Update

I am sorry for worrying you all with our post last night. Zac asked us to wait and let him write the blog about the day's happenings yet Laurence wanted to ask for prayer, thus my cryptic post. The delayed update is due to the massive time difference between us. We have only just heard from Zac who was catching up on some lost sleep and slept in this morning.

From Zac:
(Yesterday)
The wind stayed steady all through the night and I was making good progress. The swell picked up to about 8 feet and I was back to the climbing up and surfing down motion. Around 11:30am I was sitting in the cockpit when I saw a boat about 4 miles away. I took a look at my radar screen and didn't see anything. I took another look at the boat. We were heading parallel to each other and would pass well clear of each other. I went down below and switched on the VHF radio and tried to hail them on Channel 16 with no luck. I went below and got my camera and got some footage of them but it was still hard to make out who or what they were because they were still about 3 miles off. I was sitting in the cockpit watching them and suddenly they changed course. At this new angle we would hit. I moved the autopilot over a few degrees to get out of their path. As I did they changed course dead for me again. So I'm thinking, "I've got a ship that doesn't show up on radar with no flags and no radio response, deliberately heading straight for me 150 miles off the coast of Indonesia, a place notorious for piracy." I went down below and called them on the radio again and again, finally hailing them using the words "Securite'" which is the word used to alert another boat that there is possible danger. Maritime law says boats are required to respond to this call. Still no answer. I went up to the cockpit and saw the boat was closing in fast. I turned on the engine and slammed it into gear and altered course again so as to avoid a collision and get on a faster tack. I watched the boat which I could now see was a 60-70' long wooden fishing boat that looked about ready to break up it was so old. They altered course straight for me. I jumped down into the cabin and switched on the SSB High frequency radio which has a distress button on it that will transmit my position on all emergency channels if I push it. Then I grabbed my 357 and jammed some bullets into it. I grabbed my Iridium phone and turned it on. It flashed 'low battery'. I switched on the inverter and plugged it in to the charger and called home. I told them what was going on and gave them position as fast as I could. I hung up the phone and watched the boat get closer through the bullet-proof windows of my boat. A half a mile and closing, I grabbed the VHF and tried to hail them again with no luck. I put out a call on the VHF saying "Pan Pan" and that I was being approached by an unidentified and unnamed vessel. I gave my position and asked for help. I got no response. By now they were way too close and looked like we would just pass clear of each other. I move the autopilot over more and moved the engine up a few RPMs. I got my gun and waited. We passed a couple of hundred yards apart and they stopped dead in my wake. I was moving along just under 8 knots and getting the hell out of there as fast as I could. The fishing boat stayed stopped in my wake for about 10 minutes and then shot off in the other direction. I called home and let them know what was up and they told me that they were in contact with the branch of Search & Rescue that dealt with piracy and that I would be getting a call from them soon. I got off the phone and sat in the cockpit wondering what it was all about and whether they would come back in the night. Since I couldn't see them on any radar I would have to wake up every 25 minutes to check the horizon. I talked with he pirate control person from Australia and they sent up a plane to check in with me a couple of hours later. I called up my friend Will who had heard about it from my sister's text message. I guess the 'Zac is getting attacked by pirates.' message traveled fast. Will's dad was on the phone with a California senator to see if he could help in anyway. But in the end all that happened was that I got really tired from getting up all through the night and I'll probably never know what the fishing boat was doing. Now I'm going to go hit the bunk and catch up on some sleep. Oh yeah, thanks for praying!

From Mom:
About 7:00pm PDT we got a call from Zac. He was panicked because a large old powerboat (not the typical commercial vessels traveling that route to Australia) had been heading straight for him at high speed. He had hailed the vessel many times with no answer. On top of that the boat did not even show up on either of his radars. When he called us the boat was still a few miles off. He quickly gave us his position, speed and course being traveled. Laurence suggested that he put a Securite' call out on the VHF alerting other boaters in the area that this strange unmarked vessel was approaching him in an alarming manner. We hopped off the phone and put a call in to Australian Search & Rescue. We passed along all of the important information and they passed it up to those in the position to do whatever could be done. Zac was nearly 700 miles from Darwin and had not had a CoastWatch Customs plane fly over for several days. Zac called back to let us know that the ship had stopped about 300 yards from his boat. There were no markings at all on the vessel; not even a flag. He didn't see anyone on board. He fired up his engine and began to motor away from the boat. After about 10 minutes, the boat turned and motored away from him. We talked for awhile gathering info and trying to think of encouraging words for each other. We received a call from the folks at Search & Rescue. They were confirming the details and then called Zac to check in on him and give them their direct line. Thank God for satellite phones and Clearpoint Weather, without whom Zac would not have had this piece of equipment!
CoastWatch was sending up their planes and would send one over the area where Zac was sailing even though it was out of their official range. They would peruse the area for the unusual vessel and also fly over Zac and check in on him. Zac felt better knowing that people knew where he was. S & R knew that there were Indonesian fishing vessels in that area and that they were very low tech, possibly not even having a radar. It very well could have explained the boats appearance, location and lack of technology but not their strange approach.

Zac was in good spirits tonight and was back to fretting about his lost alcohol stove pump and bemoaning the fact that he would have to eat his chili cold. He was also considering getting a cat on board in Africa as it seems that every other solo sailor had one. It would seem that our boy has quite a heavy keel, eh?

Thanks for the prayers and emails and calls. It is great to be able to call on you all.

Many Thanks,
Marianne for all of the Sunderlands

Prayer

Zac is dealing with some potentially dangerous situations this afternoon and evening. We have done all we can do to help him from here. Please pray for Zac's safety and peace of mind tonight. He wants to do the blog himself tomorrow so stay tuned...
Team Zac

Dolphins, Ships and Wind!

Last night the wind picked to 8-10 knots on the beam and has stayed steady. This morning I started stowing everything for the heavier winds that are certain to come. Around 10:30 am I was in the cockpit when I saw a pod of dolphins coming over to the boat. They stayed awhile and surfed Intrepid's wake. After about 1/2 hour, they took off. I'm amazed that they are the first dolphins I've seen since I left Los Angeles! I went back into the cabin and took a look at my AIS radar. I saw that there was a ship about 12 miles away headed towards me. I kept an eye on the radar but we passed a couple of miles apart without either of us having to change course.
I've been rereading Tania Aebi's book Maiden Voyage. It is interesting how the book reads so much differentl now that I am out here. I'm also reading a book that was sent to me by Mike Williams called The Chronicles of the Schooner Lusty I. It is great to read about other circumnavigators. The wind has stayed steady and I think I'll be hitting the heavier, steadier trade winds before long. It feels good to be moving again and I hope that the wind holds now.
Cheers,
Zac

