We left our mooring at first light in a brief period of locally offshore winds. Since we didn’t have to weigh anchor, and thus start an engine, we raised full sail and then released the mooring pennant. At that time the wind was only just over one knot, so we sat there for a few minutes bobbing next to the mooring. If we had changed our minds about going, it would have been no problem to get out a boathook, fish the pendant back out and drop it over a cleat again.
An early start (First light) and soon we were sharing the water with whales again
Instead, Begonia coasted to a stop in what had been a slight current and started flowing along the coast with all of the other debris floated off of the beach by the tide. The extra speed of the current created just enough extra wind for the sails to bite and start pulling. We picked up enough speed to make the rudders take effect and then wove our way silently out of the anchorage and out to sea.
Usually, on my first day off-watch of a passage, I have trouble sleeping during the time of morning that I am normally having coffee and looking forward to my day. This time, I surprised myself by sleeping for a solid two hours before switching to two hours of on and off tossing and turning. Before we left Broome, I had intended to wake up at three o’clock in the morning to get us underway, but hadn’t been able to sleep since midnight. Maybe that had something to do with it.
When Maryanne switched with me at noon, I emerged and was surprised to still be looking at the anchorage. By that I mean not only could I still see Gantheaume Bay, I could still pick out each moored boat within.
Our forecast had called for light winds out of the southwest, which should have allowed us to ghost northwards up the coast towards the favorable equatorial current a day or so beyond. The wind was instead irritatingly from the northwest, which meant Maryanne’s only option was to sail west on a starboard tack into the current that was running up the coast. In her entire watch, she made it just under a mile through the water. The current pretty much cancelled out her speed, so that she spent most of her time sailing west-southwest through the water while going either backwards or sideways across the bottom.
In the afternoon, the wind slowly picked up just enough for us to start moving in the direction to which we were pointed. At three o’clock, I climbed onto the cabin top and watched the horizon until the last mirage of the Australian continent vanished into the sea. We had spent so much time seeing so much of it and as I watched it go, I was well aware that I didn’t know when or even if we would ever see it again. Now it was going to be just us and the sea for a while.
It wasn’t until 3am on my next watch that the wind finally backed enough for us to tack and head north with the current. We sailed close-hauled all day in light winds and flat seas until just after dinner. then the wind finally had finally backed far enough for us to aim directly at our intercept waypoint with the westbound equatorial current.
The wind picked up on Day Three until we were easily romping along with over-reefed main and jib. This would end up being our fastest day of the passage. The southeast trades were still annoyingly mostly out of the south. A big storm, also in that direction, was sending up a swell that was being added to the building waves, giving us uncomfortable beam seas.
The next day, the wind had finally backed far enough for us to dispense with our working sails and deploy the spinnaker. We were we now faster and the shadow the mainsail had been casting on our solar panels was now gone. That made it much less of a struggle to recharge the batteries during the day after running the boat all night.
The next three days were the best part of the whole passage. The spinnaker stayed up day and night, with the only attention it needed being to move the sheet in or out just so slightly every watch or two. The seas calmed and started coming more from astern, which made our motion smooth and gentle again. We also had bright days and clear, starry nights where the air ranged from almost too cold to be the perfect t-shirt temperature to almost too hot to be the perfect t-shirt temperature.
We pass strange objects, dolphins visit, and a lage group of squid land and expire on our deck
At the end of Day Seven, the wind started building until the spinnaker was too much for it. We brought it down and replaced it with the jib, which soon needed reducing to keep things under control. The waves began building again and we had two days of cloudy, drizzly conditions sailing over a gray sea.
On Day Ten, the skies finally cleared again. Half a day later, the wind started to abate. It was also forecast to swing behind us to the other side, so I wasted no time in switching back to spinnaker. After downloading the latest forecast, it appeared the dip in wind strength was going to be deep enough to cost us an extra day at sea. It wasn’t here just yet, so we were hoping the spinnaker could keep our speed up high enough to beat the prediction.
It turned out to be a pretty stressful day and a half. Both the lull in the wind speed and the shift farther behind us never materialized. We spent the entire time hovering at either the maximum wind speed limit for the sail or at the most forward angle that would keep it set, usually both. Every now and then a five-degree wind shift would collapse the sail. It would flap like crazy, making a huge racket, then ever so slowly refill into its normal balloon shape.
On Maryanne’s night watch, the wind came forward even more. She didn’t want to wake me by making all of the noise of pulling down the spinnaker and then hoisting the other two sails, so she bore off slightly to the north of our course to keep it filled. The good news was that we had managed to keep our speed high enough to where we were definitely going to arrive just after the next sunrise, making the extra day at sea unnecessary after all.
When she woke me for my watch at midnight, it was obvious that Cocos (Keeling) was too far upwind to be able to continue with the spinnaker. It was a relief by then to pack it up and switch back to our normal working sails. I put an unnecessary reef in the main just for good measure and then pointed Begonia across the wind towards the entrance to the pass.
We arrived right at first light without having to do the usual sail reductions to slow way down. Just as we got there, yesterday’s predicted wind lull finally arrived, giving us flat seas as we motored the last couple of miles to the quarantine mooring. As it was Sunday, the police told us to sit tight, they’ll come out to clear us in tomorrow.
This was fine with us, as it takes us a day to reacclimate to not staying awake half of the night, but also not fine because we were technically not supposed to leave the boat until we were cleared in. The turquoise water of the lagoon was sooo beautiful and today was the only calm spot in the forecast for the next sixteen days, at least. We wanted to go snorkeling; not just teasing little laps around Begonia, but all over the whole bay. This is the first time in months that we have been in lovely warm water and not had to worry about our first plunge sounding like a dinner bell for the nearest crocodile.
Cocos (Keeling) is a large, shallow atoll with an openings on the north and west sides. Most of the islands around the edge are uninhabited, except for West Island, the Aussie ex-pat administrative center (Population: 100, it has the airport) and Home Island (Population: 500), where most of the Malay Muslim population lives. The only anchorage allowed for visiting yachts is at uninhabited Direction Island, on the far northeastern tip of the atoll. This is mainly because it is the only anchorage deep enough for anything except the super-shallow draught local vessels.
Eventually we have Cocos Keeling Islands in sight, and once safely at the quarantine mooring we had the resident sharks come to welcome us!
With us at the Direction Island anchorage were two monohulls, each sailed by a couple. As soon as each awoke and saw Begonia bobbing at the quarantine mooring, they called us up on the radio to welcome us and give us the rundown.
The first was Jeremy and Kathy from Sal Darago. They had arrived a week or so earlier from Carnarvon, at the northern end of Shark Bay, Western Australia, and were planning on leaving tomorrow for Roddy, as they called Rodrigues Island, east of Madagascar. They are Brits who's boat got “stuck” in Australia (in their case in Perth) for Covid and are finally reunited with their boat and homeward bound.
Next up was Ted and Mia on Serengeti. We last saw the previous American owners on the boat in Whangarei, New Zealand in 2018 and we have roughly followed each other’s route to Australia, keeping in touch online. Ted bought the boat in Cairns from them last year, setting off last from Darwin. He is originally from Sweden and migrated to Australia many years ago, where he eventually met Mia. His plan is to take both her and Serengeti on his second circumnavigation. He told us that our group’s three boats are the first three to have cleared into Cocos (Keeling) since 2020. Well, it sure is good to be here.
Sal Darago and Serengeti were the first cruising boats this year at Cocos (Keeling) Islands
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