5/7-5/11am
Hi All,
All is well onboard Mystic Moon!!!
We did leave last Saturday early and had a very pleasant 56 nm run to Lady Musgrave!! 10-15kt winds and fairly calm seas all behind us!!
We are once again at the mercy of Mr Weather!!! Notice when I’m a bit frustrated it’s masculine…..never want to piss off Mother Nature:)))) Actually Mr Weather just teased us for 4 days and gave us perfect weather for Lady Musgrave…..thanks…..but, he is quickly taking it all back with an approaching trough and 20-25G30 knot SE winds tomorrow and then enhanced trade winds 15-25 kt winds for the next week or so….arghhhhhh!!!
What all that means is our time out on the GBR is limited to just these past 4 days. We have very much enjoyed Lady Musgrave. We got in one decent snorkel and one above average dive. The best news is Kathy did fine….her back is ok but now she has a sore ankle (the one she hurt in NZ) which is causing her some pain when she fins…..arghhhhhh!!!
On the snorkel and dive we did see lot’s of evidence of coral damage from past cyclones/storms. But, there were lots of new growth and no evidence of coral bleaching…we hear the farther north we go we will see upwards of 80% of the reef suffering bleaching….ugh!!! On the dive we found a huge area undamaged and the coral was in good shape….a lot of hard coral, not much soft and not much color. There were lots of fish and it was good to see some of our old friends….
It was a bit of an adventure to get inside the lagoon at Lady Musgrave. The entrance into the lagoon is a man made cut through the coral, about 50′ wide. We arrived at low tide which we thought would be slack….wrong…..we have since found out slack occurs one hour later…we were met with a very strong outgoing tide….our first hint of the challenge was we saw a lot of overfalls/whirlpools as we approached….much like in many of the narrows in the Tuamotus….gulp….we approached at 8 kts, speed immediately fell to 2 kts….WTH….6 kts….ok, power up Scotty….Mystic does not steer well at 2 kts and Kathy is telling me to go to starboard….I do and the current catches Mystic and we go too far….yikes, I go almost full throttle….give me all she’s got Scotty….ok, doing 4 kts now and back to center….then we are spit out of the cut and into the lagoon….oh what a relief…..yep, my knuckles are white and we had to peel my fingers off the steering wheal….well, not literally, but you get the point…..tell me again why we are doing this!!!!!
Boat Stuff:
We had one of those days last Friday after we arrived in Bundaberg. We had given ourselves just one day to get a bunch of stuff done (provision for fresh stuff, some boat projects, dinghy gas, et al) as we were anxious to get out to the GBR with the calm weather. Ok, first I needed to checkout the watermaker. We had run the watermaker 2 hours on the way up and the the tank gauge never moved….WTH…where did the water go???? We were concerned the product valve was not working and the good water had gone out the discharge….OTH….sometimes the water tank gauge sticks so who knows. I stated the watermaker and good water was coming out the product hose….ok, all is working and we conclude the tank gauge had stuck!!!
Then it was onto the dive compressor. We had not run this unit for 6 months. I changed the filters and it started right up….good news, bad news no air was coming out to fill the tank. So….for the next 6, as in SIX, hours I’m problem solving fixing the “darn” unit….that wasn’t exactly what I was calling it:)))). Turns out it was a check valve that had stuck. I got to that point and I was not sure why the check valve was there so I called around and found a compressor mechanic who came out to the boat on short notice and verified my diagnosis. So we played around with the check valve but never got it to work. So, we just took it out of the circuit and proceeded to fill the 2 tanks. The check valve is a safety so we will source the part and reinstall when we get a chance.
It is now 3pm…..I still have a long list to go….in the meantime Kathy has gotten a lot of her stuff done so she volunteers to rinse the salt off Mystic…which she was coated from our 3 day passage. I then change the Cummins oil and put the lazerette back together. We both do a few more things and viola it is 6pm and we are pooped!!!
So we are heading for Great Keppel Island for a few days to ride out the blow. Unfortunately we had to miss some excellent dives spots on the Fitzroy reef and Heron Islands…..about 40nm further north. These are basically unprotected anchorages and not suitable in 4-8′ seas….as much as we wanted to stay and dive these are just too rough of conditions to be anchored unprtected……whaaaaa!! We still have a shot to make the Swains but as of now the odds are not in our favor.
We are doing an overnight run for this 100nm run. We left Lady Musgrave around 4pm and should be at Keppel around 6 am…..sunrise is 6:15am!! The ride out the pass was much easier now that we understood about the currents. We had about 3 kts of current going with us so I powered up again to help gain us steerage if needed. But I hit the centerline and all was good….we did get up to about 11 knots!!
3:00am 5/11:
On watch and feeling ok. The winds shifted to SSE around 1am…..just as forecasted although 2 days ago it was to shift around 4am. The winds are 16-22kts but pretty much behind us and the seas are not too bad right now….a moderately smooth ride.
ETA is still around 6am!! We hope the anchorage is not too rolly from wave wraparounds. Bella Vita was there yesterday and had to leave as the anchorage was too rolly…..ugh!!
I’m going to go ahead and send this blog as we have internet for the moment….it was very weak and spotty at Lady Musgrave….good for emails and a small grib but no surfing!!!!
Hope all is well!!
John
Mystic Moon
GO MYSTIC GO!!!
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