At 11 degrees 28 minutes south latitude and 103 degrees 40 minutes west longitude, Picton Castle and crew have sailed about 1,000 miles into the Indian Ocean from beautiful Bali. And halfway around the world. We had a small 200-mile diversion to Christmas Island to get one of our worthy shipmates ashore to get eyes checked out when one blurred up all of a sudden. Happy to say that all is reported as going well from that quarter, but lucky we had an island we could get to for that, not too many such islands out here in this ocean. And Sue got to see a Christmas Frigate Bird, unique to this island. There is another island up ahead, Cocos Keeling, which we should pass by unless we find the need to put in. Let’s hope not.
It’s a big ocean and about 2,000 miles to the next island after that – all blue ocean between. Pretty lonely is the Indian Ocean. But we have a strong, healthy, fit crew and are sailing along fine making a steady six knots all in the right direction. About a thousand miles away there is a tropical storm headed away from us faster than we can catch up. All looks clear and good as far as we can see. With the latest weather forecasting, we can reasonably see out more or less a week with educated speculation after that for a few days. Marine weather forecasting has so improved over recent years. We have folks ashore keeping an eye on the weather for us too. With our excellent Medical Officer Jen from Nova Scotia, backed up by ShipMD merchant marine satellite medical consulting service and our big medical kit onboard we are as well served as any sailing ship out there. I understand that cruise ships pretty much have full-on hospitals aboard. They even have morgues. Not us.
Today we have a few different seas giving us a little bounce. Dirk is teaching a new class of celestial navigators. Hope they all stick with it. To be good at sextant work, you must stick with it day after day until you got it then stick with it some more. Learn the concepts, learn the celestial sphere, learn the definitions, learn the simple math, learn to figure time of local apparent noon, learn the sextant, learn to bring the sun down so its edge kisses the horizon like a beach ball on still waters. Get up every morning in time get an AM sun sight to cross with a noon sight to make a fix. Then learn the stars. And take star sights at dawn and dusk. Lots to this stuff. Much of it is fascinating, some of it is boring – all of it necessary if you want to call yourself a navigator. And no better chance to become one than on a long westward bound passage in the tropics with day after day of chasing the sun and the stars, from the deck of a sailing ship.
On deck the watch and rigging gang are switching out the old, very old, foresail for a newer stronger one. We will certainly want our best sail bent on for rounding the Cape Of Good Hope up ahead, but good idea for now too in these fresh tradewinds. New running rigging too. All must be strong and extra reliable. We are at sea. The sea is not your backyard. We are deep sea to be sure.
The quarterdeck is getting its old paint scheme back. After a couple short movie jobs where they wanted the colours dark and muted the rails are going from black to light gray again and the scuppers red. We want to look our best at any time but no reason not to be pretty. Carpenter Carlos is scarfing a new tip onto the spanker gaff. An interesting project too. John is finishing up a new spanker to match. Brahm is getting a month in the engine room working under Swiss engineer Deyan and learning plenty.
Christmas at sea preparations are well under way. There is a group for caroling even. We also have some Bali Gamalan orchestra Krissmiss music. And reggae Natty Ixshmuss music as well as Elvis, Bing, Mariah Carey and Boney M. Not bad. Dawson wants gingerbread men cookies for Christmas. And so it shall be.
And on we sail in this South Indian Ocean.