Yorso Good

The weather was fine, I had a couple of weeks off and so did Ian.  There was only one place to go - Low Isles (again).  Well, we never tire of it.  It has every ingredient of Tropical Paradise.

Besides, Ian has been working on Yorso (see Yorso Vain/Stupid in "The Great White Hunter Strikes Again" http://winkali.blogspot.com/2012/08/great-white-hunter-strikes-again.html

Having lightened up the steering, tried a few variations on his pulley systems and gathered up new determination, we headed out in an ideal breeze.

After careful balancing of sails and fingers crossed, we handed the steering over to Yorso. . . . . and off he went, all by himself.

Ian sits and relaxes while Yorso does the work

Yorso didn't know what the fuss was all about.  He could have done this for us last year when we headed out on our trip.  There was no need to have stayed up day and night tending the helm till we were exhausted.  All we had to do was lighten things up a bit and he would have done the rest.

Oh well, better late than never.  This makes places like Lord Howe Is and New Zealand a possibility after all.

Now that knew we had Yorso on the team, we sailed back to Low Isles and re-anchored.  

Now it was time to try out my new flippers, goggles and underwater camera.  

"Oh no", you say, "before it was all the bird photos, now it's going to be fish photos".

Well, I tried but I think that birds are a lot easier.  With the current and waves bobbing me about, all I could do was hope that the lens was pointing in the direction of my subject when I pressed the shutter.

After a while, I started to get the hang of capturing stationary objects.

Now, I'm not as conversant with the names of things at the bottom of the ocean as I am with creatures of the air but I do know that the object on the left is a very nice piece of pink coral.

After I managed to photograph the coral, I headed for something more tricky - something that moved.  I located this lovely blue starfish as it slowly made its way across its coral surrounds.  I didn't actually see it move, but I know for a fact that they do.




Then, I mastered the art of photographing fish as they darted in and out among the coral.  How did I do this?  First of all, I located large schools of fish.  Then I pointed the camera in their direction and pressed the shutter like crazy before they all swam away.  As you can see, I managed to get the last few stragglers. 

A lucky snap on the right.  The rare little stripey fish swims into view just as I was getting a photo of the coral.

Then best of all, just when Ian thinks he's safe from my prying lens, I catch him under water.

THE END

Great White Hunter Strikes Again

We left Seisia on Thu 9 Aug with light winds.  We admired the bow wave of the Thursday Island ferry as it sped past.  We took photos of them as they took photos of us.

Thursday Island ferry 

               
  This was the day we were going to start using our new, very expensive wind vane self steering.  Wind vanes and auto pilots are given names as they make up for extra crew.  We named the wind vane Yorso as in "you're so vain" the song.  Well, it didn't work and Ian finished up calling it Yorso Stupid.  

In the meantime, Ian had set a line out, as he did when we weren't in the green zone (you can't fish in these zones).  The next thing Yorso problem was forgotten as we had a strike.  The Great White Hunter battles the Spanish Mackerel.  Who will win?  The Hunter?  The Mackerel? The Hunter?  The Mackerel? The Hunter?  The Mackerel? The Hunter won!!!! 

The mackerel measured 1.2m from nose to tail.  We portioned the meat into 16 generous meals for two.


Well, we mightn't have self steering but we had plenty of fish.









Ian had to steer all night as I was unable to.  We were hoping that Ian could sleep through the day while I did the helm.  Unfortunately,  he just couldn't get to sleep.  

As we were halfway across the gulf with no land in sight, there was no hope of anchoring anywhere and we had to sail on.  There was no choice but for me to overcome my night vertigo as it was out of the question for Ian to do the whole night again after so little sleep. 

I took on the dusk into darkness shift to ease the transition.  It's amazing what you can do out of necessity.

That night the winds picked up and we managed a good 7-8kn which is a great speed for Winkali.  However, the next day the winds continued to strengthen until they were around 30kn and the swell built up to beyond the fun stage.  As we were both exhausted by then and we had reached the western side of the gulf, we battled our way to Marchinbar Is which is in the Wessel Is group at the top of the gulf.






 We anchored there for two days and nights till the winds started to abate.  The island looked fantastic to explore but as the wind was still up to 25kn, we didn't dare to take the dinghy across.

We could only look at the uninhabited island from Winkali.








It took another 3 days and nights to sail to Darwin.  The winds eased off as we went and by the last day we had to motor sail.  We were grateful to have Scotty (our Autopilot) aboard to take over while we motored.  He is good in calmer waters but can't handle the rougher seas which is why we couldn't use him earlier.

We're in Darwin now for a week.  Will write another post before we leave for the Kimberleys.