Got you! This turtle in the middle of the gulf has probably never seen any boat or people.

Report from Chris Cunningham:

At 5:30 am Freya sent an OK signal from her SPOT messenger. As she starts the fifth day of her 575 km (360 statute miles)  crossing the Gulf of Carpentaria she is more than halfway. By my Google Earth measurements she has 305 km behind her and 270 km to go. She had a bit of rough water Monday, but the weather forecast, according to our weather guru, Karel Vissel, is for “winds mostly east starting Thursday and continuing Friday should bring her home with ease.”

I haven’t seen any boat or plane on the whole crossing either! Simply nothing and nobody, not even hearing an engine! Bet it was quite boring sometimes! What I was thinking all day? See entry 23 under FAQ! 

I was glad to have my social network via satellite phone accessible – I was calling Chris Cunningham every morning for blog reports, and my son, my mom and several close friends during the day just to talk to someone else than to myself! Really, you start talking to yourself! I even continued that strange habit the first day in my room in Nhulunbuy…am I getting a slight bit odd? :-)) I am just most happy to be out there in nature… 

But if you are not happy with and by yourself, you better should not go on such a trip. I think the remoteness of the whole Australia may be the worst for most social paddlers…Paul Caffyn 27 years ago did well on having a support crew driving with him most of the time and having some friend to paddle some of the legs with him, like the remote stretch from Karumba in the bottom of the Gulf to Darwin!

Caring about your personal needs on such an open crossing requires some good balance, as you should be able to eat, drink, pee and change or put on a shirt or shoes or pants without putting up the stabilisation floats first. I was used to long days out there anyway, so all skills concerning this were well practised.

My day food is always handy in my North Water under deck bag. I am refilling this bag and my hydration bag every morning on the crossing from the dayhatch with the floats still out.

Peeing into the cockpit all day is not really attractive with the smell, but a simple and convenient thing to do in these climates. There is some water in the cockpit anyway all day from paddling with open spraydeck or loose ventilating waist fit of the spraydeck (my spraydeck has adjustable velcros on both sides, so I either can make it tight around my waist or keep it quite lose for good ventilation). After a pee, you simply squeeze some fresh water over your crotch and sponge or pump everything out of the cockpit then. If it’s too rough, the job simply has to wait a bit…

New on the crossing was how to deal with No.2 – I was even able to do that without floats the first day! But it was calm, and admittedly it’s more relaxing with stabilisation floats :-)). Some blog commentor asked if I am taking a swin for that every time? Do you want to swim where your poop may float around??? No way, I simply got my legs out of the cockpit, lifted my butt off the seat, stripped my pants down and took care I was aiming well on my removable seat pad which was easy to empty over board and to wash clean then…

For brushing teeth you should sometimes better put the floats up as well, as a fat breaker almost capsized me with my hands not on my paddle on that job! 🙂 Bad luck…