The Torres Strait Part II

Last night I had real light winds and only made about 20 miles. Around 5am a little breeze picked up and I moved along at 5 knots. That lasted about 3 hours and now the wind is down to about 3-4 knots. Progress, if you can call it that, is way slow.
Torres Strait Part 2:
Entrance to the Torres Strait:
It was 4 am when I reached Bramble Cay. It was blowing 20 knots with hazy fog. I set course for my first way point. I had a good point of sail and was moving along at 6-7 knots. I reached my first way point just as the sun was coming up. By now it was a few miles within the shelter of the reefs. The swell died down from 8 feet to nothing. The winds dropped down a little to 15 knots. So I sailed along that whole day, dodging reefs and islands and constantly altering course. By nightfall I was nearing the entrance to the Vigilant Passage. This is an area where the course alters from the wide Great North East Channel and heads between a narrow break in the reefs. I sailed through. It was marked well and easy to navigate. By the time I got through the passage it was about 10pm. I was starting to feel the effects of the lack of sleep from the night before. I still had a good 80 or more miles til I was out of the Strait. I plugged my next way point into the chart plotter and set course for it. I had about 14 miles (2 hours worth of travel time) to my next way point. I was very tired so I got out 2 alarms and set them to go off in 15 minutes. I set them on either side of my head and slept. (Through my extensive experience with sleep deprivation I have learned that if you can get even 5 minutes of sleep it will make you feel almost as good as new and will give you a couple more hours on your feet.) After my nap I sat on deck with the wind keeping me awake studying the maze of reefs and nav lights against the charts. A couple of way points later, I was entering the Prince of Wales Channel which is the last part of the Strait and also the most difficult to navigate. As I approached the channel there was a ship on its way out. I hailed them and we decided which side we should pass each other on. We passed within a few hundred yards and then they were gone. The next way point took me between 2 shoals. They were marked with lights and I made it through fine and headed for the next way point. This one was nav lights about 100 yards apart. On either side was a reef. This one was relatively hard to aim the boat through so I ended up taking the boat off autopilot and hand steering through. Once through that I was in the Prince of Wales Channel and navigating by red and green nav lights which I found out pretty quickly were reversed from what we have in America. All those years of my dad shouting 'Red Right Returning' had to be reprogrammed to left instead. The sun rose as I was about 5 miles from the channel. I was going about 9.5 knots from wind and running with the current. I got out of the channel and set course for Booby Island about 15 miles away; the official exit of the TS. All went well until the tide turned and now I was going 2 knots. That was a pain because I hadn't slept accept for that 5 minutes and I was starting to fall asleep while on watch. I decided to hand steer for a little while to keep my mind active and awake. I passed Booby Island about 10am and set my new course and slept. The passage was a challenge to my navigation skills but easier than I had expected.
The Clearpoint forecast shows some wind coming this afternoon. I certainly hope so...
Cheers,
Zac

Lake Indian Ocean

OK, so sorry for not blogging but there has been a lot to do the past few days. Being incredibly hot and sweaty makes it hard to get going. My email is backed up from the time after PNG when I wasn't able to receive them. I can only pick up so many per week and right now I have a backlog of over 200 emails! Right now it is about 8:000pm and there is about 3 knots of wind which is barely enough to keep the boat moving in the right direction. There is no swell so the sea looks like a calm lake. Not much happened today. I passed some oil platforms and a couple of ships, one of which came within a half of a mile of me. I contacted him on the radio and he already knew where I was so it was safe. Later in the afternoon I was doing something on deck and I saw a big white shape under the water. As I looked closer I saw that it was a shark. Not just one shark, I was in a school/pod of them! They weren't like the friendly Pacific dolphins that play around the boat. They were off after a couple of minutes. I guess I'll add that to my list of reasons not to swim at sea. I had been actually contemplating swimming because of how hot it is though I probably would not have done it.
So I guess everyone wants to hear about the Torres Strait. Here you go...I had just gotten off the phone with Mike Smith (Team Zac electrician extraordinaire). We were trouble shooting my AIS radar that for some reason wasn't working right. I set my phone down on the top companionway step and opened the Pelican case where I always keep it. Before I put it in, the drag on my fishing pole started screaming. I ran up top to real in the fish. The fish ended up snapping the line and when I went down below I saw the sat phone had fallen into the galley sink into a bowl of oil. Why was there a bowl of oil in my galley sink? The mechanics from Papua New Guinea were supposed to dispose of it but were not able to. I was to get offshore and dump it. Only 1/4" of the upper corner of the phone had touched the oil. I wiped it off with a paper towel and called Mike back to tell him that I had to deal with some issues on the boat and that I would call him back in the morning. Then I took the phone apart and saw that a fair bit of oil had gotten inside. I wiped it off the best I could and put the phone in rice over night to draw out the moisture. In the morning I put the phone back together and turned it on. It went okay and I entered the pass code. It came up with a message that said 'Phone Failure See Supplier'. That was really helpful since the nearest supplier was the best part of 10,000 miles away. I tried for awhile to get the phone working again but it was no use. I think I probably made it worse. The slapping against hand technique etc... Then I fired up the computer but for some reason it wasn't working either. I did manage to get an email out to mom and dad after a hundred attempts just to let them know that all was well with me and the boat.
The next day I got on the Rag on the Air Net and make contact with the people out of Majuro. They were able to relay with my parents back home. I had no idea what my parents had been through and that they were about to call on Australian Search and Rescue.
As I was getting closer to the Torres Strait, I managed to get a few way points that had been stuck on the computer before the screen died. Not sure how but the back light of the computer screen had stopped working. I went to use the other computer but water had dripped on the keyboard and I couldn't type in my password. With no comms except the SSB, I kept in touch with everyone through the guys from Moana and Majuro. I spent the few days before the Torres Strait with light winds and was able to study the passage guide again. The night before I got to the entrance at Bramble Cay, the wind picked up to about 20-25 knots so I reefed down and entered the Strait under sail. I arrived at Bramble Cay, the entrance to the Torres Strait, at about 4:00am. I never did see the light and there was a lot of fog. That was the first of many surprises in he Torres Strait. Stay tuned for part 2 of Zac sails the Torres Strait!
Cheers,
Zac

