The Crossing Continued

The winds have been good the entire time we have been out here. There has been 25 to 40 knots of wind and at times we are making 7.5 - 8 knots of speed. It is weird sometimes not being able to see land. We are not scared but sometimes get nervous when we hear large waves hit the side or creaking sounds from the lines. It is only about 6 more days until we get to Thursday Island. Then it will be another 3 days until we arrive in Darwin. Matthew and I have not played many games because when
we do we don't feel well. It is really rolly now and then. But other than that we are doing great.
We are making great progress and a couple of nights ago I had my first night shift with my Dad. When you are on night shift you keep your eye on the radar and watch out to make sure that you do not run into anything or anyone. You also make sure that the autopilot doesn't go out. Now and then you change you direction a couple of degrees depending on which way you want to go to stay on track and adjust the sails to help.
talk to you soon,
Tristan

From Vanuatu to Australia

We're sailing! Today we started our 10 day passage across the Coral Sea to Australia. So far we haven't done that much lately expect for preparing for the crossing. Finally today we left. By preparing we cooked up groceries for meals so we don't have to cook so much on the passage. We went to an internet place to help find out the weather for the next days. The weather in Vanuatu hasn't been to good. It has been raining a ton. But at least we were able to catch a lot of water for our tanks.
So far the first day of passage was pretty calm until we got out of the islands. Now it is a bit rolly. The average wind speed is 15 knots and we are going a good speed of 6 or 7 knots. None of have gotten sea sick and we are all feeling fine.

Tristan

Dugongs and magic rocks

Lately our adventures have been about dugong's, which are like salt water manatees or sea cows, and magic rocks which the locals think have powers. When we were at Epi we learned about the dugong and how sometimes he came to the bay. They are supposed to be very friendly and come up to you to get their tummy rubbed. When we saw it from our boat it looked like a baby whale. It turns out that it has a whale tail and yet looks very different. We could see it so well that we hopped in the dinghy
and rowed over. We kept following it until we dove in to swim with it. We were able to see it well in the water and we kept following it as fast as we could. But we still couldn't keep up with it even though it looked like the laziest thing in the world. Then we left Epi and headed to Malakula. There are Magic rocks there that are supposed to make storms when you strike together make storms occur. The magic rocks are just Quarts and they actually make a blue flash when you strike them together.
Even though there wasn't a storm its till was very interesting how they made a spark.

Tristan