Shades of Grey
26 January 2020 | South China Sea
Ginni
Pos 1700 on 26/1/2020 38 47'S, 149 15'E, which is the middle of Bass Strait. At day break the sea was pale grey, the heavy fog above it was an even paler grey. Lighter grey still was a completely grey sky. The whale yesterday was a dark grey. The huge bottlenose
dolphins which visited yesterday afternoon were a dark grey. My hair is silver grey, John's is white grey, and even Shonandra is the palest of grey, soot. It's a popular colour around here. This afternoon the sun is attempting to shine through the grey fluffy clouds but the sea
is a dark grey. Visibility this morning was about 300 metres. A couple of very large cargo vessels went by, one at 1.2nm and for only one brief moment did I see his navigation light. Another even bigger vessel which was more than 1000 feet went by at two miles away and I
saw nothing. The fog has burned off now. We have covered just over 76nm from our jumping off point along the Victorian coast. Pretty good going, the last hour. Flinders Island, the eastern point is about 60nm away so we are just over half way across. Thanks goodness,
because if this sea state continues all the way across we will be about the consistency of mild shakes when we get to the other side. What a slop! Progress has gone from wonderful 7.00 knots to about 3 knots and less, and more distance is covered in vertical directions
than horizontal. The wind speed has been a consistent 22-27 knots from the SE causing a bit of a stir. None the less we are quite happy that we have made this progress and trust that this is a very temporary sea state. Once out from Flinders Island at least we hope that
might provide some dampening of this enthusiastic Bass Strait.
Nothing startling or dramatic has happened which might be noteworthy. We've seen quite a few dolphins but only the one small pod of huge bottlenose came to visit. Compared to the most dolphins we have seen they are enormous. Some could be almost 3 metres in
length and they looked very well fed. They enjoyed the bow ride and a few showed off their jumping styles before saying goodbye. An albatross has been circling the boat for most of the day, his wings long and elegant. It seems John may be right in that the albatrosses like
to stay around boats as a reference, so they they know what ocean they have covered and follow the boat along. The other reason may be is that they just want to share their beauty and skills with us.
I am off to try to cook us a hot meal. It will be all steamed in the one pot, sausages, potatoes and a few greens. Steamed sausages aren't bad we've discovered. Bye from us bounced around persons. John and Ginni. Any mistakes can easily be blamed on Bass Strait.