Christmas Island…. Wednesday, 18/09/2024
Well, we arrived at Christmas Island this morning. It was a long voyage: 15 days, a day or two longer than expected because the wind was light and variable. We sailed just over 1,500 nautical miles, so made only 100 miles a day, pretty slow. A few days, we were hardly moving during daylight: the wind fell to only 4 or 5 knots, meaning we were crawling along at 1.5 to 1.8 knots. But of course the weather was excellent: blue skies and sunshine. The temperature hardly changes out at sea: during the day it was 27 degrees, and at night no more than half a degree cooler. In fact I felt really strange this morning when I pulled on a t-shirt to go ashore and meet with the authorities. It was the first time in 15 days that I had worn a shirt! That’s the tropical life for you: your standards drop!
We left the marina in Darwin through the lock, which at the time of departure meant a 1.5 metre (5 foot) drop. Out of Darwin across the Beagle Channel and out into the Timor Sea. I chose to sail fairly north, closer to Indonesia, because this was where the best wind appeared to be. We passed briefly through the Savu Sea, and then basically it’s the Indian Ocean. A week ago we sailed over the Java Trench, which is over 6,000 metres (20,000 feet) deep – and at its deepest, over 7,000 metres (23,000 feet) – not that much short of Mount Everest! It is very long: about 265 nautical miles. As we got closer to Christmas Island, at one point there were a lot of Indonesian fishing boats out at night – it must be an area where the fish tend to congregate. They are easy to spot because they all seem to have two very bright spotlights, presumably to attract fish – fish always head for light. So even when they were just over the horizon, you could see the glare from their lights. They are a menace, because they do not show up on AIS – they either don’t have it, or they turn it off. I passed very close to one: it wasn’t big, perhaps 45 to 50 feet and rusty looking.
I did get visited by the Australian Border Force, when I was still in Australian territorial waters – the usual thing, you hear a plane coming very low, it passes then circles around. Had a very friendly chat with him over the radio – the only conversation I had in 15 days!
We had a slow run in here. It was clear that we couldn’t make it before nightfall yesterday, so I deliberately sailed slowly so that we would arrive just after dawn. At 05:30 we were just a few miles off. Motored the last couple of miles and came into Flying Fish Cove, the main port, at about 07:30. There are a few mooring balls here that you must tie up to. This is never easy when you’re alone, but after a couple of tries I caught the loop on the top of it, and that was that.
The atmosphere here is typical of a small island: very friendly. After checking in, I was filling three jerry cans with water and got talking to a lady who was looking after her grandchild. She then proposed that she would show me the island – we are meeting on Friday morning. Had a long chat with a young woman who’d been swimming – it was a good chance to take another break. Hauling three jerry cans, which I overfill to about 23 litres, and which therefore weigh about 24 kilograms each, in the heat, is hard work. I returned to the boat, decanted the water into one of the water tanks, and then went ashore again to look around – and get a Wi-Fi connection. Christmas Island only has an old 2G system, so while my Australian SIM card works, there’s no data. But the Tourist Information place has paid Wi-Fi and a strong signal. I bought 5 gigabytes. So if I want to access the internet or use WhatsApp, I can go and sit outside there at any time, day or night.
The water in Flying Fish Cove, which is the main port, is pristine. I noticed that when I came in this morning – you can see the bottom clearly, mostly coral, and thousands of multicoloured fish. So after hauling three more jerrycans of water this afternoon, I went for a swim, taking my goggles and providing some entertainment for the fish. Many of them are curious and they swim right up to you, or hover a few feet away staring at you. Good fun! And the chance to feel cool – when you get out of the water and have the breeze on your wet body you start feeling chilly. Natural air conditioning!
There’s one other boat here, an English boat called Zephyr, from Falmouth, which passed me during the night. It’s a couple – I had a long chat with them this morning. Very nice people. They left Darwin the same time as me and are also headed to Mauritius, and then on to Richard’s Bay in South Africa, rather than going down the coast to Durban. Richard’s Bay is apparently very easy to clear in, and to a lot of foreigners it’s more attractive than Durban because of it’s close proximity to the game reserves.
I’m going out this evening. There is a shower block ashore, and then I’ll walk along to the pub, the Bosun Brewery, which serves food. It will be good to have a change from eating tinned stuff on the boat. Should be easy using the dinghy at night because last night it was full moon, so there should be plenty of light tonight as long as the odd cloud isn’t blocking it.
It’s a funny feeling being somewhere like Christmas Island. Never did I think that I would ever see it. It is rather remote, and is pretty far from Australia – it’s closest to the Indonesian island of Java, more or less directly south of Jakarta, which is at Java’s western end.