Sailing into a Gale: Solomons to Australia WHSE140

In this episode I leave the Solomon Islands alone on my 27-foot boat heading to Australia on the passage. I'm faced with a big decision: do I stop at the Louis AES to wait for better weather that may never come or do I keep going until 35? gnarly winds and 4 meter seas I'm breaking my no coffee rule in favor of enjoying today because I think it's going to be the only nice day of the next 6 and 1 half 7 days of this crossing and I don't want to get out and about we're going to the storm my alarm clock this morning was a giant wave crashing all over my boat this is the really intense part the waves are forming they are starting to break now and I'm not sure how much worse it's going to get I almost crashed into a boat and how scary It's just that my AIS alarm didn't sound.

I've been waiting for a weather window to leave the Solomon Islands for Australia for the last 2 weeks and what I'm starting to realize is that there isn't going to be one because I'm trying to leave too early in the season, it's now the 20th. September and most people don't start leaving for Australia until early October, because that's when it all starts. to calm myself down a bit, however, I already have a plane ticket purchased to fly to Indonesia to visit Dan in uru, so I'm trying a little hard to get to Australia so I can make that plane ticket. leave my boat in the Solomons and fly from here and there really isn't any good place to leave it in the Solomons that I would feel comfortable with, plus I still have to make the passage when I get back and I have an even smaller window of time to for that to happen so basically I'm going to go and I've talked to a lot of people and they say that Louis AES which is between the Solomon Islands and Australia is an amazing place to stop over so I can get kind of two trunks with a weather window, one to take me to the boys and then another to take me from Louis Aids to Townsville, which is where I'm

sailing

to clear.

I left this morning. Super simple and easy procedure for the guys. huru left two weeks ago and they said the Customs people were coming on board and they were trying to get them t-shirts or towels or food or makeup, all these rules so they had to get things, so I refused. go to the dock and I offered to take them to my boat in the rowboat, which they declined so I wouldn't have to go through that process, we just left the port and now I'm going, uh, there are some fads. Those fish rigs here, which is a little scary because it's getting dark, but I'm hoping that as I get further away from the coast, I'll stop seeing them and that's all I can hope for because I can't stand on the B of being the center of attention all night, so I'm just going to hope that luck is on my side and enjoy this beautiful sunset and this beautiful first night of partying and see what tomorrow brings.

Well, here's why it's so hard to sleep unless you're exhausted. I'm just going to stay here like I'm sleeping and you'll see how much my body moves. Well, you'll also see that the camera can't even be raised. This is the second day of my trip and, um, this has been nice. great because I have about 1 and 1/2 knots of current with me which means I can have a slightly reduced windage and don't have to get up as much at night for gusts or pay as much attention to weather changes, it's been quite relaxing so far, which is quite a pleasure, you know, each passage has a slightly different flavor, some are about enduring, some are about delight and some are about simply existing and I've had a lot of resistance passages lately, uh, and this one is more about about exists and this is not a negative thing.

I just do not know. I'm not lying outside in the sun. Oh my god, my god, this is incredible and I'm not lying down trying to figure it out either. Putting my mind elsewhere letting everything I've been thinking and worrying about go away. I spent the last 10 days pretty isolated in the Solomon Islands after a huru left waiting for this weather window. I've spent a lot of time. talking on the phone trying to decide when to leave because it's been a really tough weather window and I felt like a big part of my mind hasn't been present, been tied down and all this other stuff and now I'm just here at sea doing my thing without no one but myself to think about anyone's opinion to listen to and as much as that was a lifesaver when I was on the coast, when I see it it becomes something really nice that I can get away from.

Well, tomorrow is the end of my second full day. I'll be coming in. I'm pretty nervous about coming to my first Village alone before. I have always had the protection of a huru or another friendly ship. I feel very vulnerable being alone in the gek, and if I had another option, I don't think I would have challenged this option, but it's really the only way to get to Australia so early in this season, because there's just not going to be a window. weather that's good enough for me to get there and probably everything will be fine, it's just been easy to navigate because I don't have to make as many sales to go at that speed.

I want to go, that means I'm not constantly dealing with sales, what made me realize is that I can average over 100 miles a day on the Geck, but for me that means really powering my boat, while the people in bigger boats. who are doing 100 mile days are probably just relaxing the same way I'm relaxing now with this extra gift of a knot from the current Gods um instead of always being on the verge of having to make a sale change, I just think, um, but anyway interesting perspective, it's the second day here at sea and I woke up on the Lee of the Louis AES, which means the wind is still strong but the sea is very low, it's basically flat and It feels amazing after getting kicked for the last 2 days I have a pretty big decision to make today.

I'm deciding if I'm going to stop at Louis AIDS or continue so I'm texting my mom on the little Garmin I have at my fingertips trying to get the best picture of what it looks like out there so this is part of the Garmin conversation I was having with my mom. The hard part was that I couldn't see the weather. I can get a GPS point and get the weather on that. period, but that doesn't really work well for an ocean crossing because you need to know a little more about weather trends than just the weather at a specific point, plus every time I get the weather it counts as a text message and I only get 40 So my Mom was doing her best to share with me what was happening in 140 character texts and I was using only that small amount of information to try to make a decision.

It's the opposite of everything we saw together in Wy, so. I'm very confused. I like the idea of ​​not stopping at Louis AIDS, but not in rough seas. Very confused, not sure what to do. She just says these are the bad days. Sunday Monday Friday Saturday I'm trying to figure out if I should push. Through those bad days to get to the better days or not, I finally decided to go ahead and get through the bad weather and see what happened. I'm breaking my C rule of not drinking coffee in favor of enjoying today because I think it's going to be the only pleasant day of the next 6 and 1 half 7 days of this passage, um, so I'm going to have my coffee outside, um , maybe make some cookies, uh, yeah, I don't know, just live like a little man before it gets terrible. and scary and wet, the reason I decided to go ahead was that it didn't look like there was going to be a better weather window, uh, even if I waited about a week on the Louis AIDS, I would potentially be stuck there for quite a while.

Meanwhile the weather was showing a lot of 30 degree windy days, a lot of 3 to 4 meter seas and they weren't really going away, so the fear was that I would get to the Louis A stop and then wouldn't be able to keep up. go or just wait a week and then get into the same type of nasty weather I was already facing and since I was already in pass mode I decided to go ahead and take my chances and see what happened and my amazing family. was behind me as I am usually encouraged to do what I felt was right, Juror B Fixing My Hatch Dog seems to be holding all of Hill's jaws.

These hatch dogs are very important because the hatch leaks without them and broke just before. I left the first storm that just happened, it cleared up and I could see a little atle and it looks like a clearing and signs of civilization and I felt this pain inside me because it's so nice and flat and protected, and I was like I don't want to go out there . I don't want to get beat up. I'd rather stay here, but yeah, that's not an option, so we go out and into the storm, so this is where I'm going through now. between these two things reef um it's all pretty reef here but this is like when it's wet this is my line and then I'm going to follow this path uh there we go it's very hard on the bag right?

So this is the road I was talking about, it's 26 feet long and about 5 miles wide and yeah, I don't know, I mean it was the best one I could pick because it was the widest and the deepest, but I'm still nervous . for that part and I think the sun is going to set right when I get to the pass so I won't even be able to see what's coming towards me which is a little scary as I got closer to the pass the wind started to pick up until It was blowing between i30 and medium to high, the pass is scary because basically all the wind and waves of the Pacific Ocean are funneled through this really narrow gap and as with any pass, you never really know what you're going to find until you you arrive.

Now this one is very wide and very deep, it's a couple of miles wide and 8 miles long and boats go through it, but I still don't really know what I'm going to get and little by little I'm going to start to get out of it. the Lee of the Louis AIDS right now the reef is protecting me from the biggest waves, but I think they are over 4 M. I am certainly getting the wind because the reef doesn't stop that, but I just don't know. What awaits me once I get out there. I kept going to reduce the sail even more until I was

sailing

with only a Reef Main triple and the storm drib, which helped a little to feel a little calmer, but when the wind blows. building like this and it is being built very quickly, it is scary because you don't know when it will stop being built.

I just put the storm jib in place of the working jib and now things have calmed down again. I'm kind of playing with getting it out. the third reef and place the second, but I'm not too sure because some of these gusts are pretty crazy. I don't know if you can hear the wind through the camera, it's quite windy, oh yeah, this is my new technology that I'm using to keep my hood closed because I'm really sunburned all over my body and I'm trying to cover everything what I can. I'm very nervous about this pass. I am 7 and a half years old. miles to get to it and I've never been nervous, well actually probably my first two otus passes I was nervous about um, but this one I don't know, I mean it's blowing 30 and there are huge seas out there and I just don't know what I'll do if I can't get it out and I don't know if I'll be able to stop once I turn it on and it's 8m long so it's not just a smile, your teeth, your teeth.

Grit your teeth and hold on like I've been in some of those situations in both modes, but it's usually over pretty quickly, so yeah, at least I'm getting used to the wind while there are still relatively small waves that are making a big difference. Um, I don't know, I just want to get there and see what it is and then be able to relax, but it's this wait like this whole day of sailing there that's killing me, so the sun set about half an hour ago. and I'm just getting into the step. I just turned the corner and have about 9 and a half miles to go.

This is the really intense part because I'm not sure you know the waves are forming they're starting to break now uh and I'm not really sure how much worse it's going to get because sometimes the passes can be really bad so I'm sitting in the cabin trying to distract myself with the podcast and keeping an eye on the waves, there is a little bit of a moon, I think it's almost a half moon, so it will be present for the first few hours, um, so there will be enough light to see the waves when I get through anyway, just thought I'd come and report that.

Now I'm going back and, uh, the obsession is getting real. I have two reefs on the main and storm jib up and it's nice to know I have that third reef if I need it, like I have somewhere to go there. It was a period where I had the third reef and the storm jib and then I felt a bit stuck because if the wind got stronger then I was thinking about hitting one of those two sails. It seems like things are staying pretty stable so far. Every once in a while there will be a massive thud when I hit a wave or like a big splash when a wave hits the cockpit, um, but for the most part it's yeah, we're just climbing each wave. eating one of my favorite delicacies at Sea, which are mandarin orange wedges and syrup, these things are sodelicious and the best part is that I eat them out of the can with my fingers and drink syrup with my mouth outside the can.

I'll be sleeping but I feel like I need some of these things first. It's so rough under my alarm this morning there was a giant wave crashing all over my boat and crashing into it. It's actually draining pretty well. I'm happy to say I was a little scared because this is my fear about Seas. He's so big I'll just fill the cabin and he'll never drink but not that much, he actually ended up getting in and everything's going pretty well so that's good, last night It was pretty wild, there are some pretty big waves here, um. strong wind same thing okay good I've been depressed for so long but my mind can't rest no no I've been depressed so long that my mind can't rest no no this is not easy Honey, because the developers are in my Tria.

I've been running so long that my feet don't work anymore. Oh yeah. I've been running for so long. Let my feet no longer work. Oh no, it's not EAS, it's bold. when the developer was on my trail, oh yeah, come on, oh no, I'm telling you one more time. I can't run, I can't hide, I can't stay anymore, no, I can't run, I can't hide, I can. I can't take it anymore, oh no, I'll tell you one more time, darling, when it's necessary to make you better, so something very surreal and slightly terrifying happened to me last night.

I almost hit a boat and the scary thing is that my AIS alarm didn't go off so I was like I just left the channel. In the navigation lane I still couldn't get out because the wind was pushing me towards it as close as I could. I was basically surfing. Street in the shipping channel, uh, I woke up because my boat spun and I thought what happened was the wind vein went bad because sometimes it does that and it puts me facing the wind, uh, and what I have to do It's running outside. and grab the helm and get back on course and that was terrifying in itself because you don't want to play with that stuff when it's blowing 35 because your boat can once turn up, then turn down again and then you just go like sails with a beam that the wind and waves reach and it was terrifying so I just ran out of bed and ran onto the deck thinking I needed to grab the helm to get back on course and I looked and all I could see was just a block of bright lights and what had happened was this boat was so close to me that it completely obscured 35 knots of wind from my sails and that's when the boat righted itself and I looked at the AIS and Like this is like a dream sequence, but I swear God what happened as soon as I looked at it, it started beeping, then something happened with the AIS and it didn't fire at that ship and it was so disorienting because it wasn't there.

I didn't expect to wake up and almost crash into a boat. I got back on course and the boat I don't think they even noticed me, like my VHF was on channel 16. They could have harassed me if they had seen me, but clearly they didn't and if I had been another 50 feet away, I would have crashed into them, uh, because I felt like I was dreaming the whole time, it hasn't really scared me, but I feel like I should, so I keep trying to do it. I dig deep into myself and find the fear, but it's not there.

I just feel like I had a really strange dream. Here's my new invention, the tilt table that compensates for the tilt of the boat so you can put a cup of something on it without it falling. over the edge I'm passing between two cargo ships right now, this is crazy. I got blown up a bit last night, of course, and ended up on a shipping route. This morning I got up and was able to alter course. Very slightly. I'm getting off the shipping route, but it's pretty intense. I only had to call one of the ships to change course and the other took course, which put me in the path of the one who had altered course for me, so I'm very excited to get out of the shipping lane, you know. , I was worried this sale would be boring, but there is a lot going on.

I can smell the cargo ship and it's like my nose is eagerly searching for that smell of anything. That's not all the smells I've been smelling for the last 5 days. Wow, these are just big waves. Stocka waves. Well, it's the end of day five. The seas are calming and the wind is calming. It's funny so I put the working jib on today and triple reefed the main jib because I had a reef on the main jib and the storm jib and I was a little underpowered but with three reefs on the working jib I feel a bit that is perfectly powered, but generally I like to reduce power a little at night, but I really have nowhere to go with this setup and I feel like the storm jib is not very well balanced, so I will try to see how it goes.

I'm not really sure if the wind is going to decrease further, but I do know that this will slowly decrease over the next 24 hours and then the next two days should be very pleasant, so I hope the wind decreases with them. I need to stay relatively powered up because I'm close to close sailing and I need to make that tack angle when the waves calm down. I managed to make a slightly better angle of attack and get out of the boat which was amazing so this morning I found two boats at the same time and then a fishing boat and for the last 3 hours there has been nothing.

I'm about 6 miles from the shipping lane and I'm going to continue slightly parallel to the shipping lane, but maybe 15 million. get out of there and then hopefully not run into as much boat traffic all day today. I kept asking myself if that really happened last night. I almost hit another boat and it happened. It's crazy. I mean, the only reason I woke up was because the ship was so close to me that it blocked the wind from my sales and I went around it. I mean, I was half asleep and very exhausted, but I was probably 50 feet away from him.

It was crazy. I don't know why the AIS alarm doesn't. she trails off, but for some reason I keep repeating it over and over in my head that it happened just because I don't want to, I don't know, like I haven't realized it yet. Eldis Huxley wrote a book called The Island where when people experience traumatic events instead of trying to ignore them, they tell themselves over and over again to accept it and move on and not stay in that little hidden corner of themselves and I think that a part of me is doing it. that Al was planning this encounter with the boat, but looking back, I was thinking about it and had the VHF on 16, so if someone was awake on that boat, they would have an altered course or B would wave at me, you'd think, but They didn't.

Not so, obviously they didn't know either as I came within 50 feet of losing my boat and potentially dying. Well, I don't even want to talk about that anymore. It's already the sixth day here. I've been sleeping a lot today. That night the wind really picked up and the waves really picked up and everything got very intense. Day seven, the sea is very low, it's a little steeper and the wind is still howling for a great day nine, uh, wind from 20 to 25 se is just a Much better, chop blad, uh, good morning from Australia, thank you to watch this week's episode.

It was fun to edit, a little intense at times and it definitely made me come back very happy to not be in that passage anymore, thank you all for your comments. I'm looking forward to hearing what you have to say about this passage and many thanks to my sponsors who support me and make this trip possible. If you want to become a patron, my patreon is patreon.com and for runtime. donations I have a PayPal paypal.me /wi Tippy uh as you know my videos lag a little bit behind real time so as I mentioned at the beginning of the video this footage is from September when I left the Solomon Islands and now I have just finished a big month and a half period working on the Geck, getting it ready for my next sailing season, which depends on Indo and beyond, so if anyone can help donate some money towards that renovation, unfortunately I did a tour When they took the boat out of the water, the pressure washing washed away many large chunks of gelcoat, so I had to re-raise the entire bottom like I did in Polynesia 2 years ago.

I had to let go of the rudder, which meant drilling. The holes in this geg to get to the bolts were given more solar power so I could charge my laptop more efficiently and be able to continue making edits to hand them over to you and just a bunch of little things that broke or needed replacing, have already been The last 2 months have been a bit expensive and as always I appreciate your contributions so I can continue creating content and sailing a boat that is relatively seaworthy and of course I filmed everything I did over the next month or two in those episodes. will be streamed live so you can see all the work being done on little L specco.

Thanks Tish for helping me remember when I need to do another edit and put these videos online and if you want merchandise if you like the merchandise. I have a page for that too. It's all in the description below. Take a look at all the stuff down there and I think that's it. I'll see you next week with one of our special little snacks and everyone else. See you on YouTube for the second half of this episode and when it gets to Australia and the clearance procedures, etc., Hulu.