Dash & Dodge
15 June 2016 | En Route Miri
Wednesday 15 June 2016
Due waiting until yesterday afternoon for laundry return, have now to hastily beat feet (many of you may know that doing anything with feet except climb up and down companionway steps or chase boredom by collecting toe jam and playing "this little piggy" is entirely superfluous to sailing fast. The expression is idiomatic. This is in no way a reference to idiots or a painful, fraternity ritual performed with paddles, but merely a flight of whimsy conducted as a less stinky and more socially acceptable way to defeat ennui that, being parenthetical may safely be ignored... Oops, should have warned you sooner) in order to arrive by dark tomorrow.
Alas, forecast of little wind along Borneo coast has so far proved accurate. Fortunately, Brunei is awash in the stuff that, in lieu of sails, makes a boat move. They have so much they nearly give it away.. OK, not to foreigners, but it's still pretty cheap. Now if only we can get there with onboard tankage. Not counting dodging through a maze of offshore drill rigs in the dark it's about 230 NM. At least wells don't try to run you down as do poorly lit fishing boats.
Thursday
Continuing to run past logs half the size of the boat, discovered that radar picks them up, so took lessons while still able to see. Nevertheless, pleased to have large debris end before edge of oil field just at dark and platforms are well lit. Too bad gas burned off can't be captured. Sea remained glassy all night and air over deck exactly matched movement through it. Frequency of slight swell continues to induce a constant, tedious roll.
Daylight, which comes at an unconscionably early 0530, will now allow observation of hazards until arrival this afternoon at destination, but for the moment, being between oil fields, far from the coast and away from disgorging river mouths, there is nothing to see except a several mile circle of rippled glass under a cumulus sky. Absence of fishing boats insinuates absence even of fish although a snake just slithered out of the way. Huh? He must have gotten lost.
Jack