Report from a single hander Thursday 07 June 2007 A report from a single hander follows. As you can see his Sea-me is doing its job. Weather conditions are poor. June 4, 2006 0735 UTC 39.03S 148.42E 111 hard earned miles last 24 Continental shelf of the Bass Strait. Slipping off of the edge right now,. Not pretty. 26-28 apparent wind speed.Square waves. Going to weather. Pounding away.the wind is from East of South. with the boat speed it pushes it right up our nose. Nothing like 0-60 in short a short time. Getting oiut of the straits was an adventure. Major sleep deprivation. Weaving in and out of the islets and rocks. the ships were very courteous to me. They saw me for sure with the Sea - Me unit. It is super nice. Navigation was very easy on the computer screen but I still made marks on the paper chart as well.Major "old school "Once out of the Strait the wind finally filled in but so slow. slow enough to go from code 0 to code 5 to code 0 to solent and many combinations of the main until now. 3 reefs and the trincet. Morning saw us pass by Deal Island. Looks like a rock climbers paradise. granite walls("gran-ee-two" rat would say) and slabs for the old men. corners and aretes and cracks. Enough coves to anchor a boat. I am sure the holding is bad but one couled move the obat around. I am sure it has routes on it. As the wind built I had a mini epic. Mainly because iof the sleep deprivation was doing me in. Bad excuse. But listen to the classic boat mini problem after moni problem that could have gone real bad. As I filled the water ballast with the engine driven pump. I ran out of fuel. No worrries. Transfered fuel then I grabbed the 10mm wrench and started to bleed the fuel system. Engine cover was off. Coffee cup on the nav station and some nori wasabe rice snacks. You guessed it. Little girl went head to wind as the pilot was driving to compass course not wind as I was trying to sleep and every wind shift comes an alarm. So we tacked and layed on our side. My empty cup took a flight like it always does. Dont know why I bring it sailing it ought to stay ashore and look good. Little nori snacks everywhere too. On with the action suit and harness. I released the solent sheet and the main sheet. She stood up and made some way and we tacked , I reefed her down and back and the rest of the story,. Felt like I had waty too much on my plate. Went below straighten up,.finished bleeding the fuel system. fired up the engine. Added water. shook ou the reefs and went to bed in the quarter berths. Woke up 2 hours late over powered on our ear making no head way. and here we are , 3 reefs and the trincet. full water ballast. typing away and the wind has abated. So back to work.Let out some water. but that is easy to do. I think I will wait cause usually when I let water out the wind rises.