Day 7 Great Australian Bight.

Took a Cooks Tour inside all the islands from Esperance.(if you look at google maps and set it on satellite photo you can see very well the route we took close to the shore to Ceduna to avoid the wind slop from the offshore wind)

Had advice from a local fisherman,even gave us some marks for some rocks which had caught out unwary Mariners.

Keep out side the 8 fathom line all the way to Port Lincoln and you will be ok.

We cleared all the difficult parts before dark averaging 16.5 knots.

I had a bit of a snooze and when I came up Mick was hand steering,the auto pilot had packed up.

Rod went down to the steering flat to check out the feedback sensor but only found a loose nut which was not the source of our problem.

Cheroz cooked up a chicken dish we could eat from a bowl essential when going to windward.Finished off with ice cream after he had to put it in the microwave to be able to spoon it out,freezer is working too well.

After dinner I had a look at the manual (always look at the manual after all else fails)

I thought it was a feedback problem associated with the gain control and after we found the relevant page Rod reset it and it was fine.

We think someone whom shall remain annomous had fiddled with the knob.Not hard to do when the boat is jumping about the only thing is you have to pull the knob out to alter it,the mystery remains.

Biggs and I came on at 10 until midnight,a quite uneventful watch.We kept about 3 miles off the beach at night.Saw a few rain showers passing.

Bruv got up early for his watch and made us a welcome cup of tea.

Back to the bunk until 4am when we came on again.

Dawn broke near the end of our watch,a light west wind n the water.Went down for an hour or so,heard some ratting around about 8 so got up.

Rod showed and immediately spotted a boat on our Starboard bow.As we got closer we saw it was a fishing vessel lying on rope 4 miles off shore.

Just passed him when the engine slowed,suggested we shut it down before it used all the left fuel in the front tanks,we did not wish to have to bleed the air out of the system.

I went down and switched over to the rear tanks while Biggs and co put the deck fuel into the empty ones.Happy to have something to do I suspect.

Well better have a think,we were expecting a bit more mileage from that lot.Did the numbers and got 9.7 liters per mile.We think we under estimated the slower running effect on the last leg and the extra one ton of deck fuel.

Rod wants to go to Ceduna to fill up and hope to miss Port Lincoln altogether and go to Robe.

Not all bad then.

Had a few quite pleasant hours when the wind was light and from behind ,the shorts came out.

Morning tea while I was writing so better get in for my cut,food does not last long around here !

A couple of crew having a celebratory after leaving Esperance.

Morning tea.

Off watch. Probably a bit mean but part of shipboard life.Our Polish crew member .

Biggs insisted I advise you I evidently did not save the first version of today's 

blog properly ,a bit of a pain but do have plenty of time out here.No service so could not post it.