Good Evening,

Just a quick note to let you all know that Zac is having poor reception today and so far has not been able to send out his blog. The wind picked up some this morning and we was sailing along at 4.5 knots in 8 knots of wind. Later today, the wind had dropped back down to about 3 knots and he was pretty much wallowing at 1 knot. Fortunately, the seas are calm though he is sweating, bored and trying to think of excuses not to do his chores. (Reading between the lines, that is.) It looks like the wind will be whipping around near him tomorrow so lets hope that he makes enough westing to pick it up. Once he hits the tradewinds he should fairly fly along and make it to Cocos Keeling in a few weeks.

Cocos Keeling is an interesting place. It is an Australian territory but has a very small land area. It is used mostly for vacationing. If you google Cocos Keeling you will find it is one of the most beautiful places ever. White sand, clear blue water...I have heard that you can see down to the bottom in 100 feet of water. Hopefully, there will be other cruisers there that Zac can hang out with some. Still not sure if anyone will be flying out to meet him. There will have to be some photos and film taken. Send me, send me!!

I don't think I will bother posting the address for him there because mail is only delivered once a week and that after it reaches Australia! I did check into whether or not Natasza Caban (another circumnavigator) was still in Cocos Keeling but it looks like she left maybe a few days ago.

Meanwhile, Minoru Saito from Japan is waiting out a series of typhoons in Japan before heading out on his 8th solo circumnavigation! He holds the record for the oldest person to sail around the world alone. He will leave Japan and head south around Australia going the 'wrong way' around all the southern capes. This means he will be going against the wind and currents. Amazing guy!

Please be sure to send an email to mgsimcox@yahoo.com if you are interested in attending an LA area gathering. After we get a rough headcount, we will secure a location and date. It promises to be a ton of fun and if we can raise some money to keep sending out the film and repair crews that would be great.

Cheers,

Marianne Sunderland (Mom) for Zac

PS No position reports until he is a bit further along for security reasons.

Los Angeles Fundraising Night

Help Support Zac's Solo Circumnavigation

Hear from Zac's support team from behind the scenes about

the challenges, fears and excitement Zac has faced

and is continuing to face on his record making voyage.

See footage fresh from the sea.

Question & Answer Time

Sat phone permitting we will talk with Zac live out on the Indian Ocean.

Please reply to mgsimcox@yahoo.com with 'Zac Sunderland' in the subject line if you are interested in attending this gathering in the Los Angeles/Marina del Rey area in October.

We will then contact you with details as they are made.