in a couple of places and not long in others. We mended the bursts with double stitching - really hard work and hard on the hands, and then put a reinforcing line of stitching all the way from the clew almost to the head - will finish tomorrow. Also small compression hole in foil tape where tape passes through feeder when sail fully hoisted. Must be fixed. Knackered.

We seem to be making progress - as long as the wind isn't too strong and the seas therefore too lumpy and steep, we can track about 015 M which would take us between two Marshall Island atolls and on to Kimbra's first waypoint. Too early to plan yet.
When I said no more islands, I had forgotten about Wake. Used to be a military base and probably still is.

0658.29 16350.39 May 5th

One should never set oneself deadlines - or even targets - in this game. It's still 2 and a bit days to half way and seems as if it has been for days. There's no real pattern to the trades yet - perhaps there wont be. Nasty - not vicious - squalls 25-30kts with an associated short steep closely patterned sea state - about 3-5 metre waves, very steep, only about 10-30 metres apart and on the beam for our preferred course. Uncomfortable to bloody uncomfortable. In between, moderate sea, 15-18 kts and reasonably workable. Was hoping - as you do - that we'd do better that the 4-5 kts more or less north that we have at the mo.

Kimbra, average track seems to me to be just a bit west of N magnetic, and the sea stops us getting much higher.

Was playing with the concept of the flogging leech. I am told that the Chinese used to pay their doctors only when they were well, as the Doc was then doing his job properly. Perhaps in Hogarth's London, the rich and dandified sent out to have their Leeches flogged when they (R & D)got sick. And flogging my Consultant leeches out here just means attending to more and more of their potions and elixirs. Dr Jasper, have started magic potion for endless daylight and very good it is too. I just hope it's efficacious.

Wildlife - was leaning over the side a bit, adjusting the jib sheet winch, and saw this greenish gold shape in the water, quite deep. I first thought we must be dragging a sail or something but it was a fish, perhaps 2 metres long, greenish on top, gold stripey sides and vertical yellow tail. Several more, smaller. A few,indeterminate seabirds.

Ian and all at RORC, thanks for good wishes and all the best to you for a successful season. If Berri hangs together for long enough, we might see you for Fastnet 09. Berri wants her dogbowl back for a reunion.

Speedy, tks for propane warning . I didn't know(WD40 uses propane-isobutane as a propellant and not the sort of gas you want in a bilge, 20% in air is explosive - ed). Suggest prize for GB should be a copy of your 'arry and the pursuit of excellence mp3. He'd understand, as that sort of teacher.

Must get out of this sweaty hellhole behind the Cone.

McQ: Burds and, if there is space, theirpocket warmers...

I saw a bird this afternoon. Now I am not especially good with birds but this was definitely a new one, and it was black. Except that might just have been the colour it looked as it was silhouetted in front of the sun! It had a pointy tail and looked like a smaller version of the bigger one with a pointy tail that we saw the other day. Pretty average bird really I am afraid and can't give you any more distinguishing features. I think the only three birds that I could positievly identify are a Pelican (big, black and white, biiiig beak, my favourite bird too)albatross, huge wings and super graceful and the blue footed booby, (blue feet, doh!!), oh and maybe a dodo too, but since they don't fly and are extinct then I think its highly unlikely that we'll see one of those out here in mid ocean, unless of course the foredeck witch brings one in a tux next time she comes for a dance.

This afternoon Alex hardboiled all the remaining pocket-warmers, though, that said, I suppose they don't really become pocket warmers until after they are hardboiled. Anyway, this was cause there are more than we can get through before they start smelling like rotten pocket warmers since we never got round to vaselining them at the beginning. So we now have lots of hardboiled pocket warmers to get through, we left them to cool too and vaselined them, and since theres no pockets on my shorts and its way too hot to need to warm our fingers and they are now cold the EU certainly wouldn't let them be called pocket warmers, so maybe we should give them a new name: I know, we shall call them eggs, yes, eggs, from now on pocket warmers shall be known as 'eggs'

Maybe I'll write something sensible tomorrow...

lots of love to all
McQ
xxx
ps DB: I haven't uttered a word to Walter Walruski 3rd (for that is his full name) yet. Don't worry.
GM&L: What a remarkable book, incredible, a fantastic read, thank you- if ever I think wee Berri feels small I shall be grateful I am not chained to a sack of coconuts instead!! Also I am blaming you entirely as have done nothing but read in my off watches for two days when I should be sleeping and am now exhausted!!!
CB: Have lots of thoughts on plans, can't wait to discuss, whats happening at your end in the village???
JS: I love my pink watch with blue flashing lights- thank you!!
FF: Is it Neist Lighthouse at the top of Skye??

