Tuesday August 10-Day 8, Happy Birthday Rachael! Total nautical miles traveled 1013, 177 nautical miles traveled in the past 24 hours.
Waves don’t look as big in photos. Don’t you wish sometimes the camera could sees the view your eyes see?
Wednesday August 11-Day 9, Total nautical miles traveled 1189, 176 nautical miles traveled in the past 24 hours.
TRANCE is in the Coral Sea now, which means after a total 21,200 nm on this voyage, we’ve completed the crossing of an ocean! We’ve done the largest, the Pacific Ocean. Next is the Indian Ocean
Thursday August 12-Day 10, Happy Birthday Maddie! Total nautical miles traveled 1346, 157 nautical miles traveled in the past 24 hours. For breakfast Dan made eggs with homemade hash browns. Back in Denarau, when we ordered produce from FarmBoy, I had requested 3kg potatoes. That’s more than 7lbs! Needless to say, we’ve been eating lots of potatoes cooked various ways. Today I’m going to make a pot of homemade potato soup. The batch will be enough for two meals.
Our buddy boat received their visas for Papua New Guinea today, they “know people” there who were able to get the documents for them. Now they heading north, hopefully we’ll meet up with them in Lombok. Meanwhile our friends on s/v Falbala have not departed New Caledonia yet. Our last communication with them, they said possibly leaving Friday for Lombok. They were delayed by weather.
We are now on Brisbane, Australia time GMT+10, 11:30am Thursday, that’s 9:30 pm Wednesday, Philadelphia time.
Friday August 13-Day 11, our buddy boat was denied entrance to Papua New Guinea even with their visas, more documents were required. They are continuing on with us to Lombok. Also, Falbala has departed New Caledonia this morning.
Total nautical miles traveled 1512, 166 nautical miles traveled in the past 24 hours.
Another failed stainless steel weld. This post is part of the aft pulpit on the transom. Dan securely tied it to the swim ladder.
Numbers, it’s all about numbers, distance, miles, the wind. A few days back, birds broke our wind instrument that was mounted on top of the mast. Since then we’ve had no measurement of wind speed. In away, for me, this has been a good thing. No stressing over the wind number. I do believe it’s been significant the past several days. Tonight as the wind howls through the boat rigging and our speed over ground hits 9.2 knots with triple reefed main and genoa sails, not surfing down a wave, kinda glad I didn’t know the wind speed number.
Saturday August 14-Day 12, Total nautical miles traveled 1684, 172 nautical miles traveled in the past 24 hours.
GoPro snapshots, with camera attached to the boat, taken 12 52.720 S, 149 35.240 E, 11:30am GMT+10
Sunday August 15-Day 13, Total nautical miles traveled 1864, 180 nautical miles traveled in the past 24 hours!
Extremely windy day up to 43knots (per Ohana)with 10-12ft waves, ugh! 5 times today a wave crashed into the cockpit. One entered over the stern. Several waves hit the enclosure panels but didn’t actually enter the cockpit.
Monday August 16-Day 14, Total nautical miles traveled 2043, 179 nautical miles traveled in the past 24 hours.
On the 14th day we rested! The anchor was dropped around 4pm inside The Great Detached Reef, at the the edge of the reef on eastern side. With the winds still in the 20’s it was a bit rolly, yet the reef blocked the ocean waves. The waves crashing on the reef sounded like waves crashing on a beach.
Tomorrow we begin the journey through the Torres Strait over The Great Barrier Reef. Previously had we contacted the Australian Border Force, and were given free passage through the Torres Strait with permission to seek safe anchorage, except near Thursday Island. Conditionally, making landfall or coming in contact with any other vessel is prohibited. Our passage will be the Raine Island route, not through the shipping channel. This track is 178 nautical miles. Along with s/v Ohana, we plan to anchor each night.
We purchased a book titled “Ken’s Torres Strait Passage Guide”. It’s 50 pages of mostly maps with navigation waypoints that meander around reefs and islands. Raine Island marks a navigable entrance to the Great Barrier Reef. There are 71 islands within the reef, 17 are inhabited. There are also a multitude of reefs.
Sailing Trance 
The journey is incredible, is what you expected, more treacherous or more fun, you be a very brave family, peace and may you have fair winds and following seas
Sent from my iPad
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Hey Bryan thanks for the note.
Not treacherous, we have not experienced any severe weather, yet.
Yes, fun and adventurous. Meeting a lot of nice people.
Not as relaxing as expected. This is more complicated than we thought it would be: navigation, immigration rules, COVID issues, boat maintenance.
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Whoa! The waves you’ve encountered look pretty high to me. I think my head would be spinning. LOL
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They were but gently rolling
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Glad you were able to rest after 2 weeks of waves.
Sorry the other boat wasn’t allowed into Papua New Guinea. But glad that they give you company.
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Us too!
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