Third Blog from onboard Perie Banou II

by Jon Sanders on 18 Nov 2016 16/11/16

It is 0830am here. 1030 in Western Australia. Windy. Rather Windy. Wind over the last week has been quiet and mild - Trade Winds from South East and South South East. Barometer 1018 to 1020 whatever they are. Last night I tapped the barometer and it sorta went oops. 1015hPa. Blimey.

Looked outside. Nice, mild 18 knot SSE. Bit of fleck on the modest wave top, BUT the word ‘but’ usually means whatever you just said was a lie. There was a new big swell from the south, with 3/8 of cumulus cloud. The rest of the sky was blue.
The clouds were in a hurry, going from South to North. Hmmm – ‘think I will put a second reef in the mainsail’, which I did. Settled down for the night. Quiet and pleasant sailing. Doing 4 ½ to 5 Kts boat speed.

By midnight the wind was 25/30kts from the south. In the cockpit, I furled my long-range working jib, which is actually a #4 jib, to 1/3 size. By morning, the wind was 30kt gusting 35kts. Half cloud, rest fine, as it is now.

It’s difficult typing on the iPad. Rough. We’re making good progress to the West. 7 to 8kts boat speed. Thought you’d want to know.

Anyway, back to Carnarvon. To leave Australia by yacht, one must clear out with Customs. And they, Customs, must attend the yacht’s departure. At other lands (I mean countries) one must find their office, sometimes more than one office, and wait. Bali in Indonesia has 4 or 5 offices. You get that. Anyway it is not ‘Australian Customs’ anymore. It is now ‘Border Force’ and they wear guns. (they do so).

My experience leaving and arriving from/to Australia by yacht has always been nice, even fun. It was no less at Carnarvon. Formalities were done by Lisa, the Officer in Charge of the region, and her next male rank down. Their uniforms neat and casual appearance goes with their pleasant demeanour. (Yet alertness).

To arrive in Australia by yacht, the Master must give Border Force good advance notice. Usually from the prior port or wherever. Heavy Penalties apply if you do not. Arrival must be at an official 'port of entry'. (Not any town).

In major ports like Darwin, one might get five officers, three dogs and a gadget that can look under the vessel. By the time one has completed formal documents and formalities, they are gone. Vanished in an hour. Like Australian airports you cannot bring in plant products, vegetables, eggs or like.

The B&G screen in front of me is making me a bit on the cool side. Could it be the fan just above it? I just turned it on. B&G tells me I am 1482 NM from Carnarvon, and have 1829 NM to Port Galets on Reunion Island.

Murray France (he will be reading this) would be impressed if he saw the array of B&G gear I have on this yacht. The beautiful installation is incredible. I will come back to all that later.

David Bowe, farmer and explorer on motorbikes, helped ready this yacht. Gave, on my departure, an excellent book by renowned geologist, Dr Phillip Playford, named ‘Carpet of Silver’. It covers the story and intrigue surrounding the loss of the Dutch East India Ship, Zuytdorp, on the steep, long, treacherous mid-western cliffs of Western Australia, between 300 and 400 years back. Well written. Easy to read and is available at the WA Maritime Museum or Chart and Map Shop.

We who have sailed in low powered yachts and fishing vessels, going north or south, off that forbidding coast, grit our teeth in the region, especially when the south winds are strongest against the Leeuwin Current and the effects of the ‘Zuytdorp’ cliffs.

The book makes much mention of Murchison House and Tamala Stations. In the 1960s I was the wool classer overseer of the shearing team on those stations.

It has been difficult typing the above. Because it is now as ruff (spelling) as bags.
Warmest wishes to all.

Jon

Notes From Robin Morritt (Geologist and friend)

Jon is making steady progress. He is approximately mid-way between Australia and Madagascar, just north of the Tropic of Capricorn. He and PBII are enjoying the Trade Winds and the westward-flowing South Equatorial Current.