1400 pos 0536.35 16401.25 - headed and being taken a bit east again.

DTD 3282 dmg 110 from half way in 324 miles, there should be open water - no islands - between us and dutch.

There seems to be a lot less time on this one for idle musing. It's all work or sleep, unlike in the southern ocean, where we set a sail, trimmed it and left it for days at a time.

And no sooner do we put our little pug nose out past the squally bit but the Examiner turns up again and decrees that the stitching along the leech line of our small furling headsail should die. It's a pre loved sail, came with the furler and looked fine before we left, but the U.V. might have got to it - or some other rats in the boot room. Anyway, not a catastrophe and potentially fixable, over time, with the sailmaker's needle and palm. Tedious though. We're bobbing along under engine, storm jib and 2 reefs just watching the wx for 3 hours, then I think it's back to the big sail and fingers crossed it will last the distance - furlers seem to flog their leeches something awful and no amount of tweaking seems to fix the problem, consequently high stress area.

Well done Barrett. Obvious really, I guess!

Anyway, we are certainly in, or in striking distance of the trades. I've no real feel for what to expect when we do get there in terms of the combination of wind and sea state. I just hope we are not headed too much and can sail reasonably free so as not to overstress the headsail any more than necessary. And soon it will be out with the needle and palm.

Big sail back up - hooning more or less north at 5+ kts. Passed an island 60 miles to the east - 10 miles across, has an airfield but no name on my digital chart. Anyone?

Today's boat job - just hardboiled 34 eggs - we didn't vaseline them before we left and I don't see why we should throw them away. When they cool, I'll vas them just in case. Egg salads for the future.

Just had a full can of wd 40 discharge into the bilge and all over the floor, lethally slippery and not pleasant. Poo!

0459.00 16414.45

Just a quickie to say g'day. Amazing how the mood changes once the rain stops and there's been some sleeping. About to cross 5 N and into the trades, I hope. And half way is tantalisingly close - 361 miles - just over half a S2H. When McQ wakes, I think it might be time to open Kimbra's goody bag and find the one for tropical squalls...been there, done that!

The autopilot seems to be back in action after sloshes of WD40. Still a bit recalcitrant. I think it may have had water in it at some time.

Sun just risen, one solitary seabird - indeterminate, but it's been with us for days, it seems.

Noon + a bit 0335.18 16412.59

DTD 3392 so dmg 83 and none of them fun

Nastier and nastier, said Alice. And so it came to pass. Almost solid tropical downpour with 25 - 30 kts for the last few hours. Dark grey slightly translucent sky merging into silvery craggy moonscape sea with soft white texture as the surface seems to float above itself as bouncing raindrops. Vis about a boat length, but there's no way you can look into wind without goggles. On the assumption that we must get north to get free, we're motoring as fast as seems reasonable in the conditions - about 3.9 - 4 kts OTG - must remember to keep the fuel tank at least half full to avoid bubbles in the uptake line. Will be hard to top up in these conditions - wild gyrations even with the main up and a couple of reefs to steady her. We must get at least 100 miles further up the meridian....YUK! Later - now sailing again - conditions no better - Kimbra says we have this until Monday, worst tomorrow. Bleeeah!

Captions - we both liked the last one (will Alex tidy up...) because it related directly to the pic, but we decided that no 9 (there's bound to be a tin opener) wins. By a whisker. Highly commended was the reference to Fenwick.

Kris - I hear you are playing anorak games with Speedy - have you told him about your 0500 beer in Berri?
DW - belated happys. Might see you in Dutch.
Ann - illegal (I'm told) and certainly negligent and insane not to have a rifle if you are ever likely to meet a hungry bear. Of the various options then available to you, you could try talking it out of eating you as your opening gambit, if you want to. Nice to have a fall back though, as bears can outrun humans. We might easily get stuck in the ice somewhere and have to walk out. We will have a rifle, as a last resort.

