Sailing 365 miles in 48 hours, thats flying for a small boat. It was a pretty rough and wild passage but personally I enjoyed it a lot. Poor Marie not quite so much. She was very brave though and made a good step, increasing her trust in the boat and doing a coupe of watches.
Enjoy!

Closed Captions (CC):
Good morning everyone, we are in Ambon

and it's before the sunrise. We are

preparing the boat

and i'm feeling pretty nervous.

Hi everyone we are about to set off from

Ambon to

Alor, it's a 350 mile passage,

weather doesn't look too good but yeah

here in Ambon it hasn't been good for

about five days so

we're getting sick of it and we're just

going to go. Weather forecasts

are saying it's going to be a fast

sail.

It's going to be a beam reach,

20 something knots

couple meters of swell and we're

probably going to be flying along and

bashing around a bit but

anyway join us on this uh two-day

crossing. It should be about

48 hours we should be able to do 160, 170

miles per day so uh we'll

we'll crack through this short crossing

pretty quickly.

I'll try and keep Marie from being

too scared

Looking forward to getting a stack pack,

get rid of this bloody sail cover.

i think we're going to get these gusts

it sort of percolates in this bay i think.

It's about seven or eight

miles that way we'll get out to open

ocean i hope

things are gonna calm down a bit.

Obviously there'll be swell but

it's it's been really stormy in here for

five days now just

rolling through, bit uncomfortable but

uh

hopefully we'll get some sunshine out

the ocean.

So you ready to go. I don't really

have the choice.

No we gotta go. So it's Marie's first

passage really, we did one the other

night but it wasn't really uh

it was just a short one so this is two

days and two nights well probably three

days and two nights

and yeah she's a bit uh nervous and a

bit scared and it's going to be a fast

one but um

yeah we're prepared we got food ready

the boat seems to be good

um yeah we're ready i'm gonna throw off

the mooring boy now and get going.

What an ugly mooring rope.

And smelly!

wow look at this

I'm sure there's going to be enough

waves flying over the boat in the next

days to clean it all.

That's good, all right let's go!

So we're actually motoring out of the bay there

is enough wind but it's really twisting

around inside this bay.

Wey've got the second reef we've got

the mainsail up with the second reef in

and we'll probably stay with the second

reef the whole crossing I

guess

uh just because the tear in the sail is

on the first reef

and I won't want to run with full sail

up with this much wind that we're going

to have

so probably run second reef and a bit

more of the jib

but we'll see. I'm actually motoring

out of this bay as i said we've had

shitty rainy weather here since

well i've been here four or five days

and it just hasn't stopped raining

really

so batteries have been getting a bit low

so just using this opportunity while the

water's flat to

motor for an hour. Once we round this point

over here we'll be

pretty much directly straight out in the ocean.

Yeew, sailing!

We're around the point just now and

uh

yeah we've got 20 knots exactly on

a beam reach

this is our course now, pretty much

straight on it and

uh this is probably what we've got to

look forward to for the next two or

three days.

So we're doing six and a half knots now

we need to do a 7.2 knot average to get

there

at early morning to give us time to find

anchorage

so we're going to put a bit of speed on

but should be good.

Imagine hitting that thing in the middle

of the night.

It's not a hardwood tree, it's a massive

big palm tree of some sort but

yeah sort of things that go bang in

the night.

So we're well underway now, we're about

uh

i don't know seven eight nine miles off

the coast,

um yeah it's just settled in we've got

24 25 knots of wind at the top of the

mast so a little bit less down here

we're doing oh eight eight and a half

knots um yeah there's a

one and a half two meter swell running

pretty much all what the forecast

said and yeah we're just running good we

could be going faster we've got

quite a bit of reefed sail up but um

this is still faster than our average we

need so we'll be able to slow down in

night a little bit if we have this all

day

and yeah just cruising. How are you

feeling?

I'm ok.

All right we're about five six hours

into this now,

nah a bit more than that I think it's

about two in the afternoon.

We've uh been flying along uh sort of

dodging squalls

we're about to get hit by one though,

over this way, this one.

and all around behind me is all squalls.

I've just reefed down a bit because now

we're at

yeah 35 knots of wind.

We've got good good boat speed

we've been sitting on eight knots pretty

much so it's pretty much above our

average we need to do and yeah all

comfortable.

Marie's downstairs chilling

and uh not feeling sick so far so that's

good and

we'll just keep moseying on.

Weather is crazy. We've been

battling the whole day.

Halfway through the night it went to

35 40 knots pretty much straight on the nose.

That slowed us down a lot we were reefed right down

Going straight into big swells and it

just was bashing us and

sort of got through six or seven hours

of that.

Yeah about an hour ago it came around

more on the beam and

let out some sail and started going

along again good

good uh speed and then just here out of

nowhere two minutes ago it was

22 knots and we were doing eight knots

and it was perfect and then

boom 48 knots, flattened us.

I rolled away the head sail now we're

just doing yeah

well we're still doing six knots just

with the main.

Woah, having enough of this it's just uh

not giving us a break

Marie's been down in bed feeling crook

the whole time and i've been getting

some sleep up here in the cockpit but

it's been raining and

ah it's not making it easy.

This is what 50 knots in a squall looks like.

Its just stupid!!

Good morning, just cruising along into

our second

morning and uh final morning of this

passage.

It was a pretty good night, cruising

along pretty well,

wind dropped off for an hour or so but

uh

and then i thought it was done actually

but then i was picked up nicely again

we're doing

seven and a half knots we've got about

18 19 knots of wind.

Actually got the engine running maybe

you can hear in the background, it's just

idling away uh,

just running a bit low on batteries.

We haven't had much sun on this passage

as you can see so

they're getting a bit getting a bit

empty with the autopilot having to work

hard

they were about 62 percent or something

before so i started the engine up just

to

just to boost them up don't damage the

batteries by running them too low.

Marie's still feeling pretty crook

she hasn't really been up uh in the last

36 hours really.

I've been giving her some food and drink and uh

some travel calm tablets, she's alright

but she's not enjoying

this passage that's for sure.

It's the longest one but also the

roughest one we've had so

i don't know she's been brave hopefully

she puts it behind her and it

won't put her off too much. She's looking

forward to arriving and putting the

anchor down and having a still platform

to sit on that's what she's looking

forward to.

but yeah it's all good, I feel sorry for

her but um

it's the joys of sailing a small

monohull I guess.

Anyway we'll get back to you when we arrive.

So, we are 30 miles from Alor

Its around 6 in the morning

Time for the sunrise, its pretty beautiful

Ah, Vernon is sleeping

because during these last

24 hours i was not really useful

even if i was better prepared than

the other crossing like,

its still super hard.

But yeah can't wait to see the land

Finally the land!!

Good morning, we are sitting here in

front of a tiny village that i don't yet

know the name of.

We arrived here today afternoon after

finishing our little passage

and uh we've just woken up now having

our first coffee

and feeling much better.

How do you fee this morning?

Much better too really less tired and

it's really a beautiful place

to recover. Yeah it was a

pretty wet and wild trip as you could

see, a lot of water flying over the boat

and

although we don't really have any leaks

everything still gets moist and

wet inside after a couple days like that

but we're drying everything out.

Thankfully here it seems to be a pretty

dry and sunny place.

It's not quite as warm which is really

good, we slept good, it's a bit cooler.

What are your feelings now after waking

up and uh what are your feelings on the

the your first two day passage?

It was better than the other ones but it's

still a

hard moment for me like the first 24

hours was okay

because the weather was good and the sea

was

pretty calm but the last day i think i

was

tired, a bit hungry because it was not

comfortable to eat correctly

and yeah i was not really feeling good the

last day

To be honest it wasn't a very good

example of a two-day passage for Marie.

It was pretty tough i don't know i

didn't film too much just because i was

sort of on my own in the cockpit and it

was pretty rough.

We didn't have any really

optimal conditions to be honest it was

pretty tough we had about another 50

knot gust, we got

sort of knocked down a little bit and

held over by the wind for a while until

i could sort things out.

I furled up the headset and got a

balloon in it and uh.....

yeah so we got sort of held on our sides

until i fixed that, I had to unfurl

the whole thing to clean it and so the

wind caught us and took us over and

luckily marie was asleep at that moment.

You know the boat did perfectly as it

always did

broke nothing. I hope you can hear us the

boats around here are crazy loud.

Anyway yeah the boat was uh fantastic as

always

not even a shackle or a rope broke

nothing at all just kept plowing along,

autopilot just did most of the work. I

actually

steered for about four hours yesterday,

ah no, the day before, evening right

up until it got dark. The batteries were

running a little low and then i started

actually enjoying steering.

I was sort of steering up and down the

swells and get up to 10 11 knots and

then back over a wave and then down

again it was sort of like

racing, it was pretty cool. That got me

through a few hours of

you know not thinking about being tired

but anyway it was a

pretty good passage.

When we got here you sort of quickly forget.

Is that how it is for you?

Not exactly!

hahah

no no but that's okay anyway i'm proud to have done it

and yeah that was an experience.

I thinkt he good things to take out of it

is that you weren't scared, you weren't

she wasn't crying out like

get away i hate this i hate this it was

just she was feeling bad feeling

sick and weak from not eating properly

and maybe that's my fault a bit i was

turning downwind when she needed to go

the toilet,

but you know i probably should have heaved-to

a bit you know a couple of times and

cooked something proper but

the thing was just trying to get to this

channel at the right time

because of the tide. There's a huge

current to get into this bay

and i was fixated on getting there,

you know before high tide, if the tide

has started coming in we would have been

sort of screwed.

So i didn't want to slow down didn't

want to stop and it made an impact she

got quite weak towards the end and

uh but yeah she hung in there she was

good she didn't

didn't complain at all and i'm proud of

you for that!

I start to trust really correctly

Schiehallion now,

like i'm feeling safe inside it's just

like

i can't get out because i'm feeling sick

but when i'm staying inside i'm feeling

okay.Ha and you know what made her sick the

first time? She was doing a watch

on the first night

and a flying fish came aboard and it

was flapping beside her and then

it was so smelly she automatically had

to vomit

and then from there it sort of went

downhill actually.

Yeah!

You got more and more sick but but you

only vomited twice on the whole trip

and it was a pretty gnarly trip so

like

pretty proud of her. Anyway she didn't

book a ticket back to France yet so

that's a good sign.

Okay so well that's the end of this

video uh next week we're gonna

have a video discovering this area.

I don't know what there is to discover.

We're first going to have to go and check in

and see what the vibe is with the whole

covid thing,

but um i don't know it seems i've got a

good feeling about this place. We're just

going to work our way

west now uh you know it will go through

Flores next and then um

Sumbawa and into Lombok and Bali

over the next few months depending on

what happens with covid yeah because

obviously everything is still closed

borders and everything.

So i'm not sure we'll have to get up to

malaysia this year but we're just going

to keep

going as far as Bali and then see what

happens.

Thanks again Patrons,

the feedback from the last couple of

videos has been really really good,

thank you all very much uh really

would be struggling to do this now

without you guys, without

having any work lined up for the future

so um

really really appreciate all your support there.

Okay thank you and see you next week.

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