PBII has crossed the Ninety East Ridge, one of the two major longitudinal structures dominating the Indian Ocean seabed. The other is the Chagos - Laccadive Ridge, further to the west. At the northern end of this ‘railway line’ is India. Linear chains of sub-sea volcanoes (seamounts) define these two topographic features. Atolls may be formed once emergent volcanoes become dormant, or cease activity, and are eroded back to sea level.

The Ninety East Ridge is a major planetary topographical feature by any measure. It is located along the 90º E longitude, the longitude, or great-circle hemisphere, located 90º E of the Prime Meridian /00º longitude. A quarter of the way around the planet from Greenwich in England. The Ninety East Ridge is approximately 5,000km in length, a couple of hundred kilometres wide and it includes seamounts that reach from the seabed, at nominally 4,000m below the sea surface, to within 500m of the sea surface. For comparison: Perth - Sydney 3,280km; Los Angeles - New York 3,944km. The highest seamount is approximately 11,000 ft.

Jon sailed right over the Ninety East Ridge with two reefs in the mainsail and a snip of the No. 3 jib unfurled… He was probably in his starboard bunk watching a movie, or dozing.

The Chagos - Laccadive Ridge includes sub-sea volcanoes and atoll clusters. Diego Garcia is an atoll, part of the Chagos Archipelago, used by the USA as a naval air base since the 1970’s.

Approximately 500km to the north and along the C - L Ridge is the Maldives Archipelago. The oceanic crust, the uppermost igneous part of the tectonic plate under the Indian Ocean itself, is complex and holds the secrets to the breakup of Gondwanaland commencing approximately 180 million years ago… The oldest oceanic crust in this region is that age - the youngest is being formed today. Compare that to the oldest know rocks on planet earth, located in Western Australia, at approximately 4,400 million years. Interestingly, the very oldest oceanic crust under existing oceans covering our planet is only approximately 200 million years - most of the oceanic crust is a lot younger, including some forming today. Given approximately 70% of the planet is covered by oceans and associated oceanic crust; consider the implications for the age of these seafloor igneous rocks and their spatial reach versus the age of the oldest known rocks and the age of the planet itself.

Remnant Tethys oceanic crust (the former ocean and associated oceanic crust between Gondwanaland and the Eurasian Plate) can still be found today in the eastern Mediterranean. You can sail across it! To get anywhere near the bulk of what was the original Tethys oceanic crust (and associated sea-floor sediments) you would need to be a mountaineer and visit Nepal or China.

The current technical understanding of plate tectonics and sea floor spreading, the reasoning and hypotheses behind the observations, made significant advances as a result of work undertaken by German polar researcher, geophysicist and meteorologist Robert Wegener in the earliest part of the 20th Century - less than 100 years ago. Wegener’s work and the work of others was consolidated and refined through the 20th Century with geological and technical advances, including advances in geophysics that enabled the identification of magnetic polar reversal patters in ocean crust rocks.
Certain information and technical terms are, on occasion, necessary. Click onto this material and use your search engine to gain insight.

In order to more easily follow some of the discussion go to Jon’s website, click onto the “Clientsat and Predictwind Tracker” and then choose ‘satellite’ not ‘map’. More detailed seafloor information can be gleaned from Google Earth. Transfer current latitude/longitude information to Google Earth for accurate location of PBII over particular seafloor features. Go to ‘Layers’ and switch on ‘Ocean’ for other great information.

Jon loves his milky coffee… He makes it with water, powdered milk, granulated ‘standard’ coffee-in-a-jar and sugar. The milk is mixed and pre-heated on the Origo stove. It is then added to his mug, which has been readied with the coffee and sugar. Unless things are hectic and blowing on deck he will generally have a mug when on evening-watch and on dawn-watch. Come to thing of it, the coffee generally gets prepared, spilled and more-or-less consumed regardless! Don’t ask about the mess…

For Jon and Perie Banou II: “The days pass happily with me wherever my ship sails.” (Joshua Slocum)