EMIGRE

Monday, May 19th 2026. We continued motoring South towards Shouten Island throughout the night, the wind light and the North East swells were gentle. The morning sun hit the mountains around Wine Glass Bay, making them stand out boldly through the morning fog. The wind was coming from South of South West, right where we wanted to go. As the day progressed the wind and seas built and our progress slowed. By 10:00hrs we unfurled the headsail and were motor sailing upwind at aro

Sunday, May 17th 2026. I woke up around 09:30-10:00hrs after catching a few hours sleep. My usual routine when waking up is to first check our course and position on the chartplotter or using the Navionics app on my phone. I then open the Victron connect app and figure out the state of charge of my batteries. This is relatively simple to do with a basic voltmeter when you have lead acid / AGM batteries as you can somewhat accurately predict the state of charge based on the vo

Saturday, May 16th 2026. Kevin and I were feeling significantly better by the morning. I’m not sure that the sea state had settled, but we had gotten used to it. Both hungry from eating very little the day before, we cracked open one of dad’s frozen cheese, tomato, and egg quesadillas, and threw it in the oven. Usually they cook or heat up quickly in the fry pan but we hadn’t defrosted them the night before so the oven seemed like a better way to defrost them, heat them and m

Friday, May 15th 2026. The last 100 nautical miles has been very consistent with a force five to six blowing from the North East. As we approached Bass Strait, the depth rose from over 500m to just 80m. Despite the low swells, this made short seas stand up making for a relatively uncomfortable motion. Neither Kevin nor I felt particularly great. In these conditions on this tiny 33ft sailboat, the most comfortable place to be is in your bunk. Lucky for us, our third crew membe

Thursday, May 14th 2026. Truth be told I have little to report today. We sailed comfortably all night with the wind ranging from force four to six from the East North East. Despite the up wind course, we made good progress averaging around five and a half to six knots. Our progress was aided by very flat seas and swell, the total of which wouldn’t have even been one meter. With two reefs in the mainsail and one in the jib, we made steady progress South East towards Robe and P

Wednesday, May 13th 2026. It’s been thirteen days since we arrived at American River, Kangaroo Island. We never intended to stay this long but the weather had other plans. With a strong low pressure system forecast, we were happy to stay put and enjoy the excellent hospitality from friends and family on KI. We were lucky to have a couple of days of island touring with Kevin’s brother in law and his wife who live at Penneshaw. Aside from lots of great beaches, we visited the E