Sailing SE Asia

Sailing SE Asia is a myth.  Motoring SE Asia is more like it.  It doesn’t matter what the weather says or what direction we’re going, we can’t seem to fill these sails.  If the forecast says the winds are coming from the south and we change our course accordingly, they come from the north.  If we anchor with protection from the north, they turn and come from the south.  If we unzip the sail bag and shake out the main, they die all together.  We have traveled about 2500 miles since we left Palau, give or take a few hundred, and I would venture to say we’ve motored or motor/sailed 85% of the time.  Maybe it’s the time of year we’re here, maybe it’s that we’re so close to the equator and we have the ITCZ to deal with.  I’m sure it’s those things as well as a few others that contribute to it.  But knowing the reasons don’t make it any more fun.  It’s hot.  There’s no wind.  It’s hot and not windy.  Ugh.

The lemonade to be made here is with the price of fuel.  With all of the oil production around here, the cost of fuel is crazy low so the pain of burning so much diesel is eased slightly. 

The patterns lately seem to be no wind in the day and crazy wind at night.  Of course we’re trying to day hop to avoid the heavy traffic at night and the fisherman, so we’ve already screwed the pooch with the sailing thing.  Our ability to guess the wind direction at night hasn’t been too good either…we’re hoping we do better tonight and we actually get to sleep.  We’ve got a spot picked out with protection from the North, East and West.  Let’s hope we got it right this time.

Editor’s note….sitting at anchor right now with a south wind coming in… just a little break…that’s all we’re asking for.