0237.59 16400.04 Sillyoloquy

Polaris Lives! or rather, lurks. He's still in the murk layer but I can just see him. He's such a seemingly insignificant little pinprick for such an important place in our universe. A bit like the good Taoist leader - he's out there, leading, but not noticed by the punters - and therefore, presumably, neither loved nor hated, like lesser leaders. I grew up conscious of him from as early as I can remember - my dad, no doubt, had something to do with that. It's still a bit odd looking for him way below the pointers instead of above.

Ploddin' along. Still 5 days at least to half way at this rate. For those of you living normal lives, you really just live the days, go to bed and the night takes care of itself without any help from you. Here, we live the nights - really live them, often minute by minute, watch by watch - as well as the days and it all seems to take so much longer. So who's complaining? More living for one's dollar perhaps. This gig is different yet the same as the last one. Things distant yet near - near yet distant. Sei Shonagon's perceptions are wonderfully acute and they remain relevant after a thousand years and across cultures.

Time passing - I wrote in the last logs about boats having their own language, grammar and syntax. I live and feel and hear this boat and I'm part of the pulse of the living entity. So, it's really difficult to lose myself in Ipoddery or books or xwords because it cuts me off from the message, the data stream, the story as it unfolds. And time passes more slowly.

Noon 0212.28 16401.42

dtd 3475 dmg 106.

What she said! I thought I was dreaming, but I seem to have this lightbulb sticking out of my head...

McQ: The Equator

Well, it was just as I remembered: First the gigantic pink neon sign comes in to view, 'Welcome to the equator!!!', it flashes. Then you get closer- it is just like any other border crossing, a magnet for the fringes of ocean society, a hub of vice... To the left, pineapples being shaken, coffee being ground and the fish market, unscrupulous fish trading in other fish (one squid for 3 flying fish, as we passed) The sea snail magician dude was still there doing his same trick on unsuspecting punters, to do with water going clockwise or anti-clockwise down hte plug hole and crossing the line as often as he could get away with!! Down a back eddy, round an undercurrent and you come face to face with a snarling big fanged, translucent and etiolated sea creature with his own lightbulb above his head, just like Nemo or Blue Planet, and trying to sell lumps of coral for extortionate prices; 'why so expensive?' 'Have you any idea of the depths I have gone to to get this?' The Northern Pacific Hotel and the Southern Pacific Hotel, joined by the aquasino, open all season (that is all the time!!) The only drinking establishment to venture into is 'The Old Grog Barrel' where the regulars go for watered down rum and local scuttlebutt: The Landlord, goes by the name of Admiral Vernon, will pass on messages to Neptune- Have some rum and thank you for a safe passage so far, Neptune. Not, in general, is the equator a place to stop, so soon enough we are well through, a quick glance back to a gigantic yellow neon sign in the sky, 'Thank you for visiting the equator' and with a flicker and the accompanying buzzing film-sound-effect its gone. So fast that we might have been dreaming...

Serious for a mo.

Yesterday was May 1. That means that the eclipse on Aug 1 is 3 months away - 91 days in fact. In that time we have to get to Dutch, fix some things, reprovision, get lots of advice, charts, warm clothing etc - and then get up to Nome 600 miles or so north, wait for favourable ice reports at Point Barrow and go north and, if we're lucky, around the corner and across the top at least as far as Cambridge Bay by Aug 1 so that we are in the path of the eclipse. I think the Haughton Mars Camp people - Pascal and his crew - leave Devon Island around Aug 15 so we need to be up at Beechey by then if possible. Talk about water under keels!

Dutch fixes: the laptop; perhaps a strip and refurbish of backup watermaker motor; the ST 4000 tiller autopilot (which seized yesterday and I'm awaiting advice before taking it apart - where are ya Matt Reyes-McGyver?); major repack of boat to squeeze Kimbra in; maybe fit checkstay points on the mast - seems to be flexing forwards rather a lot and I'm not used to bendy masts so feel a bit unsure of what is reasonable flex and what should be stayed. We have to buy a bear rifle, guinness, other medicinal compounds and soul food. Cold weather diesel and maybe an extra external tank. The rest will depend on what happens between here and Dutch and what facilities there are up there.

So, so far so good but it's a finely balanced enterprise - massively so - and we still need a lot of luck. Keep 'em all crossed for us please.

The Backing Group - Kimbra

Hello everyone out there. Alex would like you to get some idea of what goes on in the background. The answer is loads and we are blessed with a great team of people Worldwide. All of whom help the project in a variety of ways. Weather forecasts (Wx) are essential and we depend on Kimbra Lindus (who will join Berri for the Northwest Passage sector of the voyage from Alaska). Here is a typical exchange between the forecaster and the boat:

Kimbra:Wind should be more SE for next day. Use it to move NE-ish against current if poss. Stronger gradient winds should be starting to fill in from the east over the next couple of days! Lightish to the west. Still wet north of equator before trades.
Alex:Your predictions spot on. Tks for little bottles. Grib says here more or less same to 5N then wind increasing to top of Marshalls to about 15 kt still Easterly. Plan is to go straight up the meridian if poss to top of M's then what do you suggest? We could try for height or just keep going in the pious belief that we'll get into w/sw further up.
Kimbra (today):Short-range: Congrats – you’re about to get back into wet stuff for a few days. Worst of it is to the W & NW of you, doesn’t look as bad to N & E in the big pic. Shittiest on Sunday. Gradient winds should pick up to 15 kts avg from Fri arvo thru Sunday, then another lighter patch @ 10 kts, depending on yr progress nth. Direction mainly E, but will start to feel a bit of NE by Mon – initially assoc more with rain system to W than trades proper.

FYI – tropical cylone in Bay of Bengal. Light years away & heading NW to land. No probs. Low developing NW of Taiwan approx 25N 125E. Also heading NE to brush east coast Japan with gales. Models don’t show any swell/wind in your parts from it. Did you know Japan Met Agency forecasts cherry blossom blooming dates?? To within 4 days!

0129.21 16353.23

Dollink - imagination in recess at the mo - you could post this as is if you like...We're back in amorphous grey - squall following squall following squall. So far, no Vlad sharpening his stake but still a pain. Can't see Polaris yet - he's still down in the murk line around the northern horizon. The equator has receded into the background radiation - Half way is less than 600 miles ahead...Was thinking - might interest the punters if you post my notes to Kimbra and her replies - apart from anything else, saves me having to explain and therefore airtime. Iridium costs money! and we're just about out of sailmail range of Oz and only marginally in Hawaii.

noon in the North 0027.07 16344.47

dtd 3581 so dmg 116 - mostly motor, but we're sailing again and looks like Kimbra's wx change on the horizon.

Nauru - tiny island - once the main source of phosphates for fertiliser all the world's farmers and no doubt lots of other less productive things. Phosphates come from guano - bird poo - and the island must have been hundreds of metres deep in the stuff - just imagine the time, the numbers of birds, where have they all gone? The island now just a barren spiky rocky wasteland mostly but with a big population. They originally invested well - skyscraper in Melbourne for one - but I don't know what has happened since.

Still sweaty hot - we have the hatches open and the Cone open so there's a breeze through the boat that makes sleep possible, and also sitting here.

D - thanks for the xword - it worked - McQ has done a lot of it in her watch and now I'm going to try to finish it.

0002.27N 16340.26 DownunderMars becomes TopsiderMars

We crossed the equator at 20.25.53 UTC at 16339.931E on what, my diary tells me coincidentally, is Ascension Day, National Day of Prayer and Workers Day. That seems to cover quite a lot of us. Neptune was properly placated with a couple of tots from Brian Shilland's little plastic bottle of S2H Bundy and we opened Kimbra's goody bag to find a tiny bott of pink champagne, a party hat and a party whistle each. Yeeeehaa! McQ put a message in one of the little bottles and off we go again.

We toasted all y'all and moved on to thinking about half way. This leg of the journey covers almost exactly 90 degrees of latitude - a quarter of the earth's surface - so I have arbitrarily decided that 11 N, 660 miles away, will be half way. Actually, great circles, tacks, island groups and all the other complications of navigation will conspire to move it all around.

Just had a lovely call from Speedy. Onya mate! He's sent us a crossword - Kris, you've got competition! - so I'll try and pull it in.

Anyway, Milestone no. 1, about 10k in the marathon - just warmed up!

Love yez all.

0013.18 16337.11

Instant return - just received an sms from Carla suggesting that my flashing light yesterday evening was an Iridium satellite. The timing fits - but the satellites I know I have seen don't usually flash. So still a bit odd. This one's even odder - the Rat finally loses it - was looking forwards past the forestay at the bank of murk that is always down there on the horizon and wondering whether it was solid or just fluff. I saw a flash - strobe like - just above the murk - say about 5 degrees elev - more or less dead ahead. It was so fast I'm still not absolutely certain I saw it. Bright white light, seemed to have area like, say, a parachute flare, not a pinpoint. Not lightning - just possible a freak reflection off some part of the boat - or what?

14 miles to go. Examiner has removed our wind, so motoring at 4.5 kts. About here, we can start to gauge the standard of planning. We are approaching half way and by looking at the various heaps and containers I can see how we are going. Medicinal Compound will be marginal but that was deliberate. We will have lots of food to spare, enough diesel as long as we don't for instance, lost the mast, ordinary bog paper ok, elephant's b.p. ok, McVitie's digestives marginal, toothpaste, sailmakers' twine and so on. This, of course, ignores the contingency factor - like loss of mast - and assumes progress more or less as we've been making.

Talking of elephant's, must resurrect Alison Chadwick's lovely descriptive metaphor for our sort of progress. Next blog perhaps.

Hi Matt - yep, McGyvery would be good to have around. I'm not bad at it, but there are some things that defeat me. All sailors need that capacity for intelligent improvisation based on planning and experience and lateral thinking and we generally do ok on Berri. Unlikely we'll get to Devon before the eclipse - more like mid august - but, AGW, it will be quite a reunion!

Chris - definitely harder, but in subtle ways.

50 miles from the Equator 0050.22 16329.25

50 miles to the Equator, but the Examiner is poncing around with her stockwhip and slashing away at our tiny gradient so things have slowed a bit. Maybe another 12 hours. We're almost abeam Nauru and about 200 miles west.

Life's little mystery for tonight - I looked up towards the masthead and, just to the east of us, elevation about 80 deg. I saw a flashing light. Only about 4 or 5 flashes, seemed to be moving very fast just south of east, did not look like an aircraft strobe. Probably was, but could it have been anything else?

now 40 to go. will try to send this via iridium.

McQ: Feta Brain

I came in here to write a blog, but was immediately consumed by blasting heat that stagnates behind the Cone, so now I too have Feta Brain and am completely incapable of thinking of anything interesting and sensible to write. Instead, here are a selection of random thoughts that have passed between Left Ear and Right Ear recently:

Will we wobble when we step off the boat? I haven't wobbled since Portugal '02

The last time I was in a boot room (a real boot room in the arctic, but on land) there were lots of nice boots and a cabinet too. On the cabinet was a sign that said 'This establishment prides itself on being a bear free zone, therefore please leave all firearms in the cabinet'

Can an onion, bacon, sweetcorn and a tin of tomatoes be used to concoct a semi interesting pasta sauce?
Can we assume that a tin labelled 'Tom' contains tomatoes? (No, of course for I labelled the cans!!!)

What was Hemi really afraid of and since there was one in the North and one in the South, was he stuck and unable to go anywhere?

Southern Hemisphere McQ Out...xxx

noon 0123.18 16316.42

dtd 3697 dmg 125
Too hot for bloggery. VoA 0.01. If you know what packaged cheese looks like when it's been in the sun - that's my brain. All the oil has leached out and I'm left with the crumbly bits. Imagination on slow time. I might try to fly this out later by satphone to test the system.

We will cross the equator around 0400 tomorrow Sydney time - 1800 UTC today if cheese brain is correct - unless we break something. I have just done a stocktake of the medicinal compounds available to sustain my addled soul - there's enough, but only if I'm careful. I can have one consultation with one of my physicians daily, with a long Con thrown in at times of extreme stress. Physicians are Dr Pete, the Barber Surgeon (Google Mary Rose) who makes it in his bath, Drs. Jasper, the Apothecary, who makes it in his boat Antares (waarisantares.com I think, but you have to be able to read Dutch) and Dr Steve, the Alchemist, who turns water into gold in his lab. I think they all use Cooper's home brew kits as their base and it's remarkable how close each comes to perfection! But then, any juice in a storm...

Today, I consulted Dr J for the first time - his brew is the youngest - and I pronounce it Good. I think Kimbra may have another little treat lined up for us for the equator in the goody bag. Yeeehaaa!

Many thanks to Steve L at AMSA and to Gerry for prompt response and follow up.

Every day, I try to do a job for the boat and one for me. Todays for the boat was to try to fix the cheap and nasty 12v fan so that it directs air in the right direction. For me - I put the arse back into a pair of shorts with sticky back and sailmakers needle, and I had a go at getting my mp3 player to charge - limited success. And I will try to crank up iridium for this message when it gets a bit cooler.

On the hoof.....

We're still very much on the hoof, making up lost ground to the East to give us some height once we get headed by the trades. MJC, water T has been 35 deg since pre Solomons - down to 34 in last 24 hrs. Another fishing boat a couple of hours ago - as before, steady bearing...these guys are lit up like PuDong for Chinese New Year and it's impossible to find their nav lights and so work out who is give way vessel. We assumed we were and kept well clear.

Keith Cowing has just given me an acute attack of the stage fright willies by telling us where he is sending all this nonsense. Hi everyone who's aboard via Mr C. In case you are not familiar with why - the story begins early 2005, way down at 45 S half way across the southern ocean to Cape Horn. Lovely clear night - unusual down there - and I was idly considering that we were probably the two people on earth who were furthest from any other human. And it occurred to me that perhaps once or twice a day, our actual nearest neighbours were the ISS 10 crew, 320 clicks or so above. I asked the question 'Anyone know anyone at NASA?' and the rest is history. We had huge fun trying to do simple science with Leroy going up the Atlantic. This gig is a direct result.

102 miles to the equator. I am now reasonably confident that we have enough diesel and water and it's just a matter of grinding out the metres, one by one - we're at about 6k in my version of the marathon.

Moments in the maelstrom

Some things stand out in the memory. We have a masthead tricolour light (red, green and white,for the nautically challenged). In the middle of one of the really severe squalls sometime in the last few nights, I was hand steering, Berri was surging and crashing along at nearly 8 knots, rain in sheets, spray rushing past, all reflecting both the cockpit instrument lights and the tricolour and surrounding us in a glowing pulsating cocoon. All together, freckle clenched exhilaration. I looked up, eyes slitted against the rain, to check the wind indicator at the masthead and there, streaming away from the masthead and away into the blasting night, was a lovely string of ruby jewelled water reflecting the red sector of the tri. Living moments.

Tonight is almost clear - Omar's bowl of night in all it's gorgeous magnificence. Old old cliche, but it really does bring home how infinitesimally, gobsmackingly tiny we are in the scheme of things.

Tiny blog - AW

first almost clear night since we left. Universe in full spreading magnificence - gerzillions and gerzillions of little twinklies and - wonder of wonders - N hemisphere stars - Great Bear, upside down ahead at about 15 deg, Orion out to port and the Southern Cross astern. Real sign of progress. Cant see the Pole Star yet...

McQ: Inspired by Chichester...

Another day, another night, and another change of accessories: as it gets dark and you swap your hat and sunnies for headtorch and feet (boots)... all good out here, still hooning along in the right direction and less than 200nm to the equator and present opening time from Kimbras goodie bag!!!! YAY, how exciting!!!!

You know what I was saying yesterday bout pressies for Neptune, well since nine this morning he is the proud owner of a fantastic slam floppy sun hat... a bit of bad luck for me!!! but a pre-emptive gift for the Boss of the Sea, perhaps???
At least my fave hat has gone to a good cause- I am now down to the old faithful Royal Honkers yacht club and my new UK mcWilliams cap from Larkey... which I have been firmly attaching to myself!!!

J'nie-AMAZING to hear from you, don't worry about your reply being long, we are just so far from radio signal in Oz now that its hard to send and receive and we aren't quite quite in full Hawaii range yet. not too fussed re FB, unless wee cashie had anything of interest to say???? send to Speed if any news. Also, think Alex messaged you with suggestions but for your friend- Victoria, Hi, some more books by female sailors: Claire Francis's book, must read, Dee Caffari- Against the Flow, is out, not read but Dee is g