I awoke early and prepared the yacht for the next leg of the trip. I was covered in bruises and very stiff and sore. After a light breakfast of a few crackers, I upped anchor and headed off. Sometime during the night the fishing boats had left, although the yacht was still at anchor in the distance. I was running out of time and need to make sure I was in Bundaberg in time to meet my brother James. I needed to solder on.
Rounding the Western headland of South Percy it was clear the seas were better than the initial start of the trip. They were still on the nose, and they were 2.5-3m consistently with now waves coming from the East and South East causing an uncomfortable rocking, the biggest difference was the wind remained in the 30's(not hitting the 40's) so not quite as much spray was over the yacht, also the waves were about 6 to 7 seconds apart. It was this difference between the waves that made a huge difference. 6 to 7 seconds is still close, but when compared to 4 seconds, the yacht often (not always) had a chance to roll over the waves and up the next. It was now only every large set that the yacht would crash down off the wave rather then every wave. It was not pleasant, but it was better than the shocker on the first day.
Speed was still not ideal, but it was better. The initial stretch had the speed ranging between 4-5 knots, but as the tide changed, this picked up to 5-6knots.
As I passed the entrance to Port Clinton, with fuel back to 1/4 full, I was able to drop the speed to hold the bow into the wind and waves, and rather than lose time anchoring in Port Clinton (which was a backup) I filled the fuel tanks from the soft pack on deck using a hose while underway. 20min later, with a full fuel tank and almost empty soft pack, I was underway again.
With the seas slightly better than the first day, I was not in quite as bad a position as the first day, but I was cold and tired. I decided I needed to keep warm, and resting in the cockpit was not working. I went down below and placed 3 towels on my bunk bed to keep the bed dry. I set my alarm for 10-15min intervals, once I was comfortable there was nothing on the horizon, once the sun set and the navigation lights were on, I would rest below for short intervals until the alarm would wake me.
At 2.30am in the morning I arrived off the northern side of Great Keppel Island to anchor. Once again the bay was full of vessels at anchor and it was dark. I crept as close as I could to the shore and protection and anchored with 6m under the keel. I had a quick shower to was off the salt spray, left my wet clothes in the cockpit and rolled into bed at 3am. I'd had 4 dry biscuits and a banana all day.
I set the alarm for 8am. I no longer had the fuel to make it to Bundaberg, I would have to take a small detour to Roslyn bay Marina, 8 nm away to the West on the mainland in the morning to top off all my fuel tanks.
At 7am I woke and had breakfast. There was no trouble raising the anchor, although I did have to raise and lower it several times as it was so well embedded in the sand and mud.
I headed over to Roslyn Bay Marina, arrived at 10am but had to wait until another vessel had finished refueling. After topping off the tanks, and getting a pine lime ice-cream as a treat, I left the Marina at 11am and headed south east to the Cape of Capricon, back past Great Keppel Island and Hummocky Island (approx. 31nm away from the Marina). As the sun was setting, I rounded Cape Capricon and out of the tropics. Now was an almost straight line from the Cape to Bundaberg Port (approx. 104nm away). This would be another day night trip alone.
The weather had improved significantly. The wind was under 30knots and the seas approx. 1.5-2m. My speed increased once I rounded the point, possibly because of the currents, and slowly climbed from approx. 5-6knots to 6-7knots. I kept the habit of going to bed and resting for 15min stints (except when I was passing Gladstone when I either remained on watch or reduced the time to 7-10min depending on the level of risk). It helped to keep me refreshed, as I was cold and tired, but also time seemed to pass more quickly.
I continued to do this through the night... (to be continued).