A Slow Boat From China - Into the Storm

Friday 6th April 2012

Our progress since leaving yesterday evening and up until midnight (for the 5th April) was as follows:

Progress shown in bold blue line

At midnight we had just passed the tip of the island of Dangan Dao, which is approximately only 16 miles from our mooring at Aberdeen Harbour.

During the night falling asleep wasn't a problem - staying asleep was. The boat was rolling heavily so if I laid lengthways to the boat there was a constant battle not to fall off the narrow bench that I was sleeping on and hence kept waking up due to nearly falling off.  If I slept across the boat then it was akin to being on one of those fairground rides where you alternate between weightlessness to having all the blood rush to your head and then a lightheadedness as it all drains back to your feet.

Hence, waking up at 3:00am to take over steering the boat/watch wasn't so much as a chore but a relief.  As we took over, Adam gave me look and nodded towards Brian.  I gave him a 'What?' look back and he sidled up to me and told me that Brian had been completely unable to steer the boat and had spend quite some time just going around in circles, hence Adam had done the vast majority of the steering.

Admittedly it was extremely difficult to steer as the heavy cloud cover and the darkness made it pitch black and therefore there was no moon or stars to follow, and we were beyond sight of land and any shore lights to use as a reference.  It was very easy to become completely disorientated.  The only guide we had was a handheld GPS device that was swinging about and had a delay in referencing your actual direction to the one you'd just steered in.  Furthermore, with the screens down to keep the weather out they were acting like a sail with the strong wind blowing on them, in a boat with no fin keel such as you'd have in a yacht and so we were at the mercy of the wind, waves, tides and currents.  Steering the boat in a straight line was akin to steering a bumper car on ice.

GPS track of the boat - hardly a straight line

The sun rise didn't happen, it was just too overcast.  All that happened was the sky went from black to dark grey and stayed that way for most of the day.  I was looking forward to a cup of tea or coffee but boiling water was deemed too dangerous, what with the boat rocking and rolling around as much as it was and the gas hob wasn't on a gimble so there was a real danger of a kettle of boiling water sliding off and scalding someone.

All there was to do was sit about or take turns spinning the boat around.  Looking at my GPS it was apparent that with the zig-zagging and spinning around we were taking a far longer route than if we were heading in a straight line so I was concious that fuel might become an issue at some point.

By late morning the sea had calmed down somewhat which made for a significantly more pleasant and smoother journey.

John spent his time fishing off the back of the boat and spirits were raised when he caught a rather splendid looking Mahi-Mahi fish, which rather spectacularly changed colours as it died.  This was then was the principle ingredients for a somewhat late lunch and very delicious it was too.  Cooking lunch was a rather hazardous affair with the boat pitching around but we had to eat something.

Mahi-Mahi caught by John

Brian pretends he's caught a fish 

. . . and a change of colour

By late afternoon the wind picked up and we were jumping around again.  We passed a couple of oil rigs and I looked at the support vessels nearby and longed to be on one of those instead.  With the side of the boat acting like a sail we seemed to pick up a bit more speed.

We passed several oil rigs

Checking my GPS again it was becoming obvious that we had no chance of completing this trip in the time we were told it would take unless we were on a fast tide and with some very strong winds behind us.  My calculation was that we would arrive some time Monday night, assuming there were no delays or problems.

That night, and with the winds becoming even stronger making the boat roll even more alarmingly, Jim and I were on the midnight to 3:00am watch.  We passed a huge oil platform that lit up the sky and at our pedestrian speed seemed to take forever to reach and pass but other than that we just ploughed on into the the darkness.

Our progress for the day (6th April, from midnight to midnight was